Stokdyk’s role in the creation of this movie began 2.5 years ago, working directly with the director of the film, Sam Raimi. With Raimi, Stokdyk broke down each element in the storyline piece by piece, speaking about how they’d go about creating each visual effect that would need to exist. After knocking out the script for a period, Mr. Stokdyk headed to Detroit for 7 months of filming the movie on soundstage, working after this for over a year in post-production.

As Visual Effects Supervisor, Stokdyk worked with the fabulous Sony Pictures Imageworks, a group we’ve had some rather fruitful conversations with in the past, to be sure! For those of you who have that tingling feeling you’ve heard Stokdyk’s name before, you’ll be glad to know you’re right: he’s previously worked with Sam Raimi on each of the Spider-Man movies (1, 2, and 3) as Visual Effects Supervisor as he does on the one we’re discussing today and has worked in different effects roles on such classic films as Titanic, Contact, and The Fifth Element.

According to Stokdyk, in both Oz the Great and Powerful and in the film industry in general, the way an effects-inclusive movie can distinguish itself is simple (so to speak). As Stokdyk says, “In Visual Effects nowadays, there’s basically effects work, there’s character work, there’s environmental work – and what distinguishes one show from another nowadays is it’s own unique combination of how those pieces work together and how they’re Art Directed together.”

Seems simple enough to say, right? Stokdyk continued, “[This film] has a nice blend of character animation that’s stunt and action oriented – and performance based – interacting with the real actors. We’ve also got really fantastical environmental extensions of sets. They bring into this fantastical world of Oz what we’ve shot on set.”

You’ll be seeing your fair share of fantastic effects-dependent shots and characters throughout this film which – if you did not know – is out in theaters now! Featured computer-generated characters you’ll be seeing throughout the film include:

The China Girl – this little lady is a porcelain doll that our hero Oz finds after her town is destroyed in the film. She’s voiced by Joey King and trots along with fully realistic features from top to bottom.

Finley the Flying Monkey – a cute little beast voiced by none other than your best buddy Zach Braff. This lovely beast also accompanies Oz throughout the movie and has one whole heck of a lot of fur that needed digital brushing – not to mention the rest of his fully-animated monkey body.

Both Braff and King took part in filming their parts as the monkey and he doll throughout principal photography, allowing the rest of the actors to act and respond in a much more organic way than traditional CG replacements would have allowed. Once filming was complete though, it was all up to the effects teams to bust forth with what Sony Pictures Imageworks describes as “the most technically challenging production Imageworks’ has completed to date.”

The group notes that they completed over 1,100 shots that appear in the final product, these including every single one of the GC environments and character shots. You’ll see digital doubles of each of the main characters: Oz, Glinda, Theodora, Evanora, and Knuck. You’ll see “thousands of flying baboons including three unique hero baboons.” You’ll see massive amounts of CG creatures including “attacking snapdragons, horses, various insects, butterflies, birds, flying fish, wooden horses, lion, squirrel, and river fairies”. You’ll see giant digital crowds of characters across the countryside and inside the city.

Some of the most awesome bits and pieces you should look out for while you’re experiencing this magical mix of fanaticism are:

• Glinda’s Magic Bubbles
• A shimmering wall around Glinda’s countryside and village
• Theodora’s Fire Tornado
• The Oz hologram
• Water effects galore
• Massive poppy fields
• China Town
• Emerald City – including “the main gates, boulevard, central square, back gate, back
alley, bell tower, palace, dais, vaulted corridor, Throne Room, Room of
Resplendence, balcony and bridge digital sets and huge aerials of the city”
• Fog!

And for those of you that are worried that this is another one of those films that destroys the experience of moviegoing with a heavy overdose of effects-driven shots, don’t fret! According to Stokdyk, they were certainly conscious of how easy it could have been to OD.

Stokdyk: You have a certain number of shots in any movie that are all computer generated, right? You just can’t shoot them, or there’s a prop that’s too expensive to shoot, or you shoot them in post after you’ve shot them in principal photography. We certainly had a decent chunk of those kind of shots, but after you’ve gone all CG, and done everything in the world CG, where’s the boundary? Where’s the next frontier after that?”

