Green Lantern: Sony suits up

fxguide talks to several members of the Sony Pictures Imageworks team responsible for bringing many of Green Lantern’s visual effects to the screen.

Feel The Pulse of Indian Media Industry

Clusters College For Media & design and Malayala Manorama is organizing a career seminar on Visual Effects and Audio Engineering in Trivandrum, Kerala. Those who like to attend the program can call 97470 10001. Registration to this program is free. 

Going Deeper into X-Men's Origins ( Find out how they created X-Men Prequel)

Find out how they created some new and rebooted super powers for the latest X-Men prequel.

In X-Men: First Class, the origin of the X-Men world is born during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, with Charles Xavier/Professor X (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto meeting and becoming friends and rivals. The VFX challenge was to visually convey the nascent super powers in exciting and diverse ways, including Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Emma Frost (January Jones) and the supper baddie, Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon).

John Dykstra, a legend in the VFX world, of course, is no stranger to comic superheroes (Spider-Man). But, as the visual effects designer, he was faced with some new challenges in turning out 1,150 shots: time and budgetary constraints and collaborating with global vendors (among them Digital Domain, Rhythm & Hues, MPC, Cinesite, Weta Digital, Method Studios and Luma Pictures).

"We had a very collapsed schedule," Dykstra concedes. "It was slightly less than a year and I've never done anything like that before (Spider-Man was frequently two years). It was a unique experience for me and I had my misgivings about it, but I really liked [director] Matthew Vaughn's irreverent approach to Kick-Ass. And one of the things I think that the superhero genre lacks is the ability to poke fun at itself. The characters are self-deprecating and I love the whole idea of it being the '60s. When he talked to me initially, he said he wanted it to have the feeling of a James Bond film, and I think it does. We shot in England in the wintertime, and, of course, this is an iconic American film, so the challenge was to find environments that either echoed the American environment feeling or that could be enhanced to look as though the stuff was shot here. The idea also was not to make a movie that looked like it was shot in the '60s…"

Dykstra got the most creative pleasure out of helping come up with the look of the iconic super powers. "In an odd way, it's like a poem: it wants to capture the essence of what the power is in a simple visual term that everybody can understand," he suggests. "Of course, some are cooler than others, so we ended up creating a very broad range of visual options for these characters, mostly in illustrations, and then we picked through the images we thought were most representative of the powers and who the characters were supposed to be.

"The most challenging thing was to come up with a range of super powers that didn't overlap each other hugely and that we could execute smoothly using Matthew's preference for original photography. We were also constrained by time in terms of preparing things from scratch."

For Shaw, the idea was to convey his ability to absorb energy like a big battery and then unleash it. All of Shaw's scenes were handled by Digital Domain, which principally focused on animating Shaw and handling certain CG environments such as the atrium and mirror room. DD's team consisted of Jay Barton (vfx supervisor), Nikos Kalaitzidis (digital effects supervisor), Bernd Angerer (animation supervisor), Brian Gazdik (effects animation supervisor) and Dan Platt (character modeling lead).

Not surprisingly, the technique for creating CG humans on this one was different from both Benjamin Button andClu: "We only had a few months to do 100 shots," Kalaitzidis suggests. "We used witness cams so all the animation had to be done by hand for Kevin's performance, and he has quite a distinctive walk and swagger. The mirror room was shot on greenscreen and we had to recreate this digital environment with animated versions of Shaw and Magneto as well as CG body doubles to reflect in the mirrors infinitely. In the past, we used mental ray for CG heads, but here we switched to Vray because we had a lot of motion blur and reflections in the mirrors, so we wanted a renderer that could utilize both.

"With Kevin Bacon's head and face, we tried to do all the look dev within the final render, within lighting itself, and then do most of the tweaks in compositing when it came to the reflections," he continues. "So we knew we had to do this out of the box immediately."

For Mystique, Rhythm & Hues (under the supervision of Greg Steele) took her transition to a more sophisticated level, according to Dykstra. "In an odd way, the conceit is that when Mystique was younger she did this transformation in a slightly different way: the scales being slightly longer and the transformation being slightly showier than when she became the more mature Rebecca."

