CG Jobs Grow, Henry Sellick Talks & Transformers Best VFX Ever?
Computer Animation Jobs Are Among Fastest Growing in Hollywood
(careertrainingdirectory.com) So you think it's impossible
to make it in Tinseltown? Maybe it is, if you work in computer
animation: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of
movie and video production industry jobs are growing faster than the
average for all occupations.
And here's the most important part—animation and other
multimedia-related jobs are expected to grow particularly fast,
rendering them more accessible than jobs like actor or director.
That may be hard to believe, but it's true. Between 2004 and 2014,
computer animation jobs in the film industry are expected to grow by
nearly 40 percent. Average employment growth in the industry is
expected to reach 17 percent during the same period, which is consider
strong by all measures. So the growth among multimedia art and
computer animation jobs is especially remarkable.
What accounts for all this growth? Advances in special effects
technology, particularly those created with computer animation.
Sophisticated animation software allows multimedia artists to create
highly creative, fantasy-driven backdrops, such as those seen in
movies like the Harry Potter and Star Wars series. Even romantic
comedies may feature animation to create a stunt that's too dangerous
for a person to carry out, or to create talking animals or other
creative elements.
More: http://www.careertrainingdirectory.com/features/2007/04/computer_animation_jobs_are_among_fastest_growing.html
Jacobs Ladder Remake In The Works
(scifi.com) A remake of the cult classic – code for 'didn't do
well theatrically, but made a mint on video' – "Jacobs Ladder" is in
the works, according to Variety.
Alison Rosenzweig, producer of the upcoming thriller "Transit," about
a family road trip gone horribly awry, has apparently set the wheels
in motion on a the Tim Robbins redo.
Directed by Adrian Lyne, the 1990 film told of a traumatized Vietnam
War veteran (Robbins) who finds out that his post-war life isn't what
he believes it to be when he's attacked by horned creatures in the
subway and his dead son comes to visit him.
VFX Breakdown: How 'Transformers' Transform
(sanluisobispo.com) In one of several 'Oh my' moments in
Michael Bay's "Transformers," Optimus Prime and Bonecrusher emerge
from the smoke and flames of an exploding bus to tangle on a Southern
California freeway at high speed.
The shot is stunning: Tires point to the sky, vehicles careen toward
the camera and small chunks of concrete go rooster-tailing past the
flames. That's not to mention the two giant robots in the center of
the action.
The scene becomes a mere prelude to the climactic battle along
Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. But asap pressed the pause button to
find out how the sequence came together.
Visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar led a team of 350 people at the
George Lucas-created Industrial Light & Magic, who were tweaking
visuals as late as a couple weeks before the hotly anticipated movie's
July 2 release.
Farrar began working on the approximately $150 million film a year and
a half ago and was on set for much of the shoot. Below, he explains
how ILM worked with Bay to create the scene.
---
STEP ONE: LIVE ACTION
Bay's penchant for shooting chaotic action sequences on-the-fly
allowed the ILM team to blend their computer work with exciting
physical footage. It also left Farrar shuddering. He was inside a
Porsche Cayenne for the freeway chase stunt sequence alongside the
cinematographer, camera operator and driver. When a cable snapped and
whipped along the road in front of them, the driver slowed down and
swerved closer to the flaming, tumbling bus. "So we're caught between
two bad things," Farrar said. "I do think: Something bad could happen
here."
---
STEP TWO: MATCHING THE ACTION
ILM plugs the live action scene into its computers to determine how
its robots will interact with roads, walls or other objects. "Every
single thing in every single shot of this movie has to be recreated in
the computer," Farrar said. To do that, an artist on-set takes
360-degree fisheye lens photographs of each scene, so the perspective
and lighting of the live action matches the environment of the
CG-created characters. In the freeway scene, the key area was the road
plane that the vehicles and Transformers were traveling along. "Motion
pictures is the blend of science and art. There's a lot of science to
all of this."
---
STEP THREE: ROUGH ANIMATION
Production artists began sketching out early versions of the robots
before shooting began. Initially, the Transformers were depicted like
aliens - with more organic, creature-like skin textures. "We ended up
in a place that we didn't start. But it's far better," Farrar said.
"Now you go, oh I see a clutch plate, I see a differential, I see
gears and bearings on these robots. And that's why in the design they
look real. Because you as a viewer can say oh, I know what that's made
of."
---
STEP FOUR: ROUGH COMPOSITES
Farrar showed Bay early animations from a laptop while on set for the
first shooting phase at the White Sands National Monument near
Alomogordo, N.M. (standing in for Qatar. Bay could use those dailies
to adjust his shooting. "He really hasn't done a film where he had
animated characters, and he was quite adept at it," Farrar said. "You
have to inject a feeling of personality and acting into the robots."
Very little motion-capture technology was used; to create
Bonecrusher's proper movement for the freeway scene, animators went
into a basement and shot video of each other rollerblading, Farrar
said. Such sequences helped ILM visualize the final graphics.
---
STEP FIVE: REFINING ROBOTS
Bay pressed the animators to ensure each robot had recognizably
metallic surfaces, Farrar said. And Farrar worked to ensure they were
lit as if they were on a movie set. "We were pushing to make each
robot as photo-real as possible, and something that could be built in
a shop," he said. "The goal became that when you see these robots in
the shot you should know whether that's brass or steel or brushed
aluminum or chrome with bluing on the pipe, or scratches or dents."
The Optimus Prime character has over 10,000 parts, and each section
features a real-world metal painted and lit to look real and reflect
light as it would in real life, Farrar said.
