Zodiac – a two-and-a-half-hour odyssey into the tortured brains of the journalists and policemen who were haunted by the Zodiac killer in the 1970s – is an interesting film for all kinds of reasons, not least of which is that it includes some of the most accomplished yet low-key direction to date from the very VFX-savvy David Fincher. Fincher grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and remembers the Zodiac's reign of terror, and his latest film functions as a time machine into the past, painstakingly recreating the San Francisco of three decades ago by using a combination of 2D and 3D visual-effects and digital cinematography. For Film & Video, Barbara Robertson got the details from Digital Domain and Matte World Digital, who on this film have helped redefine the meaning of attention to detail. Make sure you load up the F&V-exclusive Flash presentation, which includes video clips and before-and-after slides.
From across the Pacific Ocean comes a more traditional kind of genre picture – the monster movie – about a mutant fish living in the Han River in Seoul, South Korea. F&V talked to the VFX crew at The Orphanage about their work on the picture, including special animation rigging for the clumsy critter and their workflow with their director overseas. We also check in with Michelle Dougherty about title sequences – and her work on the opening titles for The Number 23.

Turning our attention to the small screen, we had a conversation with Jonathan Murray, part of the Bunim-Murray Productions (BMP) team that invented reality TV in the early 1990s when The Real World debuted on MTV, about reinventing the long-running series Road Rules for a generation of Internet viewers who want to interact with their entertainment. By adopting a 25 Mbps XDCAM workflow, and having footage digitized on the L.A. freeways, BMP is cutting shows in record time so they can incorporate the results of online voting into each week's episode. Keeping the Internet in mind, we asked Todd Boes, VP of product management at Internet TV specialist, to fill us in on some of the issues content creators are considering as broadcasting moves online.

But wait – there's more. StudioDaily.com Editor Matt Armstrong has a pair of stories about the runaway hit 300 – an interview with VFX art director Grant Freckelton and another with Jeremy Hunt, owner of VFX boutique Screaming Death Monkey, on creating the look for the scene featuring that red-headed Oracle Girl. And Studio Monthly has a detailed review by Nino Del Padre of the Redrock Micro M2 Indie Bundle, essentially a 35mm lens adapter for 1/3-inch CCD-based cameras, which he tested with a Panasonic HVX200. Enjoy. And while you're poking around the site, take a look at our newest addition: we've gone all bloggy. We plan to have a phalanx of regular posters and a regular regimen of guest bloggers. Do stop by and encourage us.