Rhythm & Hues also did Angel's wings (modeled after a dragon fly); however, Emma Frost, which posed another significant challenge. Dykstra says they made her like a faceted crystal as opposed to a piece of glass. "That was tough getting the refraction and reflection just right, and the sharpness of the edges so she was able to move without looking like she was made of jell-o or the polygon model of a human being. It's all algorithms: figuring out how much refraction to mix in, how much reflection to include and how much world noise to include as these facets adjust relative to one another for her to be able to move."

Meanwhile, Havok (Lucas Till) required a particular character arc to his light effect, which was done by Luma Pictures (supervised by Vince Cirelli). "He learns how to master its execution which starts out as rings that go in all directions like a light bulb," Dykstra adds.

Then there's Beast (Nicholas Hoult), which was created by MPC (under the supervision of Nicolas Aithadi). The thing that was unique about it was the lack of time spent studying the transformation," Dykstra offers. And that was Matthew's choice: he chose to make it much more of a cameo. And I think that was successful. Frankly, we've seen those kinds of things happened and a very smart choice on his part."

And what's the big take away on this X-Men prequel?

"There's good news and bad news," Dykstra suggests. "The good news is that we succeeded and I'm proud of the work; the bad news is that we succeeded, which means it will be the standard for how these movies will be made. We were very, very fortunate. We had a director willing to give us responsibility and to trust us to provide him with what he needed, and that decision-making process was collapsed. I hope this doesn't become the norm, but, having said that, I'm sure this will become the norm."

Bill Desowitz is senior editor of AWN & VFXWorld.

How to Photograph a Rainbow

A Rainbow is something that has the power to stop you in your tracks when it unexpectedly appears when you’re least expecting to see one. They’re beautiful – but how do you photograph a rainbow?

Following are a few Rainbow Photography Tips that come to mind – feel free to add your own to comments below:

Find a Rainbow

This is the most obvious but also perhaps the hardest part of the process. Their appearance will depend upon the conditions and they are something that will often happen completely out of the blue. Having said this – you should especially be on the look out for rainbows when you have two elements present – falling/spraying water droplets and bright sunlight. As a result they’re common when a storm is approaching and around waterfalls/sprinklers/fountains.

Backgrounds

As rainbows are not solid objects one of the keys to photographing them is to capture them in front of a background that allows them to stand out as much as possible. Ideally you’ll want to get a background that is uncluttered and if possible one that has darker colors (think dark clouds, mountains etc). While it’s not always possible to change the background – you might find that you’re able to change the angle that you’re shooting from or to focus just upon part of the rainbow that is in front of a good background.

Composition

While rainbows are a beautiful thing – it’s the surrounds that they appear in that make one rainbow photograph really stand out from others. As a result it’s important to carefully think about how you compose your shot when photographing them. Particularly pay attention to the following:

• Positioning – how you position the rainbow (and the rest of the landscape) in your shot is important. Rules like the rule of thirds could be useful when thinking about focal points and leading the eye into your shot.
• End Points of the Rainbow – the point where a rainbow hits the ground/horizon is an important point in any rainbow photograph. This is a natural point of interest so think about where you’ll put it in the frame. You might want to zoom in on this spot or even quickly change your own position so that it lines up with some other object in the scene.
• Zoom/Wide Angle Perspectives - quickly experiment with different focal lengths (if you have different lenses or a zoom). A wide angle lens that captures a full rainbow can give you some wonderful wide vista shots – but don’t forget that zooming right in on a part of the rainbow can also lead to spectacular results. Particularly focus in on any point where the rainbow intersects with any object – or where it begins and ends.

Read more: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/how-to-photograph-a-rainbow#ixzz1OpxvqXzy

London calling for Pirates 4 at Cinesite

On Stranger Tides is the fourth film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. This time around Jack Sparrow and Barbossa are searching for the fountain of youth, but so is their foe Blackbeard and his daughter. fxguide talks to Cinesite about their visual effects contribution to the film, which was the studio’s first full stereo 3D project, with the work spanning a carriage chase sequence through London, CG toads and the creation of Barbossa’s peg leg.