As Stokdyk tells us, so too must it be true! Expect the most awesome combination of art direction, live action, and CG you’ve ever seen on a film of this kind – start to finish!

Spend any time talking future tech to Nokia’s executives, and you realize there are two themes running through their predictions. First, and perhaps most familiar to most industry watchers, there’s the relentless advance of sensors and the complexity of devices, with capabilities always evolving. Nokia differs in some respects in how its management see the form-factor of those devices: rather than a single, increasingly powerful phone in your pocket, all three VPs talked about a resurgence in dedicated devices; products that, as Marco Ahtisaari described it, “do a few things really well.”

Secondly, and arguably a more contrarian stance than others in the segment, is a desire to actually reduce the attention that’s paid to smartphones and mobile devices. Ahtisaari coined the phrase “heads up” internally to describe it, though it’s become an ethos for the long-term shared by others in the design team, like Stefan Pannenbecker.

“We see sometimes couples, out in a restaurant, romantically texting each other, or broadcasting… so that type of phenomena is interesting, and in a way bugs us a little bit, because the question is how can we get the “heads up”?” the Industrial Design chief explained to us. “So we do a lot of work on all kinds of levels in order to think that scenario through: what does that mean? So we’re interested in that type of topic, how do we get people’s heads up again.”

Nokia isn’t expecting to address that question in the next few months, or even the next couple of years. As Marco Ahtisaari told us, it’s an example of the company’s longer-term planning, though as an internal culture of design it has an impact on the Lumia devices we’ll see over the coming years. “The one thing I would say is that I talk about the “heads-up” principle in the studio, it’s like a 20-year principle. Creating computing technology that’s with us that doesn’t require more attention” he said.

“And part of this pinning-to-Start [in the Windows Phone homescreen] is one example of that; things we’ve done with the glanceable, low-power mode on our devices in the past is an example of that; the NFC work we’re doing is an example of that,” Ahtisaari counted off. “You just touch the environment: the world becomes your interface, rather than having to go through twelve swipe-swipe-swipe. So that’s another component of that future, I think, and very important as we go to more distributed objects that do only a few things.”

Having got to a point where a person’s smartphone is often also their camera, their music player, their fitness tracker, and more, it might seem counter-intuitive to be considering breaking apart those components and turning again to individual gadgets. However, there’s a strong feeling within Nokia that specificity has its own advantages.

“I think there’ll be room for more and more dedicated devices that do a few things really well again” Ahtisaari predicts. “And that is slightly a contrarian view, but I think what we’ll see is increasing complexity and ability… you can either shortcut through the environment, but this means also space for dedicated devices that do a few things really well. Yes, a phone, but other functionalities too.”

Right now, all three executives are coy on what, exactly, Nokia’s portfolio of answers to these questions might look like. However, they’re more vocal on what they probably won’t be, and the approach seems less “in your face” than Glass, and more cautious than the “confident” search and prediction of Google Now.

“I’m not going to speculate [about Glass] because time will tell with regards what is the right execution with regards to this idea of “heads-up”, so I think we’ve a lot of work to do, frankly, so I’m not going to speculate about that” Pannenbecker said. “But I think, as I said, this is for me an area that we want to engage in, I mean, this topic of heads-up not this particular solution for example. As I said, there’s a whole bandwidth of opportunities, and I think we as a company need to look very deeply into these opportunities, and then commit.”

For Harlow, the question is of need: or, more accurately, the balance of plain geek appeal – as perhaps Google Glass embodies – against relevance to mass-market consumers. “I think that it’s just as true in any of these new areas that you have to solve the fundamental consumer problems, and you can’t… you innovate for the sake of innovation” the smartphones boss argued. “Usually there’s a small number of people who find them really cool, and the vast majority don’t see a reason why. That the use case is so on-the-point that they don’t see it.”

In fact, there’s a sense among all three that the Glass strategy – that is, taking what components might usually be associated with a smartphone, and making them something you can wear – is too easy a way out. Yes, there are battery challenges, and persistent wireless demands, and the need to craft an interface and interaction paradigm that suits a more hands-off usage style, but a wearable computer doesn’t necessarily address either user-need nor go far enough in liberating users from the tyranny of persistent, connected distraction.

