The video features a huge Rube Goldberg machine which is a deliberately over-engineered machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex fashion, usually including a chain reaction as was the case in the “This Too Shall Pass” video from Ok Go’s new album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. Ok Go shot to fame for their famous ‘dancing on treadmills’ video “Here It Goes Again” on YouTube

Watch “This Too Shall Pass” here in high res

Click through for more about the Rube Goldberg machine and about the band playing a rare acoustic set.

In the video the entire “This Too Shall Pass” song is sung while a set of mechanical ‘dominos’ fall – in a more complex and home brew version of the Honda ‘Cogs’ TV spot done a few years ago. It is little wonder at the massive downloads the OK Go video is receiving on Youtube. The piece is engaging, enchanting and wholly unbelievable if it were not shown in one uninterrupted take. Syyn Labs built the machine and is itself part Improv now, part performance artists, part mad scientists.

To find out more we asked Sadowsky just how Syyn Labs got started.

Syyn Labs is a group that evolved from a monthly event called Mindshare LA. The original Mindshare LA was started about two and a half years ago as a networking group of forty or fifty people who wanted to share ideas and explore a range of issues in downtown LA. Initially the group held talk nights once a month on everything from “belly dancing to biology, to psychology… or whatever,” explains Sadowsky.

The group, over time, started to do regular nights with a group of technology artists, who liked to make elaborate installations or alternative experiences. “We loosely called that group the Mindshare Labs group,” he adds, “in the last month or so we have formalized this group into the Syyn Labs…and Syyn Labs is the group which built this machine for the music video. We are a group of about 25 or so very talented engineers, computer scientists and artists of all kinds…and so when the band put it out there what they wanted, we submitted a proposal and they loved it – so we got to work together.”

In total some 65 people worked to build and film the machine. What is remarkable is that the project took over the old warehouse space on November 9th, 2009 and did not start filming until February 11, 2010. To reset the machine took up to an hour and it needed to be reset over 60 times, as it took over 60 takes to get one perfect hero filmed version.

To make matters even harder the machine needed to play out in time to the song. The team looked initially at building in retiming elements such as adjustable ramps so that some computer controller could adjust the speed of the action, but the team dropped this approach as it seemed unnecessary complicated.

Instead, the team decided to make every event or action of the Machine “something my mother could understand” and make it all very low tech. Of course the naive appearance of each action really hid the vast complexity of being able to time out the entire piece. This balance of complexity and simplicity was a fine path to walk. “In one case in particular, we had 26 interactions in 17 seconds and it was just too fast – so it would have been hard to follow.”

As the machine was built on the second floor of a building in Echo Park on Glendale Blvd., another problem the team had was the unexpected interaction of some of the events, for example, the piano was changed to be a much more violent fall, which in turn accidentally triggered other events prematurely and that meant yet another take. This resulted in having to have off camera staff to make sure the whole machine did not run away ahead of schedule.

The piano drop alone tended to trigger off an offshoot or tangent interaction – one that did not directly lead to another event but provided additional aesthetically beautiful content. This second or tangent event was intended to fire some cans. To avoid them misfiring their sensitivity was adjusted to make them more robust – but this meant that the final take in the music video missed having these can’s actually ever fire – but as the interaction was only a tangential one – it was decided that it was not worth re-setting and going again for with yet another take.

The project was filmed on an EX-3 camera on a Steadicam rig. The last take was actually filmed at 2am, proving that massive patience, painstaking science and rock ‘n roll can really live together successfully. A nice touch in the video, given the huge amount of work contributed by Adam and the Syyn Labs team, is a final pan up to the crew above the band at the end.

And for those of you wondering – the machine was dismantled BUT this Friday parts of the machine will be installed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) where the band will play an acoustic set, and Syyn Labs will answer some Q&A from fans of the band and the video.

OK Go Video Release Party 03/05/10 Ticket Information: $20 LACMA Muse, LACMA Members, Mindshare L.A. members. OK Go will perform a rare acoustic set on the terrace of the LACMA West Penthouse. There will be a special screening of the “This Too Shall Pass” video along with past OK Go videos, followed by a Q&A with the band. The night will also feature a DJ set by Tim Nordwind and pieces of the Rube Goldberg machine custom built by Syyn Labs for the “This Too Shall Pass” video will be on display.