Paws, claws and jaws in Attack the Block

In director Joe Cornish’s debut feature film, Attack the Block, a South London teenage gang squares up against an army of invading alien monsters. Stockholm visual effects and animation studio Fido contributed around 100 shots to enhance the on-set creatures. Here's an fxinsider article at fxguide that takes a look at how Fido created CG fur, paws, claws and jaws for the film. Warning: spoilers

An Interview with Dhaneesh Jameson on making of Wilson Periera via Cgtantra.com

Born and Brought up in Kerala ( God's Own Country unearthing brilliance in an artist ) the World's inspirations etched on his mind translating into a sketch on his canvas, Dhaneesh today has a story to tell. The story of Wilson Periera!

Dhaneesh Jameson all of 26, his thoughts meandering towards Dark humor, has won several accolades for One Fine Friday. Again to prove his mettle at handling the melancholic with subtle wit, he is on the threshold of bringing Wilson Periera to light. Here is a little chit chat that we had with him and he pours out his travels in conveying yet another interesting story. Here's to Wilson Periera and the artistic wilderness of Dhaneesh's talent.

We are waiting to watch the entire film, the film that allured Naseeruddin Shah, Tom Alter, Mohanlal and made them give voice overs for the protagonist! 

To view complete article, interview and clip , follow the link http://www.cgtantra.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=458&Itemid=40

31 Mind Blowing VFX Breakdowns

31 VFX breakdowns that are sure to inspire you.
http://ae.tutsplus.com/articles/31-mind-blowing-vfx-breakdowns/

Glassworks goes big for MINI

‘MINI vs Monster’, a stereoscopic spot directed by Robert Jitzmark, features digital crowds and other VFX by Glassworks. Lead 2D and 3D artists Morton Vinther and Markus Lauterbach from the studio’s Amsterdam office break down the work for an fxinsider interview at fxguide. Included is a making of VFX clip.

Stargate crashes The Event

In the second episode of NBC series The Event, a plane once headed to kill the President mysteriously emerges from a wormhole and spectacularly crash-lands in the desert, care of visual effects from Stargate Studios. Lead compositor Diego Galtieri takes fxguide through the plane sequence.

Rhythm & Hues' animation for Yogi Bear

For Yogi Bear, Rhythm & Hues mixed 3D versions of the beloved Hanna-Barbera characters with live action whilst preserving the popular elements of the 2D cartoons. Here's my article at fxguide where I talked to visual effects supervisor Betsy Paterson and animation director Joe Ksander about getting the right performances out of a 3D Yogi and Boo Boo.

The visual effects of Black Swan

For Black Swan, director Darren Aronofsky turned to Look Effects to help bring his dark New York ballerina story to life. Look's visual effects supervisor Dan Schrecker oversaw 220 shots for the film, from full CG swan wings to prosthetic augmentation, face replacements and other enhancements. Here's my article at fxguide.

Face replacement in TRON: Legacy

fxguide's Mike Seymour has an in-depth article on Digital Domain's face replacement effects for TRON: Legacy. Includes a bunch of great behind-the-scenes pics, too.

An update on updates at fxguide

There are a bunch of cool new postings at fxguide. Check out Mike Seymour's article on Hiring Around the World, with tips and info from recruiters at some of the big vfx facilities. Mike also has an fxpodcast with vfx supe Matthew Unwin about MPC's 'Cubehead' Drench spot, with some behind the scenes clips. Then there's Jeff Heusser's report from the VES 1099 Dilemma event which looked at labor issues facing companies and artists. The latest fxguidetv episode has interviews with Animal Logic artists about their briliant Legend of the Guardians animated feature, plus a round-up of the new term coming at fxphd. The latest RED centre podcast has an interview with the guys behind the RED Barn and Vegas HDRx shots, plus the Red Bull Stratos in the RedRoom and the Teradek Cube Ninjas. And if that's not enough, head over to the Tom Cruise blog which has a posting on visual effects training (and mentions fxguide and vfxblog!).

SWAY Studio's VFX for MINI Countryman spot

For 'Flow', a spot promoting the 2011 MINI Countryman, SWAY Studio created hundreds of vehicles magically splitting, reforming and driving with precision through the streets of Milan. Here's my interview at fxguide with visual effects supervisor Aaron Powell about the use of SWAY's Drive-a-Tron driving simulation tool for the commercial.

