An art student threw together this mash-up “just for fun. Not as a serious artistic endeavor” I don’t know, something like this my have added some interest to the prequels.
thanks to Motiongrapher for the link
Archive for the ‘history’ Category
Saul Bass vs Star Wars
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
And The Winner Was…
Monday, February 25th, 2008
Tired of all the Oscar rehash? Head on over to Superpunch and check out there collection of classic movie posters from the winners of the best visual effects Oscars from 1940-1979. The images are great and the site also includes handy links to purchase replicas of these cinematic milestones. Good luck getting your significant other’s permission to hang them in your living room.
LINK to Superpunch the blog
You Have Ten Seconds To Reach Minimum Safe Distance – Sci-Fi’s Best “Shipicides”
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
io9 has posted list with video clips of some the great spaceship destructions in film and television history. There are some great ones in here with some especially good examples of models being blasted with pyro. I have to say, the most exhilarating thing VFX is building something t hat looks really cool then packing it full of explosives and watching it get consumed in a ball of fiery oblivion. The only thing I take issue with on this list is the clip from Vanilla Sky which is a car stunt for cryin’ out loud and also the glaring omission of the Rodger Young destruction sequence from Starship Troopers.
LINK to full post on io9 (thanks to Nyarlathotep) for the link
CG Society Top 100 Digs Deep
Thursday, January 31st, 2008
CG Society just came out with it’s list of the 100 Greatest 3d Movies and it’s chock full of tasty links to a treasure trove of material on how the films were created. The list was generated by an online vote on entries from a short list of 150 films. Because of this, this list is a bit skewed towards newer films (Final Fantasy The Spirits Within is number 9 while TRON comes in at 18!). Aside from my feelings about the ordering of the list itself, the article is chock full of useful info. There are several charts and graphs (interesting to see that most of the fx work was done by only 3 companys) as well as a spiffy timeline. But by far the best part of this article is the related links associated with each film. You’ll find, among others, a great article on Low End Mac chronicling the birth of CGI and tid-bit from Alvy Ray Smith’s site talking about the genesis of The Genesis Effect. It’s worth taking the time to cruise through all links to get a taste of what it took to put these films together.
LINK to my vfxhistory tags on del.icio.us (feel free to add your own tags or suggest more in the comments!)
RetroHack – 1981 Apple ][e Animation Shows “Days of computer time in just seconds!”
Friday, January 18th, 2008[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbxJajIGBWo[/youtube]
I loved my Apple ][e. It was the first computer I ever did any kind of graphics work on and seeing one warms my nerdy heart to this very day. So, I was glad to come across this clip from a guy who hooked up a time-lapse rig to his monitor in order to “render” animation using Apple’s famous machine that came standard with 64KB of RAM (easily upgradable to 128KB). Set your way-back machine to 1985 and imagine if you will a world without DVD tutorials, personal learning editions, GUIs or even the idea of a render farm. You’ve just stepped into the time and place where James Leatham created the screen graphics for the short film “Asteroid”. More Wood than Spielberg, the film contains the stilted dialog and obviously kit-bashed models you’d expect from super-8 Stars War rip off but Leatham’s animation stands out. The idea was to let the computer draw a frame to the display then trigger a camera to take a 1 sec exposure of the monitor. When you watch the video make sure you listen to the audio of James marveling at the fact that it takes two whole minutes to draw a frame! Those where the days.
LINK to Flickr feed of how to article
VFX Lingo – Getting Your Shots Straight
Thursday, January 17th, 2008
As I discussed in my previous post Working Below the Line – A Visual Effects Supervisors Guide to Surviving On Set I mentioned that every good supe should be well versed in how to communicate camera dierection. You don’t wanna be the guy saying “Pan up!” or “Hey, tilt the camera a little to the left.” So if your looking for a nice little cheat sheet to as reminder on how to keep you shot types and camera moves straight, check out this handout from Ohio State University of all places. It also has nifty descriptions of the 180 degree rule, camera angles and composition hints. Aside from being helpful on set, these terms should be committed to memory for use in CG animation as well. A shorthand description of what kind of shot you need could shave valueable seconds off of production time. Besides, you want to be able to understand what your supervisor is talking about and not look like a total VFX newb right? I thought so.
LINK to the OSU cinema cheat sheet
Note: There is a semi-glaring omittion from the shot sizes section of this handout. The Cowboy, a slightly wider medium shot framed from the mid-thigh up. So name for it’s use in early westerns so viewers could check out the hero’s guns.
B-Movie Site Offers Hours of Delightful Nerdiness – For Free!
Monday, January 7th, 2008
The site bmovies.com offers hundreds of streaming b-grade horror, Sci-Fi, Kung-Fu and Western flicks. All you need is a broadband connection and countless hours of free time (come on your a geek you’ve got nothing better to do). Aside from some awesome retro-VFX (Attack of the Monsters) there are some early gems from today’s film-making giants (Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste and Coppola’s Dementia 13) and some oldies that might remind you of some current box office hits (Vincent Price in The Last Man On Earth was later remade into The Omega Man and I Am Legend). Video quality is at a youTube type level good enough for extended viewing for sure. Along with the tons on great movies you’ll find some really bad ones that are just a scream to watch (try White Pongo or The Killer Shrews) .
