Scott Ross — co-founder and former CEO of Digital Domain — has been among the most vocal in the effort to bring change to the struggling VFX business. Now he's come onboard as "Ambassador" of a not-for-profit VFX, game and animation festival with a "new format" aimed at inspiring artists and creativity, while also addressing the challenging career path.

Earlier this year, digital cinema projector maker Barco unveiled Escape, a new theater configuration that is a sort of Cinerama for the digital age. Now, the first Escape theaters are getting the finishing touches and will open with Fox’s Sept. 19 release of The Maze Runner, the first feature film to be specially prepped for exhibition in these venues.

There’s been a lot of emphasis on Kodak and Hollywood’s current effort to finalize a deal to keep film alive, with the urging of leading filmmakers including J.J. Abrams and Christopher Nolan who want to continue to have the option to shoot film.

Jaunt — a Palo Alto-based startup that is developing hardware and software to enable the production and display of virtual reality experiences — has raised $27.8 million in a new round of funding, bringing the total investment in the company to $34 million. With the new funding, the company aims to continue to develop relationships in Hollywood in order to kick-start VR content creation.

Chris Fetner, director of global content partners operations at Netflix, is expected to address technical standards issues surrounding streaming content during an opening keynote at the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers’ annual Technical Conference & Exhibition. The confab takes place Oct. 21-23 at the Loews Hollywood Hotel in Hollywood.

Former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman said, while speaking with The Hollywood Reporter at the HollyShorts Film Festival on Monday, he is encouraged to see space and science generating attention in Hollywood. Reisman was on hand for a screening of Three Nights, Three Days: Endeavour's Journey Through Los Angeles.

Ann Druyan — co-writer of the 1980 PBS Cosmos series hosted by her late husband, Carl Sagan — won an Emmy for her passion project, Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey.

Discovery Channel’s high seas adventure Deadliest Catch won its fourth-consecutive Emmys in both editing and cinematography at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards on Saturday.

It also won the Emmy for outstanding unstructured reality series, bringing the series total Emmy wins over its 10 seasons to 13.

HBO’s Game of Thrones won its third-consecutive Emmy for outstanding special and visual effects.

Sarah Jones, the 27-year-old camera assistant who died earlier this year when she was struck by a train in Georgia while filming the Gregg Allman biopic Midnight Rider, was remembered during the In Memoriam montage during Saturday's Creative Arts Emmys.

Composer Alan Silvestri won a pair of Emmys for outstanding score and original main-title theme music for Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey.

Accepting the awards Saturday night at the Creative Arts Emmys, he thanked his team, host Neil deGrasse Tyson and "Carl Sagan for still bringing magic to the blue dot."