“I think that’s why you see fitness all over the place, because clearly if people stick with it then it can help solve a problem” Harlow explains, “but that’s where I think the energy will really come from, either that they solve latent needs that consumers can’t necessarily articulate, or solve unknown problems that they have and that sensors would solve.”

While the most attention has been paid to Nokia’s evolving Windows Phone handset range, the company has also been working on matching accessories, pushing ideas like wireless charging and NFC pairing. That focus on a well-designed, integrated ecosystem looks likely to spawn a family of shared technologies, each delivering its own component part of the overall usability.

“That’s something which we’re working on, and I’m not in a position… I will not talk about specific solutions to that, but absolutely that is a challenge for us” Pannenbecker agreed. “For us as designers. Because ultimately again it comes to better problems. This is more what we think a smartphone is supposed to be [holds up phone], but I think obviously there’s other ways of doing that.”

Nokia hasn’t been afraid of riffing on those possibilities in the past with concept designs, however. Its 2009 “Mixed Reality” headset predated Google Glass, and was envisaged with its own suite of accessories and sensors: a motion-tracking wristband for navigating a wearable display, for instance, along with wireless audio. Meanwhile, the idea of paring back information in a more context-driven way has also been explored, such as the Nokia-prompted “Frame” concept device that rethought the smartphone into a window that blurred the physical and digital worlds. Arguably it’s an idea that has expressed itself in Nokia City Lens, the augmented reality app now publicly available for Windows Phone.

Just as Google Now relies on its context engine, so has Nokia Research been pushing its own predictive technologies to better focus the user-experience. We mentioned the 2009 “Linked Internet UI Concept” from Nokia Research to Marco Ahtisaari, a project which learned from social networking attention and prioritized updates and geo-location of those people it calculated the user was most interested in, and asked him where the company’s roadmap was on integrating such ideas into its software.

“Partly that’s a question of focus” he said, pointing out that Nokia needed first of all to prove itself with a successfully selling Lumia range of phones. “Like I said, the most important thing we can do now is show momentum. These are things we definitely work on.”

However, he also argued that there is risk in making mobile devices too intelligent – or portraying them as having intelligence – because you run the risk of leaving the user feeling at odds with their device, not enabled by it. “If this makes sense there’s robots and people. People versus robots” Ahtisaari said, somewhat cryptically. “We’re on the side of people, in general. What I mean by that is certain personalization you can do, goes a long way. And the other example, if you took that, would be “hello, we just reconfigured your phone, it’s got all the people here, and we set it up for you”.”

In fact, Nokia could already integrate that sort of contextual technology into its phones today; the reservation is one of how the mainstream user – not the Glass aficionado – might react to that. “We’ve all of that auto-magic today, it’s just doing it in a way that doesn’t feel creepy, or has violated what you do” he argued. “It’s striking that balance. But definitely, the two things you’ve mentioned – contextually and prediction – are important.”

It’s early days for Nokia to look too far beyond smartphones; the Lumia line-up has only just reached five Windows Phone 8 handsets, the platform itself still holds an extreme minority share, and there’s no sign of a tablet on the horizon, at least not publicly. Nonetheless, it seems we can expect something other than a set of Windows Phone goggles.

“I’m not going to speculate [about Glass] because time will tell with regards what is the right execution with regards to this idea of “heads-up”, so I think we’ve a lot of work to do, frankly, so I’m not going to speculate about that” Pannenbecker demurred. “But I think, as I said, this is for me an area that we want to engage in, I mean, this topic of heads-up not this particular solution for example. As I said, there’s a whole bandwidth of opportunities, and I think we as a company need to look very deeply into these opportunities, and then commit.”

Though the strategies may be very different, there’s one thing Nokia and Google do agree on: the name of the game is elevating users from the voracious attention-soak of the touchscreen, not finding more ways of putting it in front of them. “If they require as much attention as a smartphone, then no more human contact” Ahitsaari concluded. “That’s the perspective we have, we’re still in the people-connecting business.”

Pixel’s appeal on a purely hardware basis is undeniable: it’s a beautifully designed notebook, with an incredibly high resolution touchscreen and the same crisp lines that we liked from Google’s first Cr-48 Chromebook. However, its huge price puts Chrome OS up against full notebooks from Apple, Sony, and others, despite the relative limitations of the cloud-centric platform, a completely different market from earlier, highly affordable Chromebooks.

