VFXhack

Check out this snapshot of a billboard in Studio City, Ca. It seems that all the Jericho fans that have so kindly responded to my post detailing the effects I did for the Season 2 finally have saved up there pennies to buy some public ad-space to further there cause. Seem crazy? Well, it might if the rabid fans hadn’t already brought the show back from the dead once already with a well coordinated write-in campaign. Who knows if this works out I could be on the call sheet for Season 3.

LINK to my previous post on Jericho VFX

The Animation Guild Local 839 has published a survey of salaries in the animation industry and I’ve broken out some of the data that pertains to VFX folks. The numbers in the survey are median weekly rates based on union jobs but the numbers are still interesting.

In other words modelers are at the low end of the scale bringing in about $82k per year and supes are hovering close to $130k per year down about 20% from ‘07. The string of blockbuster VFX flicks seems to be keeping demand for artists high enough to meet supply. Just remember this is a boom and bust biz folks so fill up those 401ks while ya can.

LINK to the full survey

News flash from the no duh department. Sleep deprivation effects your ability to make sense of what you see. And that’s not just anecdotal ladies and germs, it’s from a study published in the Journal Of Neuroscience. Study author Dr. Michael Chee says,

Interestingly, the team found that a sleep-deprived brain can normally process simple visuals, like flashing checkerboards. But the ‘higher visual areas’ — those that are responsible for making sense of what we see — didn’t function well

That means, the person at your facility that is always saying “Dude I was here sooo late last night. But hey, you gotta do what it takes.” is actually doing a way worse job than the bright eyed and bushy tailed VFX artist who got a good nights sleep. Go figure.

via PixelVomit

So about two weeks ago, one of my fearless readers informed me that folks searching for VFXhack on Google were being directed to a page informing them that my site was distributing malicious software (gasp!). So began the journey to clear my name and make sure that anyone accessing this Blog could do so free from the fear of being re-directed to a site that tries to sell them arabic ringtones (who is buying those anyway?). The long and the short of it is, that after a re-install of WordPress and some serious text editing of all the posts to VFXhack so far. The site is now clean, and all possible exploits have been patched. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programs of pithy posts and industry laments.

LINK to more info on other WordPress blogs that were attacked

This Bollywood style dream sequence takes you inside the mind of a CG animator faced with the prospect of life after outsourcing. It’s pretty funny but falls a bit into the category of gallows humor considering all the people in this video could be replaced someday soon by their Indian counter-parts. Ah well, if you can’t laugh at yourself who can you laugh at?

(via Cartoon Brew)

Last night I attended the 6th annual VES Awards where geeks from around the globe throw on a Monkey Suit to pat each other on the back. Of course this mutual admiration is will deserved and all in all I had a fantastic time. I’m big on community and the best part of the evening for me was re-conecting with old friends and colleges and getting a chance to reflect over the VFX accomplishments of the last year and think about where our industry is heading in the future. Now, while everyone is gonna report on the winners and losers today, I thought I’d give you my favorite moments from the ceremony last night.

Eric Roth’s Opening Address

Eric Roth (Exec Director of the VES) opened the evening by making a few proclamations. First, there will be a VES handbook published this year which is sure to be a page turner. He also busted out with some industry predictions claiming that this will be the year that a studio will try to make a fully un-uncanny valley actor for a major motion picture. Roth also foretold the death of roto-scoping and other labor heavy compositing tasks due to advances in software. This prophesy brought a slight chill over the room, I guess some people were shaken by the idea that things as they are might change in the future.

Patton Oswald Presents

OK, everyone knows that I am a sick fanboy for Patton’s work as a stand-up comic. But he really brought the house down last night giving everyone a welcome break from the monotonous droning of the other presenters. He started off with a fake story about working with Steven Spielberg as a snake wrangler on Deul. His yarn began with an all night tequila binge with Lee Marvin and Karen Back and ended with Patton and S.S. tied together in a shirtless knife fight. During the fight Oswald suggests changing Steve’s original idea for villain in Jaws from a Grouper to Great White just before having is trapezius sliced. Patton ended the bit by looking at Spielberg and shouting “And you didn’t even take me with you!” Hilarious.

Everyone Thanks Their Wife

Every winner thanked there wives (or significant others) for putting up with the crap hours that it takes to do VFX. The wives looked a little uncomfortable during this public pseudo-appology, looking like inside they were thinking “Whatever dude, don’t think your getting out of hot water next time just cuz’ you thanked me at an awards ceremony”. It also brought into focus that there are way to few female artists and supervisors in VFX. Looking at the nominees and winners from last night, it seems to me that the VFX world is still an old boys club.

Spielberg Accepts and Comments

Steven Spielberg accepted a lifetime achievement award from the VES last night. He was gracious and articulate, recounting stories from his childhood of making VFX in his bedroom with just some black poster board, a Revell model spaceship and Super-8 camera. I thought is was great that he focused on the passion and creativity of making VFX and loved his suggestion that the VES start a new category for student work to recognize talent on it’s way up. His acceptance speech really brought everyone in the room back that that place that got them into VFX in the first place. That made the whole evening worth it for me.

Michael Bay Kinda Acts Like A Tool

After Spielberg’s stirring speech, Michael Bay came out to present. He told a story about working with Steven as a young turk. The 15 year old Bay had caught wind that his mentor was making a movie call Raiders Of The Lost Arc. After reading the script Bay promptly called all his friends claiming “This movie’s gonna suck!”. Obviously, he thought this was a funny anecdote and played it for laughs. But it just came off as kind of a jerky move right after the guy got a lifetime achievement award. It just shows you that success does not equate with good taste.

