In what seems to be an attempt at viral marketing, Legendary Pictures has released a promotional image for their upcoming Godzilla movie with just enough fanfare to get the attention of certain blogs.
The image comes from a new ‘augmented reality’ t-shirt which makes it look as though Godzilla is breathing his atomic breath and roaring when near a computer screen. The ‘augmented reality’ stuff was used quite a bit in the advertising for James Cameron’s Avatar back in December. Here is the press release below:
When Warner Brothers affiliate Legendary Pictures – responsible for such critically acclaimed films as Inception, Where the Wild Things Are, The Dark Knight, 300, and Watchmen – wanted to use Augmented Reality to announce their latest film, they turned to Saskatchewan’s Talking Dog Studios to provide them with the technology to do so.
This week, Legendary Pictures is at San Diego’s Comic-Con International, the world’s biggest comics and pop culture convention, celebrating the beginning of production on their next film: “Godzilla”. Persons attending the conference will receive a t-shirt with an image of the new Godzilla, and when they look at themselves in a webcam at the Legendary Pictures tradeshow booth, they’ll see a superimposed animation of Godzilla’s “atomic breath” shooting out into the air in front of them from Godzilla’s mouth, complete with black smoke rising from the flames and the ground-shaking bellow of Godzilla’s instantly recognizable roar.
This immersive experience was designed by Talking Dog Studios, of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and was supervised by Larry Monte of California’s Corporate Images. Talking Dog have been developing various AR applications for the past year, but owner Rob Bryanton sees this as a major step forward: “Augmented Reality is very open-ended, which is great because the possibilities are so wide, but it’s something that is best experienced rather than described,” says Bryanton. “With the Godzilla installation, we were able to quickly create something that our clients were immediately happy with, so we see this as a great recognition of the skillset that we’ve now developed”.
And here is a video of the ‘augmented reality’ technology in action:
I am hoping for a bit more of an official announcement than just a special t-shirt but the film was only just announced a few months ago and isn’t set to be released until 2012…but it would be nice to know who the director is going to be. The promotional picture is promising and is at least a million times better looking than the pathetic attempt that Tristar Pictures made at a Godzilla film back in 1998. Back Spines? Check. Atomic breath? Angry disposition? Check. Devastated buildings and explosions? Check. So far it seems, I am on board with this new film. Legendary Pictures also just recently put out the incredible film Inception, so it gives me a little hope that the production company has the talent and foresight to do a good Godzilla movie.
From Monster Island News and MovieViral.
Teatime with Godzilla 