---
STEP SIX: FINAL COMPOSITE
In the final stage, ILM blends their computer graphics with the
real-world action and colorizes the whole scene. In the freeway
sequence, animated fires were inserted, particles of dust and chunks
of concrete debris are added where Bonecrusher's wheels dig into the
road, and their physics are simulated by computers. "It's rather
difficult, it's tedious, expensive," Farrar said. "In a movie this big
we had to have a grand combination of everything."
---
STEP SEVEN: SIT BACK AND ENJOY
Computer graphics are blended more seamlessly with big-budget live
action in "Transformers" than in any recent movie. Farrar, who started
out in the industry as a director of photography, said he's proud of
his work. "In our computer graphics work, for a very long time we've
really struggled to make it look real. I think we've finally gotten to
a point where it does look real. And I think 'Transformers,' at least
as far as hard-bodied surfaces goes, has really hit a point where
people look at it and go whoa, I think that's a puppet but I don't
really know. That's great."
See a slideshow of the special effects transformation here:
http://asap.ap.org/data/interactives/_entertainment/transformer/
PETA Upset with Monkey Treatment on Speed Racer Set
(movieweb.com) MSNBC reports that the animal-rights group PETA
(People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)has been informed that
the monkey used in the filming of Warner Bros. Speed Racer was being
abused on the set. As a result, the organization has urged the
production company to stop using a live animal while filming:
"We are in receipt of information that may upset you," PETA wrote to
the producer Joel Silver, the man behind such megahits as the Matrix
and Die Hard series. "We've received several troubling complaints from
people who have been on the Speed Racer set and report that the main
chimpanzee 'actor' has been beaten and has bitten one of the human
actors." PETA urged Silver to stop using the live critters and switch
to animatronics.
"We appreciate the concerns of your organization," came back the
letter from movie company Warner Bros. "We also respect the vision and
choices of the filmmakers with which we work. Every option on a film
is carefully weighed, and for this production, the decision was made
to use live animals."
A spokesperson confirmed that a chimp did chomp on a young actor, but
said that the actor was treated and the animal was given a rest. She
sent along assurances from the American Humane Society that no animals
were being abused.
PETA is further investigating the matter as they have responded to
Warner Bros. reply: "No humane representative is closely monitoring
those animals while off-set or during pre-production training, the
very places where abuse is most likely to occur,"
Based on the classic 1960s series created by anime pioneer Tatsuo
Yoshida that later was retooled for North American audiences, the
big-screen film will follow the adventures of the young race car
driver Speed in his quest for glory in his thundering gadget-laden
vehicle, Mach 5. The movie will feature other characters from the
show, including Speed's family and his mysterious archrival, Racer X.
The cartoon featured Speed's younger brother Spritle and his pet
chimpanzee Chim-Chim.
Look-Alikes Being Cast for Watchmen
(comingsoon.net) The LA Daily News reports that the Watchmen
production is facing a challenge when it comes to casting look-alikes
of famous names for the big screen adaptation:
A challenging casting task involving look-alikes is under way for
Warner Bros.' "Watchmen" adaptation of Alan Moore's 1980s graphic
novel set in an alternative universe's United States. Names include
Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, H.R. Haldeman, Ted Koppel, John
McLaughlin, Annie Liebowitz, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Fidel Castro,
Albert Einstein, Norman Rockwell, JFK and Jackie Kennedy, Andy Warhol,
Mao Tze Tung and Larry King. That's going to be quite a movie.
The film will be directed by 300 helmer Zack Snyder. No cast members
have been officially announced.
Who Drew Those Cool Little Taste Explosions in 'Ratatouille'?
(nymag.com) With Ratatouille hitting No. 1 on the box-office
charts this past weekend — though its $47 million take notably fell
short of the openings of past Pixar hits Cars and Monsters, Inc. —
animator and comics artist Michael Gagné sheds light on one tiny but
delightful aspect of the film. Gagné designed and animated those nifty
little taste explosions, the vibrant representations of flavor that
surround Remy and Emilie, for director Brad Bird. On his own blog,
Gagné breaks down the process in great detail, from the first phone
call to the final product — complete with QuickTime video!
Take a look: http://www.gagneint.com/Final%20site/Animation/Pixar/Ratatouille.htm
Ron Howard Partners with THINKFilm on In the Shadow of the Moon
(THINKFilm) Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron
Howard, whose Apollo 13 remains one of the most popular and
highly-regarded dramatizations of man's exploration of space, is
partnering with THINKFilm to present the award-winning film, In the
Shadow of the Moon, the definitive feature documentary about the
Apollo space program and the first-ever landing on the moon. Howard's
name, and the "Ron Howard Presents" credit will appear on all prints
and in all paid advertising for the film, and Howard will participate
in promotion of both the theatrical release and the DVD. THINKFilm
will open In the Shadow of the Moon in exclusive engagements in New
York and Los Angeles on September 7, 2007, with an aggressive national
expansion planned throughout the month.
Henry Selick Talks Up Laika's First Stop Motion Feature
(blog.oregonlive.com) Laika film director Henry Selick showed
off images Saturday of the title character from the Portland studio's
forthcoming feature, a stop-motion picture called "Coraline" that's
due out next year.
At the Platform International Animation Festival in Portland, Selick
walked the audience through the process by which he and a team of
illustrators and modelers came up with a look for Coraline, a little
girl in Ashland whose parents are replaced by sinister duplicates.