For Duarte, however, Pixel’s success won’t solely be measured by pure sales. “I think that Pixel is really exciting, because I think that Pixel shows the way that the boundaries between the different types of computing are blurring” he explained to us. “I think it’s great that the Chrome team is doing that, I think it’s great that the Chrome team is allowing Google to get into people’s lives with touchscreens on a desktop form-factor.”

That’s not a point of view shared by everybody in the industry, and in fact it puts Duarte and Google in the same camp as Microsoft and its hardware partners, rather than with Apple. Steve Jobs memorably decried the usability of touch notebooks, and Tim Cook has since made similar arguments, that reaching across a keyboard to tap at a display simply isn’t ergonomically satisfying.

Duarte disagrees, saying that despite what the MacBook makers think, users themselves are asking for a touchscreen approach. “I think that’s a real trend, that touch on laptops and on desktop form-factors is the way that people want to interact with computers” he says. “I think every screen should be a touchscreen in the future, regardless if it has a keyboard or not.”

Despite the overlap, then, between Android – which has touch at its heart – and Chrome OS – designed for more traditional form-factors – the two platforms still have a future as independent projects. According to Duarte, that will be the case for as long as it makes functional sense: the two OSes converging, perhaps, on a commonality of features as Google develops them.

“Google is excellent at diversifying, and experimenting” he told us. “And I think what Chrome OS does well – they’re getting better at, and it’s being reflected in what Android does well in succession – Chrome on Android is the best browser we’ve ever had, and we would not be at that level without the Chrome team doing the work that they do, without the Chrome OS team learning the things that they do, and learning to understand, for example, how to work on touchscreens.”

Meanwhile, what was originally a smartphone, and then a tablet, OS has been gaining more functionality to bring it in line with a desktop platform, though Duarte says that it’s still not quite there year. “Of course Android has also been evolving, and I think it’s terrific the way that we are gaining capabilities on a day-by-day basis” he said. “For example in Jelly Bean we announced multi-user support, and that opens up a range of use-cases, but ultimately, still, the two platforms meet different needs.”

That also means Android playing more readily with accessories and other devices, as it continues its trend toward being the one “OS for humanity” as Duarte himself described it. “One of the things that was great that we did in Honeycomb, was we included much better support for peripherals” the designer said. “So if you go hook up your Nexus 10 to a Bluetooth keyboard, or even a Bluetooth trackpad, you’ll find you have a much better experience with that.”

Despite the convergence that has already happened, Duarte points out however, neither Android nor Chrome OS are at the point where they satisfy the overall needs of all users. “Until we have one solution for Google that can really capture everything, it makes sense for us to continue to develop two platforms” he explained. Exactly how long that development will take is unclear, but it may take some time before Chrome OS – or a flavor of it – achieves the same market dominance as Android enjoys.

While “smart devices” may be the buzzword of the past few years, the practical implementation still leaves plenty to be desired. Individual pieces of hardware may be smarter in their own right, but that doesn’t mean they play nicely together, Duarte pointed out in frustration.

“Together we live in a very fractured operating system world. My awesome digital camera doesn’t interoperate with my laptop, doesn’t interoperate with my phone” he explained. “These things have different OSes, they work differently, the apps are different, there’s no common account knowledge between those, and that’s just broken. We should fix that.”

While common networking systems and low-power wireless are increasingly acting as the technological bridge between devices, the languages they’re each speaking is holding up real development. Duarte is confident that Android should be that common glue; in fact, he says it’s the reason he joined Google in the first place.

“I can’t wait to have Android on every device, on every screen, and on things that aren’t screens” he told us. “That’s why I came to Google; that’s why I’m excited about working on Android. Because I really see it as an operating system for humanity.”

In many ways all this is a sentiment we’ve heard before from many of the big software and networking companies, each talking about their own products and their own particular opinion of how the “internet of things” should evolve. However, Duarte argues that Android’s suitability for the job is more than just its functionality and its flexibility.

