VFXhack

[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

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.

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)

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.

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

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

Stephen Worth has posted an excellent piece on his Animation Archive blog that uses the exquisite illustration of W. Lee Hankey to make a point. CG artists and animators are just plain lazy! Worth rails against the use of “excessive detail”, colors that are “straight out of the tube” and “stock poses or actions” using specific paintings from the Golden Age of illustration to prove his point. The examples he picks alone are well worth a look but the author also brings up a great point. Today’s digital artists tend to be woefully under-educated in art and film history and spend way too much time replicating what they see on CG movies and Forums and not spending any time analyzing what makes a great work of art great. Thanks Stephen, this article should be required reading for the CG set.

 LINK to Theory: CGI Animators Should THINK Like Artists

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbV7loKp69s[/youtube]

This film is titled Catalog and was created by John Whitney to advertise the capabilities of his new company Motion Graphics, Inc. in 1961. The images in this clip were created by Whitney’s “Analog Computer”, which was actually an re-purposed anti-aircraft gun sight from WWII. Whitney was essentially the grandfather of motion control (and oftern refered to as the father of CGI), Douglas Trumbull used some of the techniques shown in Catalog to develop the slit-scan process used for the stargate sequence in 2001: A Space Odessy. Later in his career, Whitney abandoned his analog turing machine and produced more wonderfully hypnotic experimental films produced entirely by digital means. His 1975 film Arabesque stands out amongst his digital works. A true pioneer in the field, bringing the art world and computer science together for the first time, John Whitney has a well deserved place in the pantheon of visual effects visionaries.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=3Et_LsxlX8Y[/youtube] I remember this Behind The Scenes from when I was one the first kids on the block with a cable box. It often appeared between my multiple viewings of Beastmaster and Emmanuelle (can you tell I was a latch-key kid?) and inspired me to find out more about the magical realm of visual effects. It’s got everything from a 30′ scale model to a giant chrome plated logo. As low-brow as it is, this is a prime-time example of the real vfx deal.LINK to the HBO page on the CLG Wiki 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK7b7oc7hWI[/youtube]

This compilation reel from the folks at Information International Inc. (aka Triple I) was shown to Disney Execs in 1981 and resulted in the go-head for the classic CG flick TRON. The demo includes a Mercedes Benz logo, a scan of Peter Fonda’s head and Adam Powers’ classic short “The Juggler”. Most of this imagery was rendered on the Super Foolny F-1, the fastest and most advanced computer of it’s time. Triple I ended up being one of the three CG houses (Robert Abel and Assoc and Magi were the other two) to work on TRON helming the Solar Sailer and MCP sequences among others.

LINK to the Triple I page on TRON Sector