Making of video

The new firmware incorporates the following updates and benefits:

1) Frame rate now to include 24fps (cinema) and 25fps (PAL broadcast). Shoots a variety of frame rates, overcomes the need for compression/retiming

2) Movie shooting in shutter-priority AE (Tv) and aperture-priority AE (Av) modes. This allows users have greater creative control over the exposure and depth-of-field

3) Manual adjustment of sound recording levels (64 levels). This provides much greater creative control with the camera’s sound recording

4) Sampling frequency changed (from 44.1 KHz to 48 KHz). Makes video and audio synchronisation easier

5) Histogram display for shooting movies in manual exposure

6) Fixes some bugs such as communication between the camera and the attached lens is sometimes interrupted after manual sensor cleaning

* source Canon.

James Cameron was honored with the VES Lifetime Achievement Award and Ed Catmull with the George Melies Award for Pioneering. Avatar took a lot of awards with District 9 besting it in one category.

The awards will televised by the Reelz Channel (DirecTV channel 238, Dish 299 and other Cable Systems) Friday March 5th at 10pm Pacific and March 6th at 7pm Pacific.

Full list of winners follows along with a link to some photos…

Many more of our photos from the event can be viewed full size on flickr.

Here is the list of winners:

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Feature Motion Picture

AVATAR
Richard Baneham, Animation Supervisor
Joyce Cox, VFX Producer
Joe Letteri, Senior Visual Effects Supervisor
Eileen Moran, Overall VFX Producer

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature Motion Picture

SHERLOCK HOLMES
Dan Barrow, VFX Producer
Jonathan Fawkner, VFX Supervisor
Chas Jarrett, VFX Supervisor
David Vickery, VFX Supervisor

Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

UP
Gary Bruins, Effects Supervisor
Pete Docter, Director
Steve May, Supervising Technical Director
Jonas Rivera, Producer

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Miniseries, Movie or a Special

DISNEY PREP AND LANDING – Gadgets, Globes, and other Garish Gizmos
David Hutchins, EFX Animator
Scott Kersavage, VFX Supervisor
Dorothy McKim, VFX Producer
Kee Suong, EFX Animator

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Series

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SEASON 4 – Ep. 421 “Daybreak”
Michael Gibson, VFX Producer
Gary Hutzel, VFX Supervisor
Dave Morton, CGI Artist
Jesse Toves, CGI Artist

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Broadcast Program

CSI CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION – Ep. 1001 “Opening Sequence”
Sabrina Arnold, VFX Producer
Steve Meyer, Compositor
Rik Shorten, VFX Supervisor
Derek Smith, Compositor

Best Single Visual Effect of the Year

AVATAR – Neyteri Drinking
Thelvin Cabezas, Lighting Technical Director
Joyce Cox, VFX Producer
Joe Letteri, Senior Visual Effects Supervisor
Eileen Moran, Overall VFX Producer

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial

AUDI – Intelligently Combined
Jay Barton, Visual Effects Supervisor
Rafael F. Colon, Sr. Compositor
Chris Fieldhouse, Visual Effects Producer
Ronald Herbst, CG Supervisor

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project

DANCE OF THE DRAGONS – Eastern
Derry Frost, VFX Supervisor
Michael Morreale, VFX Producer

Outstanding Real Time Visuals in a Video Game

CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2 – Gulag Extraction
Robert Gaines, Lead Visual Effects Artist
David Johnson, Visual Effects Artist
Richard Kriegler, Art Director
Mark Rubin, Producer

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Video Game Trailer

HALO 3: ODST – The Life
Ryan Meredith, VFX Producer
Robert Moggach, VFX Supervisor
Michael Pardee, Executive Producer
Jens Zalzala, CG Supervisor

Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture

AVATAR – Neytiri
Andrew R. Jones, Animation Director
Joe Letteri, Senior Visual Effects Supervisor
Zoe Saldana, Actress
Jeff Unay, Facial Lead

Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

UP – Carl – “No Dad Scene”
Ed Asner, Voice of Carl
Carmen Ngai, Character Cloth Artist
Brian Tindall, Character Modeling and Articulation Artist
Ron Zorman, Animator

Outstanding Animated Character in a Broadcast Program or Commercial

AMF – The Caterpillar
Steve Beck, Lead Character Animator
Jamie O’Hara, Lead Character Modeller
Becky Porter, Lead Compositor
Robert Sethi, Lead CG Artist

Outstanding Effects Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

UP
Alexis Angelidis, Effects Artist
Eric Froemling, Effects Artist
Jason Johnston, Effects Artist
Jon Reisch, Effects Artist

Outstanding Matte Paintings in a Feature Motion Picture

AVATAR – Pandora
Jean-Luc Azzis, Senior Compositor
Peter Baustaedter, Senior Matte Painter
Brenton Cottman, Lead Matte Painter
Yvonne Muinde, Lead Matte Painter

Outstanding Matte Paintings in a Broadcast Program or Commercial

KAISER PERMANENTE – Emerald City
Kim Taylor, Matte Painter
Ben Walker, Matte Painter
Ben Walsh, Matte Painter
David Woodland, Matte Painter

Outstanding Models and Miniatures in a Feature Motion Picture

AVATAR – Samson/Home Tree / Floating Mountains / Ampsuit
Simon Cheung, Modeller
Paul Jenness, Lead Modeller
John Stevenson-Galvin, Senior Modeller
Rainer Zoettl, Senior/Lead Modeller

Outstanding Created Environment in a Feature Motion Picture

AVATAR – Jungle / Biolume
Shadi Almassizadeh, CG Supervisor
Jessica Cowley, Senior Texture Painter
Dan Cox, CG Supervisor
Ula Rademeyer, Lead Texture Painter
Eric Saindon, Visual Effects Supervisor

Outstanding Created Environment in a Broadcast Program or Commercial

V – Pilot “Atrium and Ship Interiors”
Trevor Adams, CG Artist
Chris Irving, Lead Compositor
David Morton, Matte Painter
Chris Zapara, VFX Supervisor

Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture

DISTRICT 9
Janeen Elliott, Senior Compositor
Simon Hughes, Senior Compositor
Hamish Schumacher, Lead Compositor
Shervin Shogian, Compositing Supervisor

Outstanding Compositing in a Broadcast Program or Commercial

CSI CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION – Ep 1001 Opening Sequence
Steve Meyer, VFX Supervisor
Derek Smith, Compositor
Christina Spring, Compositor
Zach Zaubi, Compositor

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Student Project

THEY WILL COME TO TOWN
Thilo Ewers

The VES Awards are next weekend, February 28th, and the Oscars are March 7th.

We’ll have the new release available soon on the VPN over at our sister training site fxphd.com.

For the full press release from Massive, click through….

Auckland, New Zealand (February 17, 2010) – Massive Software, developer of the Academy Award®-winning 3D animation software for AI-driven characters, has released Massive 4.0. The latest release includes support for popular V-Ray rendering, new terrain nodes, enhanced brain nodes and agent fields, and many more features and improvements.

Massive allows artists to create and direct anything from CG humanoids to birds, animals, cars and more to deliver realistic and emotive virtual performances.  Massive “agents” are 3D characters that use sight, sound and touch to interpret and react autonomously to the world around them. Massive incorporates procedural animation and AI, and is used by professionals in animation, visual effects and design visualization.

“Massive 4.0 is a major release that brings both creative and pipeline flexibility to artists and studios, and fulfills a number of enhancement requests from the Massive community,” said Massive Founder and CTO Stephen Regelous. “We’ve added Terrain nodes, V-Ray support, Python GUI support, Hair/Fur clumping, deep shadow maps, better placement for stadiums, and many other improvements.”

