Siggraph Day Two and Three
With the trade show now open and the event fully under way we do a quick survey of cool events and tech on the Tuesday and Wednesday of this years Siggraph. Today we focus on XSI, Massive, C4D, RealFlow, coffee and the great Stan Winston.
Siggraph Day One
Siggraph opened on Monday. On day one, highlights included the conference keynote from Ed Catmull (Pixar), Nuke and Autodesk User groups, new software from Maya, Renderman, Motion Builder and some great technical papers – and Fjorg started.
Labor Series Part One: Unpaid Artists
In part one of a new series on Labor issues we talk with Dave Rand who has taken on the role as spokeperson for about 100 artists who worked on a film in Canada at Meteor Studios who were not paid for the last few months of work as the company filed bankruptcy. This is an important story and a great conversation about the state of visual effects as a business.
Dark Knight : Imax, Effects and That Bike
The Dark Knight is a masterful film. There are brilliant performances, great direction and some magnificent visual effects. This week we cover lead facility Double Negative about their impressive IMAX batpod shots and how their work fits so seamlessly into this powerful dark masterpiece.
Indiana Jones and the Destroyed Miniatures
Kerner Optical was once again called upon to contribute a stunning array of miniature models to destroy for the fourth installment of the epic film series. We spoke to Brian Gernand, model/miniature supervisor for Kerner Optical about the film. Kerner is the former ILM model shop, directly responsible for so many of the stunning visuals that made the first three Indiana films one of the most loved film franchises in history.
Prince Caspian: Pre & Post-viz on the Third Floor
Third Floor started as the third floor pre-viz department at Skywalker ranch. Now a separate company, Third Floor is a pre-viz and post-viz specialist. In this week’s fxpodcast we talk to CEO Chris Edwards about their recent work on Narnia, and explore their filmic approaches to previz. We also present Edward’s play book for successful pre-viz along with some client survival tricks.
Stan – We Miss You
Stan Winston, one of the great names in special effects, has died at age 62.
The Oscar-winning visual effects artist died at his home Sunday evening surrounded by family after a seven-year struggle with multiple myeloma, according to a representative from Stan Winston Studio, reports David Cohen from Variety.
How to Paint a Digital Car
Cars are the backbone of the advertising industry and car finishes are equally important in films. Just this month, new releases Iron Man and Speed Racer needed to produce photorealistic car finishes. In this special technical report, we explore how the best facilities in the world go about creating car finishes that are beyond ‘photoreal’ and are now ‘damn near perfect’.
Iron Man – Rock Solid
Iron Man is a blockbuster hit due to a focus on acting, great action sequences and seamless big budget visual effects by lead facility Industrial Light and Magic, steered by visual effects supervisor John Nelson. Alongside ILM was The Orphanage and we drill down on just one aspect of the film – the Heads Up Display – in this week’s fxpodcast with designer Dav Rauch.
Quick Look: eyeon Generation
At NAB 2008 in Las Vegas, eyeon introduced their new conforming and versioning app called eyeon Generation, which has been in development for about two years. The app contains conforming and editing tools, compositing, collaboration with annotation, versioning, as well as render management. The release will bring a new and valuable type of workflow to the desktop compositing market.
Review of Adobe Photoshop Express
Adobe has surprised some by moving towards a web app model for the crown jewel of Adobe: Photoshop. We review the new effort and see how viable it is for serious production.
fxguided Tour: Getting the Most Out of NAB
NAB starts this weekend, so we spoke to the organizers and worked out our fxguided tour to get the most out of NAB. With a massive investment in seminars and events, NAB now provides some really cool content discussions and presentations. Check out the talks, the presentations, events and the key parties.
S4C
We are rarely presented with something truly new and inventive, but the work of Minivegas is really worthy of the term ‘groundbreaking’. For client S4C they have created a set of promos that automatically animates in realtime to the exact pitch of the presenter’s voice. Every day each promo is unique. This fully automated solution is both technically and creatively impressive, and also often a load of laughs.
Indie DI Heroes
DI is a process often reserved for the top films involving days of film scanning and large budgets. Local Hero Post is focused on providing a DI solution for the independent filmmaker, offering high quality at prices more in line with the budget of an Indie film. In this week’s fxpodcast, we discuss with owner Leandro Marini the approach Local Hero has taken to make this possible.
Art of Digital 3D Stereoscopic Film
From U2 to Hanna Montana. From Beowulf to Journey to the Center of the Earth. 3D is hot once again. One of the strongest trends in visual effects films today is stereoscopic capture, post production and projection. Technology is catching up just when theatre owners are looking for ways to hold and appeal to a media saturated audience. We explore the theory and practice of digital 3D stereo imaging.
The Mill for Coke: Super Bowl Revisited
In a broadcast filled of commercials with talking animals, dancing animals, and even animals with a point to prove, the Coke spot “It’s Mine” stood out from the crowd. We speak with The Mill’s creative director Angus Kneale and Senior CG artist Ben Smith about the work that went into making one of the most popular spots from the big show.