NVIDIA GPU Conference: 3ds Max Adds iRay Rendering Support

The 2010 NVIDIA GTC conference kicked off yesterday in San Jose and in its second year is more than double in size from last year. What’s the conference all about and why do we care? Consider it something of a SIGGRAPH-style gathering, but focusing on GPU technology. The speed curve in GPU technology is quickly outpacing that of CPUs, and its massive parallel processing and lower power consumption is finding adoption in areas of the visual effects and post business. This year’s CS5 Adobe’s Mercury Playback Engine , The Foundry’s Blink Technology, and ILM’s fire simulations are all examples of this technology touching our industry. If you look at the conference as a whole, it’s clear that GPU tech — and NVIDIA’s CUDA specifically — is hitting critical mass.

At the opening keynote, Autodesk announced that 3ds Max will include Mental Images iRay support, added in a maintenance release which will be available to subscription holders on September 29th. While not designed for rendering sequences, direct iRay support does give the ability to get speedy ray-traced stills utilizing CUDA technology on supported graphics card. Mental Images’ Michael Kaplan presented a session at GTC on Tuesday which covered a bit of background about iRay as well as the new support in 3ds. Click through for the press release and more details about the 3ds support.

Before the press release, some key details from Michael Kaplan about iRay in 3ds Max:

Materials: Supports standard advanced rendering materials in 3ds Max. No special or vendor specific materials required

• Arch and Design Materials
• Pro Materials (Autodesk Materials, v1 and v2)
• mia_materials
• Subset of standard materials

Lights: Supports standard advanced rendering lights in 3ds Max

• Photometric lights
• IES profile lights
• Area lights
• Point lights, spot lights, directional lights
• HDR environment maps, domes
• Max Sun&Sky model
• Emissive surfaces (additional color)

Map Support

• Bump maps
• Diffuse, specular, transparency, refraction, reflection, anistotropy, etc.
• Map blends
• 2D noise, 3D noise

Geometry: all 3ds Max geometry, including displacement geometry

Cameras: Full 3ds Max camera support

• mia_lens_shader
• Depth of field supported without performance penalty

And the press release from NVIDIA:

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GPU Technology Conference 2010 (GTC), SAN JOSE, Calif. – Sept. 21, 2010 -NVIDIA and Autodesk are jointly demonstrating powerful new capabilities based upon NVIDIA technology, expected to come to Autodesk(r) 3ds Max(r) software Subscription members as part of the 3ds Max 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack this fall. NVIDIA and Autodesk have worked to revolutionize photorealistic rendering and physics simulation with the integration ofthe new GPU-accelerated iray(r) renderer from mental images>(r) and a new rigid bodyphysics workflow powered by NVIDIA(r) PhysX(tm) technology into both Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk(r) 3ds Max(r) Design 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack software.

The new iray renderer within 3ds Max provides creative visualization artists with a more intuitive means for creating images that rival photographs, in a fraction of the time needed with traditional workflows. 3D artists can now use materials and lights which correspond and react more like those in the physical world to more quickly bring their 3ds Max worlds to life, rather than juggling a multitude of computer graphics controls to merely approximate it. The iray workflow is enhanced with considerable acceleration from NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) based on the NVIDIA CUDA(tm) architecture. While iray produces identical images on either CPUs or GPUs, 3ds Max users will enjoy up to 6X faster results over dual quad-core CPUs when using a GPU such as the new NVIDIA Quadro(r) 5000 or Tesla(tm) C2050. Designers looking for the fastest iray results can further boost their speed by adding additional NVIDIA GPUs to their system.

NVIDIA PhysX technology fuels a new rigid body dynamics feature set for 3ds Max, allowing animators to control their simulations directly within the 3ds Max viewport. The PhysX feature supports static, dynamic, and kinematic rigid bodies and an array of constraints in a more efficient workflow that has been production proven by numerous game developers over the past several years. Realistic results are more quickly achieved by choosing from preset real-world materials having physical properties, and then tweaking parameters as required. The resulting simulations are immediatelyusable by effects artists and have a seamless data path to the PhysX engine employed by top tier game developers such as Sumea and Obsidion.