Selick, who previously directed "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and
other stop-motion features, has a reputation for dark, mysterious
fare. Doubtless "Coraline" (based on a children's book by Neil Gaiman)
will add to that reputation, and the poster at right plays up the
creepy nature of the story.
The poster is just an artist's conception, though, not an illustration
from the movie. Coraline herself appears to be a breezy, vibrant girl
- a world away from the dark humor in "Nightmare" and other Selick
films.
No cameras were allowed Saturday, and so no picture of Coraline is
available, but the drawings and models Selick displayed depicted a
black-haired child, about 11 years old, with a mischievous grin. She
was dressed in bright colors - a skirt, leggings and oversized boots.
"Coraline" will be the first feature from Laika, which is owned by
Nike Chairman Phil Knight. Knight's son, Travis, is an animator on the
picture and - according to Selick, in Saturday's talk - had a big role
in ensuring that "Coraline" would be a stop-motion film instead of a
movie animated by computers.
Stop-motion pictures are made by filming puppets or models
frame-by-frame as their poses are adjusted to simulate movement. It's
an exacting process, but Selick said it can inject more humanity into
films.
"It's a more direct connection to your soul or your heart," he said.
"Coraline" is now in production in a temporary warehouse studio Laika
has set up in Hillsboro. The company plans to move to a new Tualatin
campus in 2009.
Separately, "Fast Company" has a profile of Phil and Travis Knight in
its July issue. The father-son pair address Travis' interest in
animation, his abortive career in rap and the painful decision to
remove veteran Pixar animator Jorgen Klubien from the director's chair
on Laika's second film, tentatively called "Jack and Ben's Animated
Adventure." Read the "Fast Company" profile here.
'Shrek 4' In Works: Filmmakers Aim For 'Wild' Plot, Animation
(yomiuri.co.jp) Three Shrek movies still not enough for you?
Have no fear--there are more on the way, and some surprises to look
forward to as well.
Speaking to The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Shrek the Third director Chris
Miller and producer Aron Warner confirmed that the next installment is
already in the works, albeit at a preliminary stage.
"The story is being bandied about, but it's very early in the
process," Warner says, before adding a tease: "I'll tell you
this--it's completely unexpected what happens in four. It's wild! And
that's all I can say."
While the duo may be reticent about the plot for the next movie, one
thing is certain--the technology and the standard of the animation
will take another leap forward.
If you want to see the progress that's been made so far, just take a
look at the first movie in the Shrek franchise, released back in 2001.
At the time, the animation seemed great, right? But watch it again on
DVD and it looks positively crude next to the latest installment.
Textures of skin and fabric are flat and lifeless. Facial expressions
are mechanistic. Walks are robotlike.
"Yeah, it's interesting to watch 'Shrek 1,' because it looks to me
like it was just the lower half of the face that moved," Miller says.
"The ability of these characters to express themselves is a thousand
times better now. It's just a continual evolution of the software, of
the tools, and also the skill sets of the animators, who are just
getting better and better and better."
That really stands out in the details. Look at how hair and fur move
with total realism, or the way different layers of clothes slide
across each other. Most impressive of all, they even do some
convincing water--long the toughest challenge for computer graphic
animators. Watch out for a scene where Shrek steps ashore from a boat,
his feet splashing through the surf. The loving close-up on a
retreating wave is so gratuitous that one wonders whether it's a case
of showing off to rival animators?
"Oh, we were totally doing it to show off!" confirms Warner with a laugh.
"That was probably one of the most--maybe the most--complex shots of
the entire movie," adds Miller.
But as the technology gets ever better at replicating reality, the
question of whether to make a movie with animation or live action gets
ever blurrier--think of the slightly creepy Polar Express for an
example of how it can start to look strange.
"There are movies coming out in the next few years where you're gonna
say, 'I don't understand why they didn't shoot that live action," says
Warner. "And maybe it's just because people want to prove that they
can do it [with animation], and that's fine. Our thing is not about
being photo real, it's about being real. It's about having a
verisimilitude, having it be a world where you take away the
layers...that make you question what you're seeing, so that you can be
enveloped by the movie."
One very distinct technological innovation is also set to make its way
into the Shrek world: 3-D. Once a gimmick for third-rate movies, the
technique is on course to make a big return. Miller confirms that all
DreamWorks animations will get a 3-D release from 2009 onward. And
computer technology means the effects will be a lot more realistic and
detailed than in the past. But will you still need special glasses?
"Yeah," says Miller. "And a helmet and a suit and a harness system and
a big bottle of Vaseline!" he adds, jokingly (one hopes).
If Miller and Warner are bullish about their movie's advances over
earlier installments, it isn't a case of sniping at their
predecessors, as both have been with Shrek since the beginning. Warner
has always been a producer; Miller has filled a variety of roles
including voice talent (he voiced Gepetto and the magic mirror in the
second movie) and now director.
There's also the incontrovertible fact that the latest installment is
on course to be another big earner, having taken a series record 122
million dollars on its U.S. opening weekend, according to online movie
database imdb.com. That compares with 42 million dollars and 108
million dollars for parts one and two, respectively.
No wonder part four is already in production.
Digital Projection: Dance of the Hard Drives
(businessweek.com) For now, there is still a tremendous amount
of manual labor and physical transportation in digital distribution.
For the latest Pirates of the Caribbean sequel, Technicolor packed
about 1,000 500-gigabyte hard drives containing the movie in foam
padding, placed the 8-lb. drives in orange plastic briefcases, and
shipped them on DHL delivery trucks to theaters. There the hard drive
was plugged into a server and the movie loaded—a process that takes
about as long as the movie itself.