“The momentum that [Android has] got is allowing us to then really take an operating system and have it tie everything together. We should have one operating system that provides the foundation for the future of digital humanity. I truly believe that. In fact, I think it’s inevitable, because you get so much more power when everything can talk to each other, and interoperate.” The vital factor as the designer sees it is that Android is transparent in both how it communicates and in what it says. “I passionately believe that if we’re going to have that one operating system it should be an open operating system that anybody can take, anybody can modify, anybody can inspect, nobody can own.”

“Because it’s open, it means that all the innovation that we bring to it is “inspectable” by anybody” Duarte insists, perhaps the most animated we’ve seen him since talking about the interplay of Google Now and Glass. “There’s no funny-business going on; no one government, no one corporation can own it. It’s kind of like a patrimony of humanity: everything that goes in Android.”

Duarte’s role at Google has been to coax a more design-led attitude out of product development, something he himself admits that the search giant hasn’t, historically, been great at. He came to the job with good credentials, too, integral in developing webOS – pre-HP acquisition – which, for all its faults, was well regarded for its user-friendly aesthetic.

Most recently, though, Duarte has been integral in refining the Google Now experience, a process which began in an inter-disciplinary meeting back in November 2011 and culminated, in its first iteration at least, at Google I/O in July last year. For those unfamiliar, Google Now turns the “portable computer” nature of smartphones on its head, instead using a powerful contextual engine to suggest information that your Android smartphone believes will be relevant at any one time.

That could include flight details if you have travel coming up in your calendar or Gmail, driving directions to your next appointment (or public transportation guidance if you tell Google Now you’re more likely to use it), weather information, or even just a pedometer summary at the end of the month, showing how many steps you’ve taken while carrying your Android phone. However, the simple suggestions mask an altogether more important change in how Google sees its search results: with greater confidence that its top result is the one you’re probably looking for.

Asked whether Google Now is in grooming to be the new Android homescreen, Duarte told us that he feels “it has the potential to be.” In fact, it’s already the first place he usually begins his smartphone journey. “For me, Google Now is the place I go to all the time, and that’s why it was so important for us not to create a new location to bring assistance, but to go to the place where people were going to start searching the web, or searching their phone, with Google, and make that the place where these assisted cards could appear” he explained. “It’s kind of a new paradigm, and one which I think does speak to the future of this very helpful type of computer interface, as opposed to the current start screens where you have to make all the choices, it’s almost like a computer control panel in a rocket ship where there’s lots of icons you have to punch-punch-punch.”

Google Now differs from traditional search results in that, while it calls upon the same engine, it takes a more definitive stance on presenting an answer. The development team quickly decided that it would need to have a distinct visual identity, separate both from Android and Google on the web, and that the snackable data it gave would have to be pared down rather than a list of blue hyperlinks. That focus on the right answer, not the range of answers, has since been echoed in Google Glass, which shares similar interface dynamics: a small display footprint, intended for at-a-glance consumption, so that it fits into life’s routines rather than demanding full attention.

“[Project Glass] was very exciting, because the design work we did for Google Now kind of served as a really strong touchpoint for some of the design work that happened with the Glass team” Duate told us. “In fact, members of my team collaborated very closely with members of their team in doing that. And the kind of bold, typographic version of Google that is confident about giving you an answer, and confident about giving you the big picture – very different from the old Google – that’s present in Glass, and I find that really satisfying and really exciting.”

Duarte shares a similar obsession with wearables like Glass with many of us, though he told SlashGear he’s yet to try the Pebble smartwatch. But in general the wearables space, I think it’s terrific, because for as long as I remember it I’ve been excited about Android because it is the computing platform for everything” he told us, sticking perhaps a little closely to the company line. “So I’m just waiting for the screens to show up so we can put Android on them, and now we really are starting to see wearable screens, and that’s great.”

However, beyond the expansion of Android, Duarte’s interest in wearables is as a user-experience expert, and in how the growing persistence of data – contextual and otherwise – will affect the way we interact not only with our devices but in social settings. “At a greater level, this question of user’s attention and user’s immersion into technology, I think is something we as designers have a big responsibility to pay attention to” he said. “I think one of the challenges with technology is how we can use it to make our lives better, but actually to be present in the real world while we’re using it, not just sucked into the technology. And part of that is the minor cycle of distraction while you’re using one part of your phone, and the icons for other things can distract you about other parts of your phone.”