“We continually aim to provide superior workflows and cutting-edge capabilities within 3ds Max, and the rendering and physics solutions powered byNVIDIA technologies excel at continuing that 20 year tradition,” said Ken Pimentel, director of Visual Communication Solutions at Autodesk. “This update is a terrific leap forward for our 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design Subscription members, who will have physics directly in their viewports with PhysX and can soon enter this next stage of the rendering revolution with iray’s GPU accelerated rendering.”
To learn more, visit: www.nvidia.com/quadro

The visual effects of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

In Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the title character woos his new girlfriend by battling her seven evil exes in Japanese Anime-style fights punctuated with video game-like on-screen graphics. Visual effects supervisor Frazer Churchill oversaw more than 1200 shots for film. fxguide takes a look at the work by Double Negative and Mr. X.

The Role Of The Visual Effects Supervisor

Definitions         
Note that there is no union position for visual effects supervisor, there’s no certification process for this role and there is no standard to how any of this works so I’ll be describing what is industry practice.

A Visual Effects Supervisor is in charge of the creative and technical issues of visual effects on a project. This position starts in pre-production and continues through the completion of the visual effects in post-production. This can span 1 to 2 years on a large project. The supervisor typically works with a visual effects producer who focuses on the budget and schedule aspects of the work. If the project has a large amount of animation then there will be probably be an Animation Supervisor as well.

These days there’s likely to be multiple visual effects supervisors on a visual effects film. If the film has a large number of shots then it sometimes makes sense to split up the work with each supervisor overseeing specific sequences to provide the attention required. In this case they may be referred to as co-supervisors. Associate Supervisor is sometimes a title given to someone who is moving up into the role of supervisor and who has a smaller number of shots compared to the other supervisor(s) on the project. Senior supervisor is sometimes used as an honorary title given to someone at a company who has been at the company a long time and who is able to step in if there are problems on a show.

Given the increase in visual effects shots on a show, the reduction in post production time allowed by the studio and in an effort to count every bean by the studio, work on a large effects driven show is typically spread over multiple companies. Each company handles specific sequences or types of effects and these companies will have their own visual effects supervisor. The film production or studio may hire a vfx supervisor or at least a vfx producer to oversee the work of these companies.

A Plate supervisor is usually a visual effects supervisor who is just involved in the live action or shooting background plates. Plate is the term used for footage that is shot to be used for visual effects. This can be a foreground, background or other elements. With or without actors. (Elements are all the different images used to make up the final shot). The plate supervisor may be hired so the main supervisor can continue to oversee the work back at the vfx company or studio. A plate supervisor may also be hired to shoot specific images half way around the world while principal photography is being done.

Start up
When a film has been greenlit (approved by the studio to proceed into production) or close to greenlit then the film production (director, producer) works with the studio head of visual effects if there is one. This position is primarily a producer type of role to oversee multiple films in various stages of production. This office usually has their own list of approved vendors (visual effects companies) which they forward the script to. They would also play a role in hiring a visual effects supervisor and visual effects producer for the film if there is one.

Each vfx company has their own supervisor and producer breakdown the shots and bid on the show. If there is a show vfx supervisor and producer they review the bids and work with the studio visual effects department to award the work to different companies.

Pre-production
The supervisor works closely with the director to get a sense of what the director is looking for on each sequence and each shot. This is done by employing concept artists, storyboard artists and previs artists to create visual guides. The idea is to solidify the vision of the director and allow the supervisor to work out the technical aspects of completing the shot. The supervisor decides which techniques to use and what will be required when the live action is shot. This is usually done with involvement of the vfx departments and/or companies. If the visual effects supervisor works at a company he/she usually determines the key players (CG supervisor, sequence leads, etc) with the aid of the vfx producer.