A few films are transmitted by satellite today, a method most expect
to dominate once dishes are installed atop enough theaters. AccessIT
now uses satellite for 60% of its distribution. Technicolor is just
starting. "It's certainly not efficient today," says Behlmer. "But
over time we should be able to take advantage of the efficiencies
digital distribution creates."
The player who assembles the biggest network of digital screens may
not find a treasure chest waiting. Theater owners don't pay the
equipment's full cost up front (some seem reluctant to pay anything).
Instead, studios help finance gear over a 10-year term by paying a fee
each time they send a new movie to play on it. Those fees start at
about $1,200 and drop over time to zero. That's when studios start
saving money.
More: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_28/b4042065.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories
Military Running a Parallel Earth Simulator
(science.slashdot.org) Fantastic Lad writes "The US
Department of Defense (DOD) may already be creating a copy of you in
an alternate reality. Putting supercomputers to an innovative use, the
military is simulating our planet in an effort to predict the outcome
of different scenarios. They might run tests to see how long 'you' can
go without food or water, or how 'you' will respond to televised
propaganda.
Billions of nodes are created in the system, intended to reflect every
man, woman, and child. 'Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it
will be a "synthetic mirror of the real world with automated
continuous calibration with respect to current real-world
information", according to a concept paper for the project.
Simulex is the company developing these systems, and they list
pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and defense contractor Lockheed Martin
among their private sector clients. The U.S. military is their biggest
customer, apparently now running the most complex version of the
system. JFCOM-9 is now capable of running real-time simulations for up
to 62 nations, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and China. The simulations
gobble up breaking news, census data, economic indicators, and
climactic events in the real world, along with proprietary information
such as military intelligence."
Favreau Does Cameo For Iron Man
(cinematical.com) Towards the end of principal photography,
director Jon Favreau decided to include himself in Iron Man. According
to reports, he'll be playing Security Guard Man -- a little-known
Marvel character who's a Las Vegas security guard by day and a
crime-fighting male stripper at night. Actually, the real story is
that one of the final scenes being shot needed a security guard, and
in an attempt to get it all done, Favreau stepped in and played the
part himself. I don't think he'll strip, but he might if you ask
politely. Iron Man hits theaters on May 9, 2008.
"Transformers": Best special effects of all time?
(blogs.scripps.com) There's a sequence in "Return of the
King" that I always reference in conversations about which films have
the best special effects. It's the fight between Samwise and a
gigantic spider named Shelob. It's a perfect special effects scene, I
think, because it looks completely authentic, like Peter Jackson
somehow found a huge spider and trained it to fight Sean Astin.
That's what great special effects do. You forget you're watching CGI
and give yourself away to the spectacle. Some films seem to get this
and some don't. The "Lord of the Rings" films had far better special
effects than those awful new "Star Wars" movies because authenticity
mattered. They were dirty and grainy big-screen battles that actually
looked like armies of orcs were fighting men and hobbits. "Episode 1"
and the other new Star Wars flicks were hideous because it was so
completely obvious you were watching digital effects.
"Forrest Gump" has better special effects than "Revenge of the Sith."
The "Pirates" sequels are the same way: overdone and ugly. The
original, though, had a classic sequence in which Jack Sparrow and
Barbosa are sword fighting and moving in and out of light from the
moon. Every time a moon beam hits them, they turn into skeletons. It
was produced just enough, unlike the big, stupid water wheel fight in
Part 2.
"Jurassic Park" had better special effects than either of its sequels
because it wasn't so heavy on the CGI, and didn't overproduce the
raptors or T-Rex.
Until the "Lord of the Rings" movies, I'd always thought "T2" had the
best secial effects of all time, because it wasn't overdone like
"Terminator 3," which had the processed look of most modern summer
blockbusters. Everything's too shiny and cleaned up. In "T2", every
special effects sequence has a purpose, and none of it feels like
showing off.
"X-Men 2" deserves a lot of credit for using its special effects to
maximize the potential of its characters and their superpowers.
Director Brian Singer clearly wanted his opening scene, in which
Nightcrawler teleports all over the White House looking to attack the
President, to look as authentic as possible. "X-Men 3" abandons this
idea of authenticity. When the mutants jump at each other for the
ballyhooed Last Stand, it looks ridiculous. Kelsey Grammar should have
run away with a Razzie for his idiotic Beast fight. Singer would have
never included it.
Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" is also worth noting for its opening
scene. I don't know if I've ever been so engrossed in a special
effects sequence as when the aliens first break out of the ground and
start mowing down humans with their lasers. It could not have felt
more real (the movie never hits that high point again, sadly. The
scene with the aliens in the basement is at the opposite end of this
discussion - it's not only fake-looking, but serves no purpose.)
This is important too: Do a movie's special effects acually serve its plot?
They do in "Transformers." This is a movie about 30-foot tall robots
beating the snot out of each other. It looks, no joke, like there are
actual living robots as tall as buildings who are agile enough to
battle like ninjas. There are moments during the final scene, which
will go down as an all-time great, where I just stopped and thought
"Oh my God, that was amazing." I'm not exagerating.
But it's still not quite as realistic as the gritty FX scenes in
"Terminator 2," which would still, 16 years after it was first
released, be my pick for the best special effects film of all time.
"Lord of the Rings," "Jurassic Park," "The Matrix," "Transformers,"
and "X2" belong in this discussion as well.
What do you think? What's the greastest special effects film or scene
of all time?