LINK to B-movies (thanks to Nyarlathotep)
Great Visual Effects Films For Kids
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
Those of us blessed enough to have children know what a struggle it is to have to sit through agonizingly long hours of the pure crap that passes for kids entertainment these days. VFX pros also know how hard it can be to describe to young people exactly what it is that Mommy or Daddy do at work every day. To top it all off, a lot of the time the stuff we do work on just isn’t appropriate for the eyes of innocents. To that end, here’s a list of five of my favorite VFX flicks that you can watch with your kids and hopefully get them interested in finding out more abot the craft. By the way, if your children are really interested, I could always use some help with roto.
The Wizard of OZ – 1939 (Unrated)
Why it’s great It’s the one that started it all. Matte Paintings, wire work, make-up, pyro and much more combine to create a fully realized fantasy world.
You might want to skip Parents of male children might want to gloss over some of the more sappy musical numbers for fear of creating an “over-attachment” to Judy Garland. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Prepared to be annoyed by High-pitched little people singing peppy songs. Not quite that bad compared to the insanity inducing Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) but close.
Mary Poppins – 1964 (G)
Why it’s great Shear volume of innovative VFX techniques. Sure there is quite a bit of piano wire and bungee chord practical type stuff but you can also see some choice matte painting work and compositing on the “Jolly Holiday” sequence still holds up. DVD extras on the 2004 DVD include an informative “deconstructing a scene” section.
You might want to skip The song “Feed the Birds” is a about a homeless woman who tries to sell you groady bird seed to feed diseased pigeons. You should probably teach your kids to steer clear of such folk.
Prepared to be annoyed by… Dick Van Dyke’s “english” accent. In some scenes I swear I can see Julie Andrews wince.
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back – 1980 (PG)
Why it’s great What’s not to like? Stop Motion, Motion Control, Yoda, Solo in Carbonite, this one is firing on all cylinders. Tons of techniques to explore with interested young ones. 2004 DVD comes with the Ken Burns Directed doc “Empire of Dreams” to get you into the behind the scenes mood.
You might want to skip The Wampa. It freaks out some youngsters, especially in the special edition. Luke’s kiss with Leah might bringup some tough questions.
Prepare to be annoyed by Billy Dee’s ‘stash. It’s almost like you want to slap it right off his face.
Apollo 13 – 1995 (PG)
Why it’s great Incredible example of effects that look real, lots of great CG and compositing to obsess over. 2-Disk Anniversary DVD includes documentary footage of the real space race for comparison. Heck the kiddies might even learn something from this one.
You might want to skip All the scenes of the worried hair-dos back on planet earth. For your convenience, the 2-Disc set has a shorter version of the movie originaly made for IMAX with the back at home cut-aways removed.
Prepared to be annoyed by Repeated use of the phrase “Huston, we have a problem” by your kids to announce everything from potty related accidents to unintentional glass breaking. Wallace & Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit – 2005 (G)
Why it’s great The amount of character that this film squeezes out of a couple of lumps of clay must be seen to be believed. The Rube Goldberg contraptions are great launching pads for discussions of cause and effect and timing in animation. The simple yet extremely effective composition and lighting in this film is also something the deserves a close look.
You might want to skip You should probably skip the movie all togther if you are worried that this film might be a gateway to more British humor. If your kids like this I see lots of Monthy Python and Black Adder in your future.
Prepared to be annoyed by Puns. “Anti-Pesto”, “24-carrot” bullets, “PC Mackintosh” it sends chills up my spine just writing these.
Have a fav of your own? Feel free to leave comment and tell us what is is.
“Neo” Retro-Hack: Microsoft Viral Video Embraces Old-School CG Look
Friday, December 21st, 2007
Digital Kitchen has put together a great viral clip to help create more Microserfs (just what the world needs right?). This spot shows a true love for the naive future imagined by the CG pioneers. Designer Cody Cobb has also set up a Flickr feed that has some pretty funny How-To images for the spot, including this perl of CG wisdom on how to create a photo-realistic tetrahedron.
I started off with a primitive sphere. I exported that to ZBrush and sculpted it into a highly accurate pyramid form.
LINK to Cody’s Flickr feed (via Motiongrapher)
LINK to mirror of video
Visual Effects War Stories From Back In The Day
Monday, December 3rd, 2007
One of the greatest pleasures of being part of the VFX industry is getting the opportunity to hear the crew from some of your favorite (or not so favorite) films wax poetic about how it was done before all these new fangled computer thingies. Here’s a comment from Sam Longoria left on my previous post When Not To Use VFX – Step Away From Greenscreen Unitard that falls into the catagory of golden nuggets of wisdom from a bygone age.
On “Ghostbusters,” I remember a meeting, between the camera / machinist group, (We were building 65mm cameras, printers, animation stands, roto rigs from scratch) and the Artist / Animator group. (They were drawing animation that would – hopefully – be shot on equipment that didn’t exist yet). In hindsight, there nowhere near enough time and money to pull it all off. Any sensible persons would have had doubts, but…vfx people…you know. An earnest Animator (I think it was Terry Windell) said, to the camera designers, “We need an electronic device that will close the camera shutter, block all the light, and prevent the film from being exposed, while the computer backwinds the film.” It was quiet in the room a good while. The device they were describing would probably take a week to build and implement, and we had very little time. I was young then, and didn’t want to say anything, certainly not anything that would tick off my colleagues, or hurt the Animators’ feelings. We all looked back and forth at each other. Smiles began to waver. Then Jerry Jeffress, one of the truly brilliant human beings I’ve ever met, broke the silence. “What you are describing, is a lens cap.”
Got your own war story to tell? Leave a comment! Oh, and it doesn’t have to be old to be good.
LINK to Sam Longoria’s filmmaking blog