Feature Highlights in Massive 4.0

• Terrain Nodes – Use an unlimited number of .obj files for terrain geometry; not only for the ground on which Agents walk, but also for walls of buildings, render-only geometry, collision-only geometry and other special purposes.
• V-Ray Rendering – Supports this popular renderer, ideal for scenes requiring highly realistic lighting, in the same highly-efficient manner as RenderMan, 3Delight, Air and Mental Ray. Massive generates .vrscene files for the main render files, and for the terrain and agent archive files. It also automatically generates shader dialog parameters for V-Ray material plug-ins and V-Ray materials, giving users complete freedom to assign any available default or custom plug-ins and materials.
• Enhanced Agent Fields and Variables – It is now possible to vary each Agent’s response to Agent Fields individually using scale and offset parameters such as distance or color. A new plus button in the variables tab makes it easier and more convenient to handle large numbers of Agent/Group variables.
• Place Tools – Stadium placement is even easier with the addition of rows and columns to the polygon generator, which allow for locators to be placed in rows and columns in any shape. The polygon generator also offers a handy stagger parameter, which can be used to offset rows laterally.
• Hair and Fur Enhancements – Use Deep Shadow Maps to realistically render longer hair and fur and generate high quality self-shadowing; and Hair/Fur Clumping to generate messy, lumpy, or even wet hair or fur.
• Brain Node Improvements – Control delay time and filter width in the output node with other nodes in the brain, using new options to select between “latch,” “delay,” and “filter” as destinations for alternative inputs. To simplify multiple inputs to an input node, a new feature adds values together.

Pricing and Availability

Massive 4.0 is now available for Windows and Linux. Massive Jet 4.0, delivering out-of-the-box functionality, is available for $5,999 USD per license. For ultimate customization, flexibility and the ability to create and edit agents, Massive 4.0 is priced at $17,999 USD per license.

]]> http://www.fxguide.com/qt/2193/massive-4-0-released/feed 4 http://www.fxguide.com/qt/2159/red-centre-podcast-out-red-day-shane-hurlbut http://www.fxguide.com/qt/2159/red-centre-podcast-out-red-day-shane-hurlbut#comments Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:28:45 +0000 Mike Seymour http://www.fxguide.com/qt/?p=2159 Red Centre 56 podcast out. This is our biggest show ever, with Red and Canon news, Jeff’s Heusser reports from LA on the February Red Day. And Shane Hurlbut ASC (Terminator Salvation DOP ) kicks down the door of the Red Room.

Click the more button below for a portfolio of images from Shane Hurlbut, and in itunes or on our podcast page you can download each week a comprehensive set of show notes pdf.

Visit the red centre page for direct downloads and RSS feed links. To be notified automatically and have the episodes downloaded in iTunes, subscribe via this link.




]]> http://www.fxguide.com/qt/2159/red-centre-podcast-out-red-day-shane-hurlbut/feed 3 http://www.fxguide.com/qt/2135/open-letter-to-james-cameron-fairness-for-visual-effects-artists http://www.fxguide.com/qt/2135/open-letter-to-james-cameron-fairness-for-visual-effects-artists#comments Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:21:31 +0000 Jeff Heusser http://www.fxguide.com/qt/?p=2135 Lee Stranahan is a Filmmaker, Writer, Photographer who writes for the Huffington Post. He has crafted an Open Letter To James Cameron. This is a must read: Open Letter To James Cameron: Fairness For Visual Effects Artists
]]> http://www.fxguide.com/qt/2135/open-letter-to-james-cameron-fairness-for-visual-effects-artists/feed 15 http://www.fxguide.com/qt/2056/oscar-nominations-announced http://www.fxguide.com/qt/2056/oscar-nominations-announced#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:53:39 +0000 Jeff Heusser http://www.fxguide.com/qt/?p=2056 Nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards® were announced early this morning by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. For the visual effects category this means the field is now narrowed from seven to these three nominated films:

Avatar
Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones

District 9
Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken

Star Trek
Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton

Avatar and District 9 are also nominated for Best Picture. The Visual Effects branch of the Academy is made up of 290 members, 279 of which are active members and 11 are retired. Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2009 will be presented on Sunday, March 7, 2010, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5 p.m. PT. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

A complete list of nominations in all categories can be found after the read more…



---

82ND ACADEMY AWARDS® NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED

Beverly Hills, CA — Nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards were announced today (Tuesday, February 2) by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak and 2008 Oscar® nominee Anne Hathaway.