Source: http://blogs.scripps.com/albq/film/2007/07/transformers_best_special_effe.html
(careertrainingdirectory.com) So you think it's impossible
to make it in Tinseltown? Maybe it is, if you work in computer
animation: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of
movie and video production industry jobs are growing faster than the
average for all occupations.
And here's the most important part—animation and other
multimedia-related jobs are expected to grow particularly fast,
rendering them more accessible than jobs like actor or director.
That may be hard to believe, but it's true. Between 2004 and 2014,
computer animation jobs in the film industry are expected to grow by
nearly 40 percent. Average employment growth in the industry is
expected to reach 17 percent during the same period, which is consider
strong by all measures. So the growth among multimedia art and
computer animation jobs is especially remarkable.
What accounts for all this growth? Advances in special effects
technology, particularly those created with computer animation.
Sophisticated animation software allows multimedia artists to create
highly creative, fantasy-driven backdrops, such as those seen in
movies like the Harry Potter and Star Wars series. Even romantic
comedies may feature animation to create a stunt that's too dangerous
for a person to carry out, or to create talking animals or other
creative elements.
More: http://www.careertrainingdirectory.com/features/2007/04/computer_animation_jobs_are_among_fastest_growing.html
Jacobs Ladder Remake In The Works
(scifi.com) A remake of the cult classic – code for 'didn't do
well theatrically, but made a mint on video' – "Jacobs Ladder" is in
the works, according to Variety.
Alison Rosenzweig, producer of the upcoming thriller "Transit," about
a family road trip gone horribly awry, has apparently set the wheels
in motion on a the Tim Robbins redo.
Directed by Adrian Lyne, the 1990 film told of a traumatized Vietnam
War veteran (Robbins) who finds out that his post-war life isn't what
he believes it to be when he's attacked by horned creatures in the
subway and his dead son comes to visit him.
VFX Breakdown: How 'Transformers' Transform
(sanluisobispo.com) In one of several 'Oh my' moments in
Michael Bay's "Transformers," Optimus Prime and Bonecrusher emerge
from the smoke and flames of an exploding bus to tangle on a Southern
California freeway at high speed.
The shot is stunning: Tires point to the sky, vehicles careen toward
the camera and small chunks of concrete go rooster-tailing past the
flames. That's not to mention the two giant robots in the center of
the action.
The scene becomes a mere prelude to the climactic battle along
Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. But asap pressed the pause button to
find out how the sequence came together.
Visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar led a team of 350 people at the
George Lucas-created Industrial Light & Magic, who were tweaking
visuals as late as a couple weeks before the hotly anticipated movie's
July 2 release.
Farrar began working on the approximately $150 million film a year and
a half ago and was on set for much of the shoot. Below, he explains
how ILM worked with Bay to create the scene.
---
STEP ONE: LIVE ACTION
Bay's penchant for shooting chaotic action sequences on-the-fly
allowed the ILM team to blend their computer work with exciting
physical footage. It also left Farrar shuddering. He was inside a
Porsche Cayenne for the freeway chase stunt sequence alongside the
cinematographer, camera operator and driver. When a cable snapped and
whipped along the road in front of them, the driver slowed down and
swerved closer to the flaming, tumbling bus. "So we're caught between
two bad things," Farrar said. "I do think: Something bad could happen
here."
---
STEP TWO: MATCHING THE ACTION
ILM plugs the live action scene into its computers to determine how
its robots will interact with roads, walls or other objects. "Every
single thing in every single shot of this movie has to be recreated in
the computer," Farrar said. To do that, an artist on-set takes
360-degree fisheye lens photographs of each scene, so the perspective
and lighting of the live action matches the environment of the
CG-created characters. In the freeway scene, the key area was the road
plane that the vehicles and Transformers were traveling along. "Motion
pictures is the blend of science and art. There's a lot of science to
all of this."
---
STEP THREE: ROUGH ANIMATION
Production artists began sketching out early versions of the robots
before shooting began. Initially, the Transformers were depicted like
aliens - with more organic, creature-like skin textures. "We ended up
in a place that we didn't start. But it's far better," Farrar said.
"Now you go, oh I see a clutch plate, I see a differential, I see
gears and bearings on these robots. And that's why in the design they
look real. Because you as a viewer can say oh, I know what that's made
of."
---
STEP FOUR: ROUGH COMPOSITES
Farrar showed Bay early animations from a laptop while on set for the
first shooting phase at the White Sands National Monument near
Alomogordo, N.M. (standing in for Qatar. Bay could use those dailies
to adjust his shooting. "He really hasn't done a film where he had
animated characters, and he was quite adept at it," Farrar said. "You
have to inject a feeling of personality and acting into the robots."
Very little motion-capture technology was used; to create
Bonecrusher's proper movement for the freeway scene, animators went
into a basement and shot video of each other rollerblading, Farrar
said. Such sequences helped ILM visualize the final graphics.
---
STEP FIVE: REFINING ROBOTS
Bay pressed the animators to ensure each robot had recognizably
metallic surfaces, Farrar said. And Farrar worked to ensure they were
lit as if they were on a movie set. "We were pushing to make each
robot as photo-real as possible, and something that could be built in
a shop," he said. "The goal became that when you see these robots in
the shot you should know whether that's brass or steel or brushed
aluminum or chrome with bluing on the pipe, or scratches or dents."
The Optimus Prime character has over 10,000 parts, and each section
features a real-world metal painted and lit to look real and reflect
light as it would in real life, Farrar said.