Most visual effects work happens after filming but some things such Research and Development (R&D) and model building (physical and computer graphics) can begin earlier. The supervisor will be overseeing this during pre-production. This can be time critical if the R&D will determine the best way to photograph a sequence. The pipeline may also be developed or adjusted for the type of project during this time. Pipeline is essentially the workflow through the facility and the software tools to help that process. (databases to track elements, computer scripts to move or configure files, etc)

The supervisor works with the other film production department heads (Director of Photography, 1st Asst Director, Production Designer, Special Effects, Stunts, etc) to outline the vfx requirements during filming. This can cover bluescreen, motion control, special lighting, etc.

Production
The supervisor is involved in all the live action photography that requires visual effects. This can mean 6 months in a distant country or months on a sound stage. If multiple companies are involved with a large number of shots they each may send their own supervisor when one of their sequences is being filmed. On a large show it’s common to have a 2nd unit. This can be a full crew with it’s own 2nd Unit Director to film action sequences or other sequences and shots that don’t require a lot of the principals (main actors). This will require an effects supervisor as well if the work involves visual effects. Plate supervisors may be employed to help oversee this work depending on the volume of work and schedules.

If there are issues with the actors (eyeline, timing, action with a creature to be added later, etc) I tend to discuss it with the director for him/her to guide the actor. This avoids problems with the actors getting multiple and contradictory instructions.

This may seem like a lot of work but a huge amount of the success of a shot is based on it being filmed correctly to begin with. This means making sure the actors eyelines are correct, the lighting matches the situation when possible, clean plates and information is gathered at the time of photography (lighting references, match move markers and data, etc)

One of the most detrimental decisions a production can make (from a cost and quality stand point) is when they attempt to shoot a visual effects shot and have you just ‘fix’ it later. And believe me if the supervisor turns his/her back for moment production will try to get off a shot. This is most likely to happen when the director has done a previous effects film and ended up with good looking shots despite problems shooting. What they never see is the amount of work and extra costs any of this entails.

I’ll probably do a blog post sometime about the ins and outs of plate photography.

Post Production
Once the footage has been shot the film moves into post production. Ideally editing has been proceeding even during production and some sequences have been locked so visual effects work can begin even during production. As sequences are edited they are turned over by the director to the supervisor and the visual effects team.

How the work proceeds and how it’s structured is determined largely by the supervisor and producer. Sometimes it’s best to rough in quick animation and composites for all the shots of a sequences. That allows the director and editor see a sequence in context and see if major changes are required before you final every shot. If the director has a difficult time visualizing the supervisor may have to wait until the shots are further along before presenting them to the director. Some directors have difficulty making decisions based on ‘plastic’ animation renders so these would need a higher level of rendering.

Production may require reshoots months after production if there are editorial or technical issues with the footage. Additional background plates may have to be shot for sequences, especially if there has been a change from the original plan. Once again these would require an effects supervisor or plate supervisor.

Dailies
A supervisor’s day usually starts with review of dailies. I typically review them on my workstation and make notes before stepping through with the team or individuals involved. Even spending a few minutes per shot adds up with you have quite a number of shots in production. As much as you try to balance the schedule invariably you have a large number of shots to be reviewed as you get close to the final deadline. This can mean spending the entire morning reviewing shots. Trying to balance a pat on the back for the work done so far on a shot and encouragement with the need to list the items still need to be completed to finish the shot is a tough. Usually the pat on the back is the first thing to go as the schedule gets tighter. It’s no disrespect to the crew members, just the realities of getting a large volume of work done.

In the afternoon the supervisor may have meetings to review scheduling, budgets, new sequences, R&D status,etc. He/she may have to present the director the latest shots or sit down with individual artists to discuss any updates/changes from the morning dailies.

The supervisor usually puts in the same hours as the rest of the production crew. 10-12 hour minimum. 5-7 days a week.


Finals
The director is involved in all decisions from the approval of the original designs and through to the final shot. The director has to buy off on the animation before the final rendering and compositing is done.

One of the things the supervisor has to do is work with the director on getting shots finaled (approved) in a timely manner. It’s very easy to get too focused on every detail in a shot, especially if you’re looping the shot over and over on a computer. Matte lines and added elements can always be tweaked more. Unfortunately if you have hundreds of shots to do in a limited time and the supervisor or director becomes too picky or tweak happy then the first shots will look great but the last batch of shots may look awful. For this reason there’s usually a number of target finals to accomplish per week in order to meet the deadline. Any shots that aren’t done from the week before are now added to the number that need to be completed in the current week. The idea is to create a balance so all the shots hold up and work within context of the film. If you can view it in context (with surrounding shots) 2 or 3 times without noticing a problem then it’s done.