“But the challenge that I find even more exciting, is when you’re in a room with people, or when you’re out and about, how do you keep from even getting sucked into the phone, how can we be smarter about when to notify you about things, how can wearable technology allow us to notify you, or immerse you in data, in less intrusive ways?” It’s a question that has been asked on many occasions since the first Project Glass concept video was released: will wearers simply end up interacting with a persistent smartphone in their peripheral vision, losing all contact with the people around them.

As Duarte sees it, part of his responsibility to users – and that of his team at Google – is to “put you in control of when you decide to deal with that online world.” That’s not so simple as cutting out the flow of data altogether, as we usually do when we drop our phones in pockets or bags. Indeed, it’ll require an even greater bond between wearer and device, something into which design plays a hugely significant role.

Duarte actually thinks Glass is already a beautifully designed product, and disagrees with the suggestions of some that the headset needs a redesign in order to be palatable to a more general audience. Still, he concedes that there are more pressing aesthetic questions around wearables than current smartphone technology. “Whenever you bring technology into your personal space, it’s a really hard challenge” Duarte points out. “The challenge of designing phones is almost the same thing, except that for [the Glass team] it’s dialed up to 100.”

Rumors have circulated recently that the Glass team might be working with a US designer to refine the wearable hardware; Duarte wouldn’t comment on that specifically, but he did point out that the development cycle – including aesthetics – is so rapid, what may seem clunky in the first iteration will quickly be refined tomorrow.

“If you look at the devices we have today, it’s amazing how much like jewelry they are. Even four, six years ago, the phones we had – if you go back in time – they’re huge! They’re clunky, they’re plastic, they’re terrible” he told us. “Today, a product like Nexus 4, has kind of the precision and polish and feel of, like, a really beautiful Art Deco cigarette case. And yes it’s functional, but it’s also a fashion accessory. And I think all technology goes through that curve, when you first have something which looks really, y’know, technologically clunky, like the original Motorola StarTACs, and then it becomes something that there is one for everybody, that meets their personal style; just something you fall in love with.”

While Glass is a standalone product – albeit one that can tether to your 3G/4G smartphone for use outside of WiFi coverage – Duarte is confident that tomorrow’s wearables will be more distributed than converged in a single point. Asked whether he would opt for a head-mounted display, like Glass, or a smartwatch, he told us that “”I always pick both when I’m faced with a choice like that” and that we should “embrace the power of ‘and’!”

That’s down to different form-factors still having relevance, even if they only contain a few sensors, or perhaps just one. Google’s advantage in the fledgling market is one of breadth of user-base, the design exec points out, not to mention the not-inconsiderable amount in the bank. “I think the whole realm of wearables is really exciting” he said. “I think one of the cool things about Glass, and the way that Google approaches things, is that we have the scale and the opportunity to do things that are kind of outside the box, and I think there’s a huge range of ways that we can get technology on you that are not obvious.”

“Strapping technology to your wrist is something that we’ve all been used to for, what, hundreds of years now,” he emphasized, “and I think that’s actually really powerful, that’s really cool. But that’s just the beginning.” Research into context, and about delivering relevant results without distractions, are “super-exciting questions” as well as “things we’re going to be doing a lot of work on in the next few years.”

For Google Now, meanwhile, it’s still very much a work-in-progress. Duarte wouldn’t give us any specific examples of where the context engine would go next, but it’s clear that with the amount of work that has gone into Now so-far, it’s likely to play an increasingly central role in future iterations of Android. As Glass reaches the consumer market, meanwhile, later in 2013, that will likely see Now’s brand of confident predictions tested more thoroughly. Users might be less willing to accept misguided results on a mobile device versus in a desktop browser, but they’ll be even less accommodating of poor suggestions floated in their wearable display. The Glass project – and indeed Google Now – are still young, but there’s a lot about the future of Android that rests upon their reception and development.