---
STEP SIX: FINAL COMPOSITE
In the final stage, ILM blends their computer graphics with the
real-world action and colorizes the whole scene. In the freeway
sequence, animated fires were inserted, particles of dust and chunks
of concrete debris are added where Bonecrusher's wheels dig into the
road, and their physics are simulated by computers. "It's rather
difficult, it's tedious, expensive," Farrar said. "In a movie this big
we had to have a grand combination of everything."
---
STEP SEVEN: SIT BACK AND ENJOY
Computer graphics are blended more seamlessly with big-budget live
action in "Transformers" than in any recent movie. Farrar, who started
out in the industry as a director of photography, said he's proud of
his work. "In our computer graphics work, for a very long time we've
really struggled to make it look real. I think we've finally gotten to
a point where it does look real. And I think 'Transformers,' at least
as far as hard-bodied surfaces goes, has really hit a point where
people look at it and go whoa, I think that's a puppet but I don't
really know. That's great."
See a slideshow of the special effects transformation here:
http://asap.ap.org/data/interactives/_entertainment/transformer/
PETA Upset with Monkey Treatment on Speed Racer Set
(movieweb.com) MSNBC reports that the animal-rights group PETA
(People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)has been informed that
the monkey used in the filming of Warner Bros. Speed Racer was being
abused on the set. As a result, the organization has urged the
production company to stop using a live animal while filming:
"We are in receipt of information that may upset you," PETA wrote to
the producer Joel Silver, the man behind such megahits as the Matrix
and Die Hard series. "We've received several troubling complaints from
people who have been on the Speed Racer set and report that the main
chimpanzee 'actor' has been beaten and has bitten one of the human
actors." PETA urged Silver to stop using the live critters and switch
to animatronics.
"We appreciate the concerns of your organization," came back the
letter from movie company Warner Bros. "We also respect the vision and
choices of the filmmakers with which we work. Every option on a film
is carefully weighed, and for this production, the decision was made
to use live animals."
A spokesperson confirmed that a chimp did chomp on a young actor, but
said that the actor was treated and the animal was given a rest. She
sent along assurances from the American Humane Society that no animals
were being abused.
PETA is further investigating the matter as they have responded to
Warner Bros. reply: "No humane representative is closely monitoring
those animals while off-set or during pre-production training, the
very places where abuse is most likely to occur,"
Based on the classic 1960s series created by anime pioneer Tatsuo
Yoshida that later was retooled for North American audiences, the
big-screen film will follow the adventures of the young race car
driver Speed in his quest for glory in his thundering gadget-laden
vehicle, Mach 5. The movie will feature other characters from the
show, including Speed's family and his mysterious archrival, Racer X.
The cartoon featured Speed's younger brother Spritle and his pet
chimpanzee Chim-Chim.
Look-Alikes Being Cast for Watchmen
(comingsoon.net) The LA Daily News reports that the Watchmen
production is facing a challenge when it comes to casting look-alikes
of famous names for the big screen adaptation:
A challenging casting task involving look-alikes is under way for
Warner Bros.' "Watchmen" adaptation of Alan Moore's 1980s graphic
novel set in an alternative universe's United States. Names include
Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, H.R. Haldeman, Ted Koppel, John
McLaughlin, Annie Liebowitz, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Fidel Castro,
Albert Einstein, Norman Rockwell, JFK and Jackie Kennedy, Andy Warhol,
Mao Tze Tung and Larry King. That's going to be quite a movie.
The film will be directed by 300 helmer Zack Snyder. No cast members
have been officially announced.
Who Drew Those Cool Little Taste Explosions in 'Ratatouille'?
(nymag.com) With Ratatouille hitting No. 1 on the box-office
charts this past weekend — though its $47 million take notably fell
short of the openings of past Pixar hits Cars and Monsters, Inc. —
animator and comics artist Michael Gagné sheds light on one tiny but
delightful aspect of the film. Gagné designed and animated those nifty
little taste explosions, the vibrant representations of flavor that
surround Remy and Emilie, for director Brad Bird. On his own blog,
Gagné breaks down the process in great detail, from the first phone
call to the final product — complete with QuickTime video!
Take a look: http://www.gagneint.com/Final%20site/Animation/Pixar/Ratatouille.htm
Ron Howard Partners with THINKFilm on In the Shadow of the Moon
(THINKFilm) Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron
Howard, whose Apollo 13 remains one of the most popular and
highly-regarded dramatizations of man's exploration of space, is
partnering with THINKFilm to present the award-winning film, In the
Shadow of the Moon, the definitive feature documentary about the
Apollo space program and the first-ever landing on the moon. Howard's
name, and the "Ron Howard Presents" credit will appear on all prints
and in all paid advertising for the film, and Howard will participate
in promotion of both the theatrical release and the DVD. THINKFilm
will open In the Shadow of the Moon in exclusive engagements in New
York and Los Angeles on September 7, 2007, with an aggressive national
expansion planned throughout the month.
Henry Selick Talks Up Laika's First Stop Motion Feature
(blog.oregonlive.com) Laika film director Henry Selick showed
off images Saturday of the title character from the Portland studio's
forthcoming feature, a stop-motion picture called "Coraline" that's
due out next year.
At the Platform International Animation Festival in Portland, Selick
walked the audience through the process by which he and a team of
illustrators and modelers came up with a look for Coraline, a little
girl in Ashland whose parents are replaced by sinister duplicates.
Selick, who previously directed "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and
other stop-motion features, has a reputation for dark, mysterious
fare. Doubtless "Coraline" (based on a children's book by Neil Gaiman)
will add to that reputation, and the poster at right plays up the
creepy nature of the story.