Projects
It’s important to note that how a specific supervisor gets assigned a specific project can be very haphazard. The studio or production select what companies to send the script to for bids. This can be based on previous experience or the phase of the moon. For a supervisor who works at a vfx company, the company acts as an agent and manager. They may assign a supervisor based on who’s available from their internal supervisors at that time or who’s under a contract with them. Qualifications for a specific project may have little to do with the assignments.

Since projects take a long time (1-2 years) a supervisor may have to turn down other projects since there’s already a commitment for the current project. Project offers come in one at a time so the supervisor has to decide if he wants to take it or pass and hope something better comes soon. How soon that next offer comes in is unknown. You’re never offered multiple projects at the same time from which you get to choose.

The supervisor has to take in to account the creative issues, technical challenges, the manner and film history of the director and the time away from their family when deciding on whether to accept a project. Is it better to accept a mainstream big project or an art film? Is it better to do a few, simple effects shots for a high quality film or is it better to do a large number of challenging shots for a simple action film? Each supervisor has to make a call given the situation at that time.


Requirements and guidelines for a visual effects supervisor
--------------------------------------------------
A good visual effects supervisor is a bit of jack of all trades.

Knowledge of a wide range of visual effects techniques and positions.

Experience dealing with a wide range of visual effects techniques and positions. As good as some training material is there’s still nothing like true hands on experience. If you’ve had to paint out a rig or extract a key from a poorly shot bluescreen you’re more likely to think twice and make sure it’s shot correctly. If you haven’t done it you may hope to just toss it into the black box and expect it to come out ok.

Ability to visualize shots and review them in detail within the minds eye before they’re shot.

Creative eye. Knowing composition, cinematic design and animation timing.

Understanding of photography and lighting. Knowing what’s looks real and what looks cinematic.

Good communication skills. Discussing a visual or technical issue with a director and also being able to turn around and discuss it with the technical team in a manner appropriate for the listener. The director shouldn’t need a translator.

Get in sync with the director’s vision. After working with the director awhile you should have the ability to predict how they will react to a given specific shots or issues.

Good working relationship with the director. The director has to have trust and confidence in the supervisor and the supervisor has to work for the director. The supervisor may provide his guidance and ideas to the director but at the end of the day it’s the director’s decision.

Know your battles. Knowing when it’s worth fighting for an extra 10 minutes on stage and when it’s not. When is it worth pushing a specific creative viewpoint or when it’s worth trying to get an updated animatic.

Problem solving. There’s always problems to solve. Technical, creative, logistic and scheduling.

Thinking quickly. Time is money on a film set and when things change the supervisor has to step in make adjustments while keeping in mind the impact in the rest of the process. You always have to be considering several moves ahead as in chess.

Management and people skills. Dealing with a number of different types of personalities (on the live action crew and visual effects crew as well as the director) and trying to keep everyone focused on the goal.

Attention to detail. Keeping an eye on large and small details that will make a shot finished.

Organized. Each shot has to be broken down into each element and how those elements are to be generated or filmed. Any feedback from the director has to be noted and executed.

Team work Film making and visual effects are both team efforts and will require everyone to work together. The supervisor has to take key responsibilities and at other times be able to delegate to key members of the team. He/she has to be open to listening to members of their crew. I try to surround myself with the best and smartest people in their jobs.

KISS Keep it simple stupid. It’s difficult enough to do the work without making everything extra complicated. Is an elaborate process or 20 extra elements worth it for a 2 second shot?

Budget and time. One manager told me it was my job to spend as much of the budget as possible and it was the producers job to try to keep me from doing that. I think that’s wrong. The supervisor has to keep in mind the budget and time when selecting the techniques and figuring out the pacing for the work. If you run out of time or money before completion the results will show it and it won’t be pleasant for anyone.

Think outside the box. The first solution that jumps into your mind may not be the best. Consider it from all angles and all trade-offs.

