fxpodcast #245: VFX roundtable – Scott Squires, Scott Ross, David Rand
Jeff Heusser talks to three visual effects industry veterans – Scott Squires, Scott Ross and David Rand – about the recent developments in VFX, from globalization to unionization to subsidies to working conditions to recognition and other on-going issues.
fxpodcast #244: Film and game convergence
This week we speak to Hybride Technologies President Pierre Raymond about the convergence of films and games. Hybride is now a division of the game giant Ubisoft.
fxpodcast #243: Life of Pi VFX supe Bill Westenhofer
This week we talk to Rhythm & Hues visual effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer. Bill was the overall VFX supe on Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, one of the nominees for the Best Visual Effects Oscar this year and a recent BAFTA and VES winner.
fxpodcast #242: VFX legend Bill Taylor
This week, we talk to visual effects supervisor, director of photography and Illusion Arts founder Bill Taylor, who has been voted the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
fxpodcast #241: Sci-tech winner: Mocha
We speak to Imagineer Systems CEO John-Paul Smith about the development of the amazing tracking / roto software mocha. John-Paul and his colleagues will be awarded a Scientific & Engineering Award at the upcoming Sci-Tech Oscars.
fxpodcast #240: VES Award nominee Eran Dinur
Visual effects supervisor Eran Dinur, from Brainstorm Digital, is part of the team nominated for a VES Award for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Broadcast Program for Men Who Built America.
fxpodcast #239: KATANA SciTech Oscar, Steve LaVietes
A conversation about the development of KATANA with Steve LaVietes, back end pipeline architect from Sony Pictures Imageworks. The developers of KATANA will receive a Scientific and Technical Technical Achievement Award from the Academy this year.
fxpodcast #238: Creature Animation: Gollum, Goblins & 48fps
In this podcast we talk to Weta Digital animation supervisor David Clayton about his work for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, covering Goblins, Gollum and working at 48fps.
fxpodcast #237: Carl Rosendahl, from PDI to the future of VFX
Mike speaks to Carl Rosendahl, founder of PDI, venture capitalist & industry titan, about his history and a key VES speech he made mapping out the issues for our industry looking forward. It is a compelling & unapologieticly frank examination.
fxpodcast #236: Adam Howard VFX Supervisor
This week we speak to Adam Howard, vfx supervisor. We discuss his amazing career and touch on his latest film supervising on the last Twilight Film.
fxpodcast #235: Skyfall vfx supe Steve Begg
This week we talk to Steve Begg, the overall visual effects supervisor for the latest James Bond film, Skyfall. Begg discusses working with miniatures, practical effects and CG work.
fxpodcast #234: Andy Beach on digital video
This week Jeff Heusser talks to Andy Beach, a specialist in digital video, streaming media and video compression who has worked at companies such as Microsoft, Apple and Adobe.
fxpodcast #233: Flame 20th Edition
We speak with Autodesk lead product designer Philippe Soeiro about the brand new 20th Anniversary Edition release of Flame.
fxpodcast #232: Cloud Atlas and Rise FX
This week we talk to Rise FX visual effects supervisor Florian Gellinger about his studio’s work for Cloud Atlas, including the Lidar scanning services provided by sister company pointcloud9
fxpodcast #231: PDI co-founder Richard Chuang
This week we talk to Richard Chuang, one of the co-founders of pioneering graphics, VFX and animation studio PDI. Chuang is now a founder of media collaboration company Cloudpic Global. He’ll also presenting on the rise of computer graphics in Asia at SIGGRAPH Asia 2012 in Singapore.
fxpodcast #230: The Dark Knight Rises
We speak in depth with VFX supervisor Paul Franklin from Double Negative about the effects in Chris Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. Paul will be presenting the visual effects of the film at SIGGRAPH Asia 2012 on Friday 30th November.
fxpodcast #229: Foundry/Luxology roundtable
We gather experts from the VFX and gaming fields to discuss the possible implications of The Foundry and Luxology merger. Mike Seymour talks to Kim Libreri (Senior ILM and LucasArts VFX supervisor), Rob Bredow (CTO, Sony Pictures Imageworks), Sebastian Sylwan (CTO, Weta Digital) and Tim Crowson (lead CG artist, Magnetic Dreams).
fxpodcast #228: ICT’s Abhijeet Ghosh
This week we talk to Abhijeet Ghosh from the USC Institute for Creative Technologies about a range of issues relating to polarized light, surface normals, Brewster’s angle and the reproduction of human skin, which he spoke about recently at SIGGRAPH 2012 in LA.
fxpodcast #227 – Effects DOP Marty Rosenberg
This week, a special re-broadcast of an interview with renowned Effects DOP Marty Rosenberg. This ep coincides with the announcement of our fxphd live practical fx & digital integration workshop at 32TEN Studios in California. (Recorded just after Kerner had become separate from ILM).
fxpodcast #226: A single-shot light probe
This week we talk to Paul Debevec from the USC ICT about a SIGGRAPH paper on a single-shot light probe – a new light probe with both diffuse and specular materials that can capture the full dynamic range of complex lighting conditions in one standard digital photograph.
fxpodcast #225: Dneg’s new lighting pipeline
Philippe Leprince, Head of Lighting & Rendering at Double Negative, talks to Mike Seymour about Dneg’s new lighting and rendering pipeline, which came into play for Total Recall.
fxpodcast #224: Jim Blinn – the full interview
Here is the audio interview with Jim Blinn (see also our fxguide story for images and more background).
fxpodcast: SIGGRAPH 2012 – Animation Physics
This week we speak to Alejandro Garcia, a professor at San Jose State University, about how an understanding of physics can help achieve believable animation.
fxpodcast: Alvy Ray Smith
It is a real pleasure & honor to offer you this in-depth interview with Dr Alvy Ray Smith, the man who jointly or personally: Invented Paint, Alpha, Dir. the Genesis seq., worked at XEROX PARC, NYIT, Lucasfilm, PIXAR, Microsoft and a multiple tech Ocsar winner.
fxpodcast: Brave Simulations
This week on the fxpodcast we speak to Pixar’s Claudia Chung, simulation supervisor on Brave. In this in-depth and engaging discussion we look at the complex ground breaking simulation work in Pixar’s newest animated feature. Warning: this podcast contains plot spoilers.
fxpodcast: Prometheus
This week we speak to Martin Hill, Weta’s VFX Supervisor about the advances in Weta’s Sub-Surface Scattering algorithms, the development of the Engineers, the map room, and THAT med-bed scene.
fxpodcast: colorist Aidan Farrell
Aidan Farrell, co-founder of The Farm in London, recently won a BAFTA Special Award for his long career as a colorist. This is the third in our series highlighting the World’s Greatest Colorists. Mike Seymour talks to him about 90’s music videos, cutting edge documentaries and period dramas.
fxpodcast: Battleship
This week we talk to ILM visual effects supervisor Grady Cofer about the water sims required for the alien invasion feature Battleship.
fxpodcast: Dark Shadows
We talk with in depth Angus Bickerton about the new Tim Burton / Johnny Depp film Dark Shadows, and Angus’s views on the industry.
fxpodcast: Visual Effects Guild – the IATSE interview
Interview with Peter Marley, International Representative for IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees). The IA represents most of the below the line crew on a film, in this exclusive interview he makes the case for a Visual Effects Guild.