The poster is just an artist's conception, though, not an illustration
from the movie. Coraline herself appears to be a breezy, vibrant girl
- a world away from the dark humor in "Nightmare" and other Selick
films.
No cameras were allowed Saturday, and so no picture of Coraline is
available, but the drawings and models Selick displayed depicted a
black-haired child, about 11 years old, with a mischievous grin. She
was dressed in bright colors - a skirt, leggings and oversized boots.
"Coraline" will be the first feature from Laika, which is owned by
Nike Chairman Phil Knight. Knight's son, Travis, is an animator on the
picture and - according to Selick, in Saturday's talk - had a big role
in ensuring that "Coraline" would be a stop-motion film instead of a
movie animated by computers.
Stop-motion pictures are made by filming puppets or models
frame-by-frame as their poses are adjusted to simulate movement. It's
an exacting process, but Selick said it can inject more humanity into
films.
"It's a more direct connection to your soul or your heart," he said.
"Coraline" is now in production in a temporary warehouse studio Laika
has set up in Hillsboro. The company plans to move to a new Tualatin
campus in 2009.
Separately, "Fast Company" has a profile of Phil and Travis Knight in
its July issue. The father-son pair address Travis' interest in
animation, his abortive career in rap and the painful decision to
remove veteran Pixar animator Jorgen Klubien from the director's chair
on Laika's second film, tentatively called "Jack and Ben's Animated
Adventure." Read the "Fast Company" profile here.
'Shrek 4' In Works: Filmmakers Aim For 'Wild' Plot, Animation
(yomiuri.co.jp) Three Shrek movies still not enough for you?
Have no fear--there are more on the way, and some surprises to look
forward to as well.
Speaking to The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Shrek the Third director Chris
Miller and producer Aron Warner confirmed that the next installment is
already in the works, albeit at a preliminary stage.
"The story is being bandied about, but it's very early in the
process," Warner says, before adding a tease: "I'll tell you
this--it's completely unexpected what happens in four. It's wild! And
that's all I can say."
While the duo may be reticent about the plot for the next movie, one
thing is certain--the technology and the standard of the animation
will take another leap forward.
If you want to see the progress that's been made so far, just take a
look at the first movie in the Shrek franchise, released back in 2001.
At the time, the animation seemed great, right? But watch it again on
DVD and it looks positively crude next to the latest installment.
Textures of skin and fabric are flat and lifeless. Facial expressions
are mechanistic. Walks are robotlike.
"Yeah, it's interesting to watch 'Shrek 1,' because it looks to me
like it was just the lower half of the face that moved," Miller says.
"The ability of these characters to express themselves is a thousand
times better now. It's just a continual evolution of the software, of
the tools, and also the skill sets of the animators, who are just
getting better and better and better."
That really stands out in the details. Look at how hair and fur move
with total realism, or the way different layers of clothes slide
across each other. Most impressive of all, they even do some
convincing water--long the toughest challenge for computer graphic
animators. Watch out for a scene where Shrek steps ashore from a boat,
his feet splashing through the surf. The loving close-up on a
retreating wave is so gratuitous that one wonders whether it's a case
of showing off to rival animators?
"Oh, we were totally doing it to show off!" confirms Warner with a laugh.
"That was probably one of the most--maybe the most--complex shots of
the entire movie," adds Miller.
But as the technology gets ever better at replicating reality, the
question of whether to make a movie with animation or live action gets
ever blurrier--think of the slightly creepy Polar Express for an
example of how it can start to look strange.
"There are movies coming out in the next few years where you're gonna
say, 'I don't understand why they didn't shoot that live action," says
Warner. "And maybe it's just because people want to prove that they
can do it [with animation], and that's fine. Our thing is not about
being photo real, it's about being real. It's about having a
verisimilitude, having it be a world where you take away the
layers...that make you question what you're seeing, so that you can be
enveloped by the movie."
One very distinct technological innovation is also set to make its way
into the Shrek world: 3-D. Once a gimmick for third-rate movies, the
technique is on course to make a big return. Miller confirms that all
DreamWorks animations will get a 3-D release from 2009 onward. And
computer technology means the effects will be a lot more realistic and
detailed than in the past. But will you still need special glasses?
"Yeah," says Miller. "And a helmet and a suit and a harness system and
a big bottle of Vaseline!" he adds, jokingly (one hopes).
If Miller and Warner are bullish about their movie's advances over
earlier installments, it isn't a case of sniping at their
predecessors, as both have been with Shrek since the beginning. Warner
has always been a producer; Miller has filled a variety of roles
including voice talent (he voiced Gepetto and the magic mirror in the
second movie) and now director.
There's also the incontrovertible fact that the latest installment is
on course to be another big earner, having taken a series record 122
million dollars on its U.S. opening weekend, according to online movie
database imdb.com. That compares with 42 million dollars and 108
million dollars for parts one and two, respectively.
No wonder part four is already in production.
Digital Projection: Dance of the Hard Drives
(businessweek.com) For now, there is still a tremendous amount
of manual labor and physical transportation in digital distribution.
For the latest Pirates of the Caribbean sequel, Technicolor packed
about 1,000 500-gigabyte hard drives containing the movie in foam
padding, placed the 8-lb. drives in orange plastic briefcases, and
shipped them on DHL delivery trucks to theaters. There the hard drive
was plugged into a server and the movie loaded—a process that takes
about as long as the movie itself.