Living with changes. Everyone working in visual effects has to take changes in stride. The director may change his mind completely after you and your crew have spent a lot of time and effort finishing a shot or sequence. It’s a creative process so that’s the nature of the beast.

Tolerance and balance. The supervisor becomes the fulcrum of production (cost, time) and the artist requirements. If you’re at a VFX company, management and the vfx producer will want you to ‘sell’ the shot to the director as quickly as possible. Yet you’ll have an obligation to the director to make sure the quality of the work and their vision is maintained. I’ve had producers tell me to tell the director he/she can’t do something. Being placed in the middle of political film production issues is no fun. The studio can also become involved in this process, especially if the film has gone over schedule or budget. Awkward for all involved.

Thick skin. The supervisor may be yelled at for things out of their control or may be berated for doing something a specific way (even if it’s exactly what the director had requested the day before).

Keeping your cool. See all of the above.


Becoming a visual effects supervisor
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First you have to decide if becoming a visual effects supervisor is what you want to do. It may sound great but it involves a large amount of pressure and politics.
There’s certainly something nice about focusing on a specific aspect and doing a great job compared to being pulled in multiple directions. A supervisor seldom get much hands on effects time and getting work becomes more daunting since there are a limited number of visual effects supervisors employed compared to technical directors or others in the visual effects crew.

If you’ve only worked in one area of visual effects then you’re likely to try to solve every visual effects shot with those techniques. I’ve seen people who only had physical model experience trying to create an effect with a physical model that would have been easier, faster and more importantly, better done with an animation camera. I’ve seen other people try to write elaborate software programs for something that could have been filmed and composited in a fraction of the time.

These days most people employed in visual effects are assigned to a specific area of work. I was fortunate enough on my first film, Close Encounters, to work in most of the departments (Motion control, model photography, animation camera, matte camera, R&D and model shop)

It’s up to you try to try to keep moving up in your area and to expand outward. Talk to your employer and see if you can help out in other areas or take training in other areas if they offer it. Some VFX companies like to have people who can accomplish a number of different tasks. Animation and technical directoring, matchmoving and writing shaders, etc.

Try to get on to a set to see how things work. Most people working behind the computer screen have no idea of the issues involved in the shooting process (‘and why didn’t they shoot that other element on the set’). It can be helpful for a technical director to work as a match mover or data collector as an example.

If you’ve only work with computer graphics try to get some experience with miniatures and visa versa.

You’ll have to make your own opportunities. Continue to educate yourself on your own. When you think you have a true understanding and feel you have enough experience then see if you can work on a small project (short film, few shots on a local commercial or independent film). Jumping into the deep end of a visual effects heavy film is not for the faint of heart nor for those with limited skill sets.

Good luck.

Courtesy
Scott Squires.
http://effectscorner.blogspot.com

James Cameron’s Titanic 3D in April 2012

And yes, James Cameron is probably the best person when it comes to three dimensional world, since he’s already preparing 2012 release for the 3D version of Titanic, which will coincide with the “100 year anniversary of the sailing of the ship.”

Yeah, we are talking about Titanic! Nobody should be surprised with this date, because, let us remind you Cameron has previously stated that Fox is targeting Spring 2012 release for the 3D version, to coincide with the “100 year anniversary of the sailing of the ship“.

We all remember this epic romantic story whith Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio quite well, don’t we?

The huge ship RMS Titanic started its journey on April 10, 1912 from Southampton, England. On April 14, 1912, the ship sank after striking a massive iceberg, and only 706 people survived while 1,517 people lost their lives due to the lack of lifeboats. 

Rose DeWitt Bukator, one of the survivors of that tragedy, explained the whole story of sinking of the ship Titanic and also elaborated on her romantic experiences with an artist called Jack Dawson.

And now, some numbers! Titanic movie, of course, was made on a budget of $200m making it the most expensive movie made until that date, but the box office takings of $1.8bn justified the money spent for Twentieth Century Fox & Paramount

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So, before we all start with our negative comments on that conversion-thing, let’s just repeat that intended month of release is nearly two years away, so it’s not just about the historical timing, it’s about some serious "3D work“ as well.