Sherak and Hathaway, who was nominated for an Academy Award® for her lead performance in “Rachel Getting Married,” announced the nominees in 10 of the 24 categories at a 5:38 a.m. PT live news conference attended by more than 400 international media representatives. Lists of nominations in all categories were then distributed to the media in attendance and online via the official Academy Awards Web site, www.oscar.com.

Academy members from each of the branches vote to determine the nominees in their respective categories – actors nominate actors, film editors nominate film editors, etc. In the Animated Feature Film and Foreign Language Film categories, nominations are selected by vote of multi-branch screening committees. All voting members are eligible to select the Best Picture nominees; this year that category features 10 nominees instead of 5, as has been the case since 1943.

Nominations ballots were mailed to the 5,777 voting members in late December and were returned directly to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the international accounting firm, for tabulation.

Official screenings of all motion pictures with one or more nominations will begin for members this weekend at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Screenings also will be held at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood and in London, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area.

All active and life members of the Academy are eligible to select the winners in all categories, although in five of them – Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject and Foreign Language Film – members can vote only if they have seen all of the nominated films in those categories.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2009 will be presented on Sunday, March 7, 2010, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

Nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight)
George Clooney in “Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)
Colin Firth in “A Single Man” (The Weinstein Company)
Morgan Freeman in “Invictus” (Warner Bros.)
Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Matt Damon in “Invictus” (Warner Bros.)
Woody Harrelson in “The Messenger” (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
Christopher Plummer in “The Last Station” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Stanley Tucci in “The Lovely Bones” (DreamWorks in association with Film4, Distributed by Paramount)
Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company)

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side” (Warner Bros.)
Helen Mirren in “The Last Station” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Carey Mulligan in “An Education” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Gabourey Sidibe in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate)
Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia” (Sony Pictures Releasing)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Penélope Cruz in “Nine” (The Weinstein Company)
Vera Farmiga in “Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)
Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight)
Anna Kendrick in “Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)
Mo’Nique in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate)

Best animated feature film of the year
“Coraline” (Focus Features), Henry Selick
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (20th Century Fox), Wes Anderson
“The Princess and the Frog” (Walt Disney), John Musker and Ron Clements
“The Secret of Kells” (GKIDS), Tomm Moore
“Up” (Walt Disney), Pete Docter

Achievement in art direction
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox), Art Direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg, Set Decoration: Kim Sinclair
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” (Sony Pictures Classics), Art Direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro, Set Decoration: Caroline Smith
“Nine” (The Weinstein Company), Art Direction: John Myhre, Set Decoration: Gordon Sim
“Sherlock Holmes” (Warner Bros.), Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood, Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
“The Young Victoria” (Apparition), Art Direction: Patrice Vermette, Set Decoration: Maggie Gray

Achievement in cinematography
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox), Mauro Fiore
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (Warner Bros.), Bruno Delbonnel
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment), Barry Ackroyd
“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company), Robert Richardson
“The White Ribbon” (Sony Pictures Classics), Christian Berger

Achievement in costume design
“Bright Star” (Apparition), Janet Patterson
“Coco before Chanel” (Sony Pictures Classics), Catherine Leterrier
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” (Sony Pictures Classics), Monique Prudhomme
“Nine” (The Weinstein Company), Colleen Atwood
“The Young Victoria” (Apparition), Sandy Powell

Achievement in directing
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox), James Cameron
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment), Kathryn Bigelow
“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company), Quentin Tarantino
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate), Lee Daniels
“Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios), Jason Reitman

Best documentary feature
“Burma VJ” (Oscilloscope Laboratories), A Magic Hour Films Production, Anders østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller
“The Cove” (Roadside Attractions), An Oceanic Preservation Society Production, Nominees to be determined
“Food, Inc.” (Magnolia Pictures), A Robert Kenner Films Production, Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
“The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers”, A Kovno Communications Production, Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
“Which Way Home”, A Mr. Mudd Production, Rebecca Cammisa

Best documentary short subject
“China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan, Province”, A Downtown Community Television Center Production, Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill
“The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner”, A Just Media Production, Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher
“The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant”, A Community Media Production, Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
“Music by Prudence”, An iThemba Production, Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett
“Rabbit à la Berlin” (Deckert Distribution), An MS Films Production, Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra

