A New Year's message from David Gould

The past year was no sleeper for filmmaker David Gould, head of Gold Coast film house David Gould Studios. Having worked with Peter Jackson on The Lord Of The Rings trilogy and King Kong, the visual effects guru found success with his own short film Awaken, which competed in the Cannes film festival Short Film Corner contest earlier this year. But the New Year is set to be one of the biggest yet for Gould, who is currently in New Zealand with wife Agnes working on two highly anticipated blockbusters.
``In 2011 we look forward to embracing the truly global nature of filmmaking,'' he said.
``We start work on the films Rise Of The Apes and Peter Jackon's The Hobbit in New Zealand.''

While the former stars James Franco and is a prequel to the Planet Of The Apes, the latter sees Gould return to Middle Earth for The Lord Of The Rings prequel. Both see him reunite with Jackson's cutting edge company Weta Digital. But big things are happening for the studio back home too.

After a successful pitch at the American Film Market in November where staff met producers to discuss feature projects, David Gould Studios will begin production on their own feature films in 2011.
``We hope to shoot our own action/thriller Stolen Senses in New Orleans, USA,'' Gould said.
``We will also be scouting locations in Chile for one of our thrillers.
``We will face many challenges filming around the world, but relish the opportunities that exposure to different cultures and languages will bring.''

For my previous stories on Gould click here, here and here.

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Monkey Business

Really, I just wanted an excuse to use this picture again.

CON-FREAKIN-GRATULATIONS to the folks at David Gould Studios on the Gold Coast. Head of the studio, David Gould, and his wife Agnes Gould have flown to New Zealand to start work on the $90 million Planet of the Apes prequel reboot, Rise of the Apes. Gould posted the news on Facebook and after getting the lo-down from Mediageek, I got in touch with the man himself. He said this is an email:

"Due to the confidential nature of the materials we can't work from the Gold Coast. I will be going back to WETA in New Zealand to be involved with the project. Initially just for three months then potentially longer."

For those of you playing at home, Weta Digital are the visual effects company co-owned by Peter Jackson. Gould worked with them previously as the 3D technical director/lighter on The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King and as the senior technical director on King Kong. Weta will again be responsible for doing the digital effects for the film, including digitally animated apes.Production on Rise of the Apes has already started at Mammoth Studios in Burnaby, Canada and the film stars James Franco, Freida Pinto and Andy Serkis (aka Gollum). It's being directed by Rupert Wyatt and the screenplay is by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, who co-wrote The Relic and Eye For an Eye, both two of my personal favourites. Silver also penned The Hand That Rocks The Cradle.

Besides what information we already have, everyone is keeping the specific details on the film pretty close to their chest which is . . .refreshing! Call me crazy, but after the minty blast that was Inception, maybe less information isn't a bad thing. Anywho, for those of you living under a rock you can find out all about David Gould and his rad studio in my previous posts here and here. In the meantime, I raise my glass to you David Gould Studios.

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