A few films are transmitted by satellite today, a method most expect
to dominate once dishes are installed atop enough theaters. AccessIT
now uses satellite for 60% of its distribution. Technicolor is just
starting. "It's certainly not efficient today," says Behlmer. "But
over time we should be able to take advantage of the efficiencies
digital distribution creates."
The player who assembles the biggest network of digital screens may
not find a treasure chest waiting. Theater owners don't pay the
equipment's full cost up front (some seem reluctant to pay anything).
Instead, studios help finance gear over a 10-year term by paying a fee
each time they send a new movie to play on it. Those fees start at
about $1,200 and drop over time to zero. That's when studios start
saving money.
More: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_28/b4042065.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories
Military Running a Parallel Earth Simulator
(science.slashdot.org) Fantastic Lad writes "The US
Department of Defense (DOD) may already be creating a copy of you in
an alternate reality. Putting supercomputers to an innovative use, the
military is simulating our planet in an effort to predict the outcome
of different scenarios. They might run tests to see how long 'you' can
go without food or water, or how 'you' will respond to televised
propaganda.
Billions of nodes are created in the system, intended to reflect every
man, woman, and child. 'Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it
will be a "synthetic mirror of the real world with automated
continuous calibration with respect to current real-world
information", according to a concept paper for the project.
Simulex is the company developing these systems, and they list
pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and defense contractor Lockheed Martin
among their private sector clients. The U.S. military is their biggest
customer, apparently now running the most complex version of the
system. JFCOM-9 is now capable of running real-time simulations for up
to 62 nations, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and China. The simulations
gobble up breaking news, census data, economic indicators, and
climactic events in the real world, along with proprietary information
such as military intelligence."
Favreau Does Cameo For Iron Man
(cinematical.com) Towards the end of principal photography,
director Jon Favreau decided to include himself in Iron Man. According
to reports, he'll be playing Security Guard Man -- a little-known
Marvel character who's a Las Vegas security guard by day and a
crime-fighting male stripper at night. Actually, the real story is
that one of the final scenes being shot needed a security guard, and
in an attempt to get it all done, Favreau stepped in and played the
part himself. I don't think he'll strip, but he might if you ask
politely. Iron Man hits theaters on May 9, 2008.
"Transformers": Best special effects of all time?
(blogs.scripps.com) There's a sequence in "Return of the
King" that I always reference in conversations about which films have
the best special effects. It's the fight between Samwise and a
gigantic spider named Shelob. It's a perfect special effects scene, I
think, because it looks completely authentic, like Peter Jackson
somehow found a huge spider and trained it to fight Sean Astin.
That's what great special effects do. You forget you're watching CGI
and give yourself away to the spectacle. Some films seem to get this
and some don't. The "Lord of the Rings" films had far better special
effects than those awful new "Star Wars" movies because authenticity
mattered. They were dirty and grainy big-screen battles that actually
looked like armies of orcs were fighting men and hobbits. "Episode 1"
and the other new Star Wars flicks were hideous because it was so
completely obvious you were watching digital effects.
"Forrest Gump" has better special effects than "Revenge of the Sith."
The "Pirates" sequels are the same way: overdone and ugly. The
original, though, had a classic sequence in which Jack Sparrow and
Barbosa are sword fighting and moving in and out of light from the
moon. Every time a moon beam hits them, they turn into skeletons. It
was produced just enough, unlike the big, stupid water wheel fight in
Part 2.
"Jurassic Park" had better special effects than either of its sequels
because it wasn't so heavy on the CGI, and didn't overproduce the
raptors or T-Rex.
Until the "Lord of the Rings" movies, I'd always thought "T2" had the
best secial effects of all time, because it wasn't overdone like
"Terminator 3," which had the processed look of most modern summer
blockbusters. Everything's too shiny and cleaned up. In "T2", every
special effects sequence has a purpose, and none of it feels like
showing off.
"X-Men 2" deserves a lot of credit for using its special effects to
maximize the potential of its characters and their superpowers.
Director Brian Singer clearly wanted his opening scene, in which
Nightcrawler teleports all over the White House looking to attack the
President, to look as authentic as possible. "X-Men 3" abandons this
idea of authenticity. When the mutants jump at each other for the
ballyhooed Last Stand, it looks ridiculous. Kelsey Grammar should have
run away with a Razzie for his idiotic Beast fight. Singer would have
never included it.
Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" is also worth noting for its opening
scene. I don't know if I've ever been so engrossed in a special
effects sequence as when the aliens first break out of the ground and
start mowing down humans with their lasers. It could not have felt
more real (the movie never hits that high point again, sadly. The
scene with the aliens in the basement is at the opposite end of this
discussion - it's not only fake-looking, but serves no purpose.)
This is important too: Do a movie's special effects acually serve its plot?
They do in "Transformers." This is a movie about 30-foot tall robots
beating the snot out of each other. It looks, no joke, like there are
actual living robots as tall as buildings who are agile enough to
battle like ninjas. There are moments during the final scene, which
will go down as an all-time great, where I just stopped and thought
"Oh my God, that was amazing." I'm not exagerating.
But it's still not quite as realistic as the gritty FX scenes in
"Terminator 2," which would still, 16 years after it was first
released, be my pick for the best special effects film of all time.
"Lord of the Rings," "Jurassic Park," "The Matrix," "Transformers,"
and "X2" belong in this discussion as well.
What do you think? What's the greastest special effects film or scene
of all time?
Source: http://blogs.scripps.com/albq/film/2007/07/transformers_best_special_effe.html