Achievement in film editing
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox), Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
“District 9” (Sony Pictures Releasing), Julian Clarke
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment), Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company), Sally Menke
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate), Joe Klotz

Best foreign language film of the year
“Ajami” (Kino International), An Inosan Production, Israel
“El Secreto de Sus Ojos” (Sony Pictures Classics), A Haddock Films Production, Argentina
“The Milk of Sorrow”, A Wanda Visión/Oberon Cinematogrà/Vela Production, Peru
“Un Prophète” (Sony Pictures Classics), A Why Not/Page 114/Chic Films Production, France
“The White Ribbon” (Sony Pictures Classics), An X Filme Creative Pool/Wega Film/Les Films du Losange/Lucky Red Production, Germany

Achievement in makeup
“Il Divo” (MPI Media Group through Music Box), Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano
“Star Trek” (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment), Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow
“The Young Victoria” (Apparition), Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox), James Horner
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (20th Century Fox), Alexandre Desplat
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment), Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
“Sherlock Holmes” (Warner Bros.), Hans Zimmer
“Up” (Walt Disney), Michael Giacchino

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
“Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog” (Walt Disney), Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
“Down in New Orleans” from “The Princess and the Frog” (Walt Disney), Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
“Loin de Paname” from “Paris 36” (Sony Pictures Classics), Music by Reinhardt Wagner, Lyric by Frank Thomas
“Take It All” from “Nine” (The Weinstein Company), Music and Lyric by Maury Yeston
“The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight), Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

Best motion picture of the year
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox), A Lightstorm Entertainment Production, James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers
“The Blind Side” (Warner Bros.), An Alcon Entertainment Production, Nominees to be determined
“District 9” (Sony Pictures Releasing), A Block/Hanson Production, Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, Producers
“An Education” (Sony Pictures Classics), A Finola Dwyer/Wildgaze Films Production, Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, Producers
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment), A Voltage Pictures Production, Nominees to be determined
“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company), A Weinstein Company/Universal Pictures/A Band Apart/Zehnte Babelsberg Production, Lawrence Bender, Producer
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate), A Lee Daniels Entertainment/Smokewood Entertainment Production, Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, Producers
“A Serious Man” (Focus Features), A Working Title Films Production, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Producers
“Up” (Walt Disney), A Pixar Production, Jonas Rivera, Producer
“Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios), A Montecito Picture Company Production, Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, Producers

Best animated short film
“French Roast” , A Pumpkin Factory/Bibo Films Production, Fabrice O. Joubert
“Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” (Brown Bag Films), A Brown Bag Films Production, Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell
“The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)”, A Kandor Graphics and Green Moon Production, Javier Recio Gracia
“Logorama” (Autour de Minuit), An Autour de Minuit Production, Nicolas Schmerkin
“A Matter of Loaf and Death” (Aardman Animations), An Aardman Animations Production, Nick Park

Best live action short film
“The Door” (Network Ireland Television), An Octagon Films Production, Juanita Wilson and James Flynn
“Instead of Abracadabra”, (The Swedish Film Institute), A Directörn & Fabrikörn Production, Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström
“Kavi”, A Gregg Helvey Production, Gregg Helvey
“Miracle Fish”, (Premium Films), A Druid Films Production, Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey
“The New Tenants”, A Park Pictures and M & M Production, Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson

Achievement in sound editing
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox), Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment), Paul N.J. Ottosson
“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company), Wylie Stateman
“Star Trek” (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment), Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin
“Up” (Walt Disney), Michael Silvers and Tom Myers

Achievement in sound mixing
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox), Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment), Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett
“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company), Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano
“Star Trek” (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment), Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro, Distributed by Paramount), Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson

Achievement in visual effects
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox), Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones
“District 9” (Sony Pictures Releasing) , Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken
“Star Trek” (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment), Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton

Adapted screenplay
“District 9” (Sony Pictures Releasing), Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell
“An Education” (Sony Pictures Classics), Screenplay by Nick Hornby
“In the Loop” (IFC Films), Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate), Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher
“Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios) , Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner

