For three ‘Winning over’ Tiger Beer spots, Oktobor created fully CG architectural icons of London, New York and Paris as a single drop of beer gives rise to the cities that eventually form into the Tiger bottle shape. Oktobor General Manager Patrick McAteer and director Damon Duncan tell fxguide how the spots were accomplished.

For Aliens in the Attic, director John Schultz called on Rhythm & Hues to create an array of cute-but-scary aliens who take on an unlikely band of vacationing kids. Visual effects supervisor Doug Smith and co-visual effects supervisor Mike O’Neal break down Rhythm’s alien animation work for fxguide.

With G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, director Stephen Sommers delved into the world of the popular Hasbro action-figure toy line. Bringing the characters and vehicles to life was partly the role of overall visual effects supervisors Boyd Shermis and Greg McMurry and a host of effects vendors. fxguide profiles some of the key effects shots by Digital Domain, CIS Hollywood and CIS Vancouver, Prime Focus VFX, The Moving Picture Company, CafeFX and Framestore.

For District 9, writer/director Neill Blomkamp turned to a host of Vancouver-based studios, along with Weta Workshop and Weta Digital in New Zealand, to provide alien creatures and other effects for the film. fxguide profiles the work of Image Engine, The Embassy Visual Effects, Zoic Studios and Goldtooth Creative in bringing Blomkamp’s vision to life.

Smoke & Mirrors New York (SMNY) moved into the animation realm with ‘Dinosaur’, a Denver Museum of Nature & Science spot featuring a playful brontosaurus skating around a frozen pond. fxguide talked to key SMNY artists Sean Broughton (Director/CD/Editor), Mike Donovan (Lead Sr. CG Artist), Steve Parish (Lead Sr. CG Artist/Lighting/Live Action Director) and Nic Seresin (Sr. Flame Artist) about the work.

Imageworks visual effects supervisor Scott Stokdyk gives Ian Failes a run down of his work for G-Force, a Hoyt Yeatman-directed feature about an elite troupe of guinea pigs who must save the world from an evil billionaire.

The new UK Shell Campaign uses a truly beautiful technical painterly technique. Key artists from Stardust Studios tell fxguide about the painterly ‘Get the most out of every drop’ spots created for Shell in conjunction with JWT London.

Day three – HDR Cine cameras, Renderman, GPU. Sphereon launched the hdrv camera at Siggraph. A new cine or video camera capable of filming HD footage with 20 stops of latitude making it the first serious HDR video camera. Also, Pixar had their Renderman User Group Meeting and Nvida proved that GPU capabilities are continuing to climb in creative and technical depth.

Day 2 meant the start of the exhibition and the job fair. Highlights included a killer ILM series of lectures showcasing their work on several major blockbuster films, anyone of which would have been enough for most studios. Siggraph is a great place to connect with the who’s who of the industry during the day and enjoy the parties each night – such as fxguide/fxphd’s gathering of the faithful at Lucy’s Retired Surfer Bar.

Day one: Siggraph got off to a good start in a city that is both extremely hot and welcoming. The trade show floor does not open until Tuesday, so the first day was all about the talks, with some brilliant presentations. Day One also saw a flood of press releases and the odd user group meeting.