Pulling the Wool Over: MPC circa 10,000BC
10,000 BC by director Roland Emmerich takes audiences to a time when mighty mammoths shook the earth. In this in-depth article we examine just one part of this blockbuster film and drill down on complex task of producing photorealistic mammoths that, while not the heros of the film, certainly gave the film power, gravitas and some ripping good thrills.
The Kingdom: the Agency, the Effects, the Titles
One of our favourite films of 2007 was The Kingdom. If you missed it – rent it. Peter Berg’s film is a powerful action drama based around a criminal investigation shared by two cultures chasing deadly terrorists before they are ready to strike again. We explore the seamless visual effects delivered by Rhythm & Hues and explore the amazing opening titles which both inform and set the tone for the entire film from the PIC Agency.
Building Art in Chicago: 1 1 2 3 5 8
The Chicago Spire is designed by artist-architect Santiago Calatrava and funded by developer Garrett Kelleher. When completed in 2011, the spire will be the tallest building in the western hemisphere. The massive film “Inspire” was commissioned to showcase the building. We spoke to director Sheena Duggal, an extremely experienced VFX supervisor, about the making of the film.
Eyes are the Window to Madame Tutli Putli
Madame Tutli Putli is a remarkable animation. Not only is the film moving, but it pioneered a very powerful new visual blending of live action and stop frame animation. Jason Walker created the new effect, which lead to the film winning this year’s Best Short Film at Cannes. It is also nominated in the Animated Short Film category at this year’s Oscars.
One Man Against Attila the Hun
Every once in a while we get a story at fxguide that indicates just how far and how fast the industry is moving. The post on Attila the Hun, directed by Gareth Edwards, is one of those stories. Edwards produced the 250 HD effects shots by himself in five months using After Effects and Photoshop. Averaging 2 shots a day, it was one man against the armies of Attila the Hun.
Pro Living in a Consumer QuickTime World
Apple’s recent QuickTime 7.4 update caused numerous problems for applications from Adobe, RED, and more. While QT is used in high-end facilities around the world, it was a good reminder that the media wrapper is more closely linked to iPods than professional users. In this article we look at ways for pro users to maintain both sanity AND pixel purity when dealing with QT…with a key role played by After Effects CS3.
A quick look at the new films for 2008
What is coming in 2008 – we have roughed out a schedule of effects films for 2008., From Indy to Maxwell Smart, from Lions to Penguins and on to Robotic heroes. What we can expect and from whom.
How Much is a Post Facility Worth?
With the proposed sale of Rainmaker to DeLuxe for a package totaling $35 million, Digital Domain’s proposed $100M million public float, and a possible sale of Sony Pictures Animation for $500 million, we take a look at the value of an effects house. What is it worth, what should it be worth and just how much has Pixar affected the market.
SPI is Legend
In the film I Am Legend, Will Smith plays a character who might be the last man left in New York City, or at least the last one unaffected by a cure for cancer that goes horrifically wrong. Jim Berney supervised the visual effects at Sony Pictures Imageworks, and fxguide caught up with him to discuss shutting down one of the world’s busiest cities to take pictures of a stuffed toy deer.
Strike a Deal
With the writer’s strike entering its fifth week, a grass roots rally took place on December 9th in Los Angeles to encourage both sides to come to a quick resolution. In our online story and fxpodcast we discuss the rally, the strike, and how it impacts not simply the writers but the entire production/post-production pipeline and the community and families at large.
Beowulf: Breaking Ground with Mocap
Beowulf once again raises the bar for films based on motion capture, extending the work from Polar Express and Monster House. Fxguide spoke to Doug Chiang at Siggraph about the film and we now follow that up with Sony Pictures Imageworks’ Visual Effects Supervisor Jerome Chen and CG Supervisor Theo Bialak. (Updated 30th Nov)
The WGA Strike: Post Perspective
Post production clearly follows production, so what happens when production has no scripts to shoot?
In this week’s podcast we talk with David S. Cohen of Variety to get a post production perspective on the effect of the Writers Guild strike.
The Art of Wire Removal
In our continuing and popular “Art of…” series, we tackle wire and rig removal. Far from being the most glamourous of visual effects, in reality wire removal is extremely challenging. We audit the current approaches and techniques of the craft. In this week’s podcast, we speak with Aaron Rhode from The Orphanage about the complex 2D and 3D solutions for scenes with wires.
Building The Ark
Grzegorz Jonkajtys directed the short film Arka (The Ark), which makes heavy use of miniatures and won Siggraph Best of Show this year. The beautiful, yet deeply sad film is the tale of an unknown virus has destroyed almost the entire human population. The title refers to the attempted escape by the only remaining survivors in a flotilla of huge ships, in search of uninhabited and uncontaminated land.