Original screenplay
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment), Written by Mark Boal
“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company), Written by Quentin Tarantino
“The Messenger” (Oscilloscope Laboratories), Written by Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman
“A Serious Man” (Focus Features), Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
“Up” (Walt Disney), Screenplay by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy

]]> http://www.fxguide.com/qt/2056/oscar-nominations-announced/feed 1 http://www.fxguide.com/qt/2021/the-halo-life http://www.fxguide.com/qt/2021/the-halo-life#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:20:32 +0000 John Montgomery http://www.fxguide.com/qt/?p=2021 The Life, a live action short directed by MJZ’s Rupert Sanders to promote the launch of Halo 3: ODST for the Xbox 360, features visual effects by Asylum as we follow Tarkov, an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, through training and a major battle sequence. Visual effects supervisor and lead compositor Rob Moggach tells fxguide how Asylum added elements and grit to the live action.

View a QuickTime movie of the completed spot.

fxg: What did Asylum’s work on the short involve?

Moggach: We had to add in a bunch of unseen visual effects, clean-up work, compositional changes and natural elements. Through the battle sequence we did lasers, interactive lighting, visors and visor reflections, CG spaceships, muzzle flashes, matte paintings for the background, atmospheric smoke and haze and sky replacements.

We also did some explosion enhancements, although most of these were in-camera. Generally we added effects to make it impressive without it feeling it too cinematic. Rupert was very much about keeping things natural and believable, but at the same time he’s a very strong visualist. We had two and half weeks from 2K plates to finish this two and half minute film, which was originally meant to be a 60 second spot. We doubled and tripled our crew in the days leading up to it so we could get it done.

fxg: Can you take me through some of your work for the opening funeral shots?

Moggach: For the first wide shot, they had about a third of the tombstones with the fires on them. We were tasked with repeating those all the way around. Most of it is in-camera, but we did do some clean-up on the background just to remove some windows. The next shot involved putting fires in all those tombstones.

We made the grave a little bit bigger and added some foreground tombstones. We also did some selected colour correction on the talent to make them stand out more. The plates were shot in a working powerplant in Hungary. It’s one of those cooling towers that you attribute to a nuclear power plant but this was a coal-fired plant. We were shooting inside a cooling tower in 45 degree heat.

fxg: How did the battle sequence come together?

Moggach: That was shot in an open pit coal mine where they actually mine the coal for the power plant. We spent two days there. It was the middle of summer in Hungary, with no wind because we were in the pit and giant machines all around us because it’s a working coal mine. It was a really gritty atmosphere. A lot of the grit you see in the film comes from the actual locations. It was a great experience – not sure I’d want to do it again – but I’ll never forget it.

The first couple of shots are full CG backgrounds. The background mountains, lasers, muzzle flashes and spaceships are all CG. Almost all of the explosions are in-camera. We did add some of the trademark Halo plasma when things explode. Because we were working on flat plates, we had to do a lot of work to match what had been set as the overall colour mood. We had an interesting workflow in Flame 2009 using the new floating point tools to bring our flat log plates into the same colour world.

fxg: What were some of the tools you used for the CG work?

Moggach: Some of the impact work was done in Houdini, all the animation was done in Maya and rendering was a combination of RenderMan and Mantra. I’ll do pre-comps in Nuke and finishing in Flame. So a lot of times it was a multi-step process where I’d pre-comp my CG in Nuke in floating point in linear space and then bring it over for final finishing and ‘grit’ in Flame. Tracking was all SynthEyes and rotoing was done in Silhouette.

fxg: Was it a big tracking job?

Moggach: It was. I think this is a perfect example of not finding any clever solutions to problems, but rolling up your sleeves and getting it done. I call it brute force visual effects. Even just the compositing, there were no special workarounds. We just had to put the pieces together and keeping fighting with the Flame until it gets there.

For the transitions, from the beginning to the training and to the end funeral, we matched the camera move through the cut so that it felt a little more fluid. Matching the eyes, matching the camera motion, matching the sides of the face so that you get a sense of following this guy through his life, that it’s the same guy, despite it being different actors.

fxg: I was thinking the visors would also involve that kind of brute force work?