We had a chat with two of the heads from the groups responsible for the creation of this game, Matt McMahon, Vice President, Fox Digital Entertainment, and Andrew Solmssen, Managing Director, Los Angeles, POSSIBLE – the developers of the app. It was Solmssen that let us know that the idea for the DIE HARD app initially started with POSSIBLE’s hit game The End: “With the success we had with The End, an endless runner, we decided there was an opportunity to expand in that vein. … We felt that we hit upon something that was kind of a different subgenre, an endless shooter.”

Adding to that line of thought, McMahon spoke up: “In contrast with the other endless runners you’re always running away from something. With Die Hard you’re taking the fight to the enemy – that’s classic John McClaine.” And indeed it is a sweet ride from start to finish – you’re playing as the real-deal characters from the movie and you’ve got nothing but blasts to take care of in a series of missions mixed with customization of your gear and experience.

UPDATE: An important note from Solmssen himself! “One important note: the group that created TheEndApp and the Die Hard game is Goroid http://www.goroid.net/, the game studio that is part of POSSIBLE.” Thanks!

For those of you wondering – this was, as Solmssen notes: “a Die Hard game from the beginning.” Having been reached out to by the folks at Fox who are, according to McMahon, “always looking for talent anywhere in the world,” it was The End that brought the two forces together. McMahon continued, “We came across the game POSSIBLE had, The End – we thought it was a really solid product and we simply reached out.”

This game is ready for action right this minute in the iTunes App Store as well as the Google Play app store, and will be available in the Amazon app store soon! It’s also worth noting that this game will not end when the movie is no longer in theaters – instead we’ve got a guarantee from Fox that they’ll be bringing “ongoing support” beyond the movie, and that they “look to update the game with new levels and new environments” well into the future. Grab it now!

We asked Pizzo what his team did for the 3D film industry as far as gear for 3D filming and productions. [Have a peek at our report on the new Helix 3D camera rig to see what they're presenting this week at NAB.] The products created by Element Technica, the group that late last year was combined with 3ality Digital to create the super-group known as 3ality Technica we know now, was instrumental in making all Prometheus 3D sequences a reality. Literally instrumental, no less, as it’s 3ality Technica rigs that the crew’s cameras sit on throughout the film.

SlashGear: For larger 3D productions like Prometheus, are you ever called to be on-site to help with instructions on how to use these rigs with the film’s crew?

Pizzo: Not exactly – especially with Prometheus, Underworld, or Oz, what we did was we worked with the director of photography and his crew – the people that he’s just working with, and we train them in the operation of the equipment. We’ll provide as much support as they require, but typically once they’ve had a little bit of training just before the production starts – once they’re up and running – they need very little from us. Now if someone wants us on set, we’re happy to go and provide whatever support is necessary, but it really hasn’t been necessary.

SG: Did anyone from the 3ality step on set for Prometheus?

P: I was on the set of Prometheus a little bit in the beginning because Dariusz Wolski came to me personally and the requirement he gave me was – he said he had made a promise to Ridley Scott that if he used our gear that he would be able to move at the speed of 2D production. And he would be able to treat the rig itself as just cameras – since that’s essentially what they are. I visited the set a couple of times early on in production to make sure they were getting exactly what they wanted and they were, they were very successful.

P: They used five Atom rigs. Four of them were configured with [RED] Epic cameras and zoom lenses set up in studio mode where they can go on a dolly or a tripod. The fifth one was working with Epic cameras and fine lenses and was set up on a steadicam.

They had the four studio cams working continuously and they would bring in the steadicam rig as required. The crew moved the rigs around just as if they were regular cameras, and other than the addition of a convergence puller for that shoot, it looked very much like a standard crew compilation.

SG: From what I understand, Ridley Scott actually took a little bit of convincing to actually get onboard with the whole 3D experience – did he see how your products were working and end up being immediately on-board?

P: I wasn’t involved in any of the discussions with Ridley, that was really Dariusz Wolski so I don’t want to speculate – what I know is what Darius told me which was that he wanted to deliver to Ridley the best experience possible with 3D, and that’s why he was coming with us.

Above you’ll see another view of the Atom rig with RED camera gear installed. Expect great things (if you haven’t already begun to do so) from both 3ality Technica and the film Prometheus, opening June 8th, 2012 in theaters everywhere. We’ll have the second segment of our 3ality Technica interview soon!

[Head photo via Gavin Rothery]