Moggach: They were interesting, because we didn’t want to get into masked environments for every shot and doing 3D tracks and getting CG artists to render things, so what I did was I had the CG artists track the visors for each shot and then give that to the Flame. That way we could interactively put in elements that would work and map them in 3D.

We basically did all the 3D visors in the Flame. It made the process a lot faster and more interactive because we’d get to see the results a lot more quickly. Because the shots are so frenetic and shaky, it’s only one or two frames you need to see something, like a bright flash or explosion in the visor. It would’ve taken so long to animate that in CG, whereas if we had the footage on hand it was just a matter of bashing it into the visor as a reflection map in Flame, and twisting it around until it looks right.

fxg: How did you accomplish the laser trails?

Moggach: We did those as 3D in Flame again. It’s something that doesn’t get used in Flame very often. I built a 3D plasma fire rig with a lot of expressions so the artist could easily position where the gun was coming from and where it was going to, and animate when it was firing. On top of that, this thing would have all the inherent properties we would give it with motion blur and other things so it felt like it was really in the space. For all the interactive lighting we would just comp it a couple of ways with a brighter pass and a glowy pass and we just painted it frame by frame to get the interactive lighting working.

fxg: The attacking creature looks great. Did you add to the practical creature in any way?

Moggach: He was practical creature built by Legacy Effects about six and half feet tall. We did some tracking trickery to blow him up and made him ten feet tall. We also moved the soldier around to make him a little bit closer and make the impact stronger. Legacy Effects build on the creature and all the suits was pretty amazing. We just did some things like add a curl to his lip and some spit on his cheeks, little things like that to make it more fun.

fxg: That practical and digital mix seems to work really well for the film.

Moggach: It was all about making an image that had cinematic impact, but was also natural and realistic in the same breath. Not trusting your first instinct as a visual artist, but doing something wrong in order to make it look better. We tried to mimic the mistakes they might make on set to make it look more natural.

Credit List

Client: Xbox
Game Title: Halo 3 ODST
Spots Title: “The Life”

Agency: T.A.G.
Executive Creative Director(s): Scott Duchon, John Patroulis
Art Director: Aramis Israel
Copywriter: Rick Herrera

Prod Company: MJZ
Director: Rupert Sanders
EP: Eric Stern
Prod. Supervisor(s): Adriana Cebada Mora, Melinda Szepesi
Producer(s): Laurie Boccaccio, Eszter Repassy
DP: Greig Fraser

Post Production: Asylum
Visual Effects Supervisor/Lead Compositor: Rob Moggach
Executive Producer: Michael Pardee
Producer: Ryan Meredith
Compositor(s): Mark Renton, Caitlin Content, Steve Muangman, Miles Essmiller, Rob Trent, Tim Davies, Jonny Hicks, John Stewart, John Weckworth, Brad Scott
Smoke Artist: Alex Gomez
Lead Modeler: Greg Stuhl
Modeler: Toshihiro Sakamaki
Lead Animator: Michael Warner
Animator: Samir Lyons
Texture(s): John Hart, Ryan Reeb
Tracker(s): Tom Stanton, Michael Lori
Lighter(s): Sean Comly, Aaron Vest, Michael Comly
Effects Animator/Lighter: Yurichiro Wamashita
Effects Animator: David Schoneveld
Lead Roto: Elissa Bello
Roto(s): Hugo Dominuez, Laura Murillo, Daniel Linger, Bethany Pederson, Jason Bidwell, Stephanie Ide, Scott Baxter, Midori Witsken, Mark Duckworth, Zac Chowdhury, Huey Carroll
Wire Removal: Bethany Pederson
Lead Matte Painter: Tim Clark

Design: Simon Cassels, Aaron Benoit
CG Supervisor: Jens Zalzala

Editorial: Final Cut
Editor: Eric Zumbrennen
Assistant Editor: Jacob Kuehl
EP: Saima Awan
Post Producer: Kelly Garcia

Telecine: MPC
Colorist: Mark Gethin

Music: Original composition, Human
Music producer: Mike Jurasits
Sound Design: Brian Emrich
Mix: Loren Silber, Lime Studios

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