LINK to PDF of the 6th annual VES Awards Winners

In case you haven’t heard, things seem to be looking up on the WGA negotiations lately. An extremely rosey picture was painted on the LA Times front page yesterday. Since then the story has been picked up all over the place and the mood seems to be very positive. Deadline Hollywood reported that Peter Chernin told to good old boys in the sky box at the Super Bowl that ” the strike is over “. But before we pop open the bubbly and start giving non-ironic high-fives left and right, it wouldn’t be a real Hollywood cock-up without a coupla turds in the proverbial punch bowl.

Michael Russnow throws up this gem on The Huffington Post called The WGA Strike For Dummies: It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over. He describes his woes thusly

I’d like the Writers Guild strike to end. I’m tired of getting up earlier than I prefer to every morning to go picketing at CBS Television City in Hollywood most days of every week. Even though I don’t have a job to immediately go back to, like most other unemployed or underemployed writers I have a stake in the strike’s conclusion, because I have several projects which I’d like to pursue, and I can’t until we cross the finish line.

We in the VFX industry would also like the strike to end, more than that, we need it to end. We would all get up earlier than we prefer every morning to pursue the several projects that we have going on namely paying our bills and supporting our families.

Larry Gelbart, longtime tinsel-town writer and WGA member, has lent his voice to this automated phone message sent out members on Sunday urging fellow members to

set aside all the rumors, all the second-guessing, I ask you to set these aside and pick up a picket sign instead.

I get it. I mean it would be a terrible negotiating tactic for the WGA to simply roll up the picket lines and go home when their leardship is trying to finalize a deal. But please guys. We in the VFX community are all for a fair deal for creative folks but we need both parties to sit down without the theatrics and hammer this thing out. There was great piece in Friday’s LA Times about the trickle-down effect of the strike on other people working in the industry. It centers around the thought of set dress Michael O’Donnel a set dresser for TV shows. He sums up the situation nicely, claiming to

understand the principle behind the WGA strike, the need to fight for a fair share of whatever revenue streams emerge from new media. “The sons and daughters of the idle rich,” was what O’Donnell called the people who run the studios. Mostly, though, they just want to get back to work

I think we can all agree with Michael on that last bit.

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!)

Filed under “Thank you, Captain Obvious”, ABC Australia reported on a study yesterday that scientists have proven once and for all that, get this, eating junk food makes you feel better but is still really bad for you. I believe that these fine men and women of the University of New South Wales didn’t have to go through all the trouble of carefully designing and carrying a rigorous scientific study to get this information. All they really had to do was visit the kitchen counters and cabinets of a VFX house. Visual Effects companies have known for years that a good stock of crap food is essential for the running of a smooth operation. Got yelled at by client? A coupla’-five bite size Snickers will fix you up real nice. About to throw yourself off the nearest, highest edifice because a client un-finaled a dozen or so shots causing you to cancel that ski trip you’ve been planning for months? Well, does the phrase “Hey, pizza rolls and mini corn-dogs are up!” make you feel any better? Heck, I think some places would put heroin in the York Peppermint Patties if they could get away with it.

The fact is, that we are a young industry and I think we haven’t seen the full effects of what three weeks of ingesting nothing but coffee and hot pockets can do to a person. I know it’s tough, I think I’ve eaten at least four and half pounds of trail mix for each week of the writer’s strike, but I’ve found a stroll around the building can clear the mind better than a package of Kraft’s Cheese ‘N Crackers. So do yourself a favor, skip a snack or two, we all could stand to reduce the size of our chewy liquid center just a little bit.

LINK to the ABC news story

Last month Variety published an article about the increased role of the VFX supe on set subtitled “Tech Pros Move Up In Film Production Hierarchy”. Here’s a taste.

“Not so long ago, visual effects were an isolated corner of post-production, a ‘black-box’ process headed by amiable engineers who kept largely to themselves. ..That has turned the job into a kind of uber-technician-diplomat whose job touches all departments”

I guess that officially makes 2008 The Year of The VFX Supe! To help guide us the dangerous wilds of our new found celebrity I’ve come up with a few tips to ease the transition.

Tip #1: It’s Time For a Makeover

A Hawaiin shirt under a custom-made photographer’s vest coupled with Trebekian facial hair just won’t cut it anymore. Put away the mullets and fanny-packs fellas cuz your with the big boys now. Get subscriptions to Details and Esquire now! Before you know it you’ll be on the carpet with Cloney and Pitt.

Tip #2: Get On The Scene (like a VFX machine)

Since VFX folks have a tendency to fall on the sedentary-anti-social-misanthrope end of the civility scale, newly found celebrity will have to include a social make-over of sorts. Topics that need to be focused on include; volume modulation in both conversation and laugh, human to human eye contact and of course grooming. Please take note that waiting in the comic book store for new books to arrive on Wednesdays is technically NOT considered socializing.

Tip #3: Use Smaller Words

Now that you’ll be released into the wild it’s time to be your own personal Henry Higgins and start listening to the way that you talk. To get started, try this role playing exercise. Don’t talk about Blade Runner for 5 minutes. How’d you do? If you made it more than 30 seconds your on the right track. Other off-limits topics include; the relative merits or high end video cards, TOS vs TNG and whether Greedo shot first just to name a few. A good rule of thumb is that if a conversation topic sounds interesting you, it will probably be insufferably boring the the non-vfx people you are trying to impress.

Tip #4: Keep Your Friends Close and Enemies Closer

Having a VFX Supe involved in every aspect of production on every flick from Tranformin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo to Rainbow Bright: The Movie means that lots of folks on the practical side of things will be out of work as a direct result of what you do. From now on, every Art Director, Make-Up Effects Artist, Special Effects Whacko, heck everyone with the possible exception of the guy who makes the smoothies will be giving you the stink eye every time you walk on set. So be careful, many these people are crafty and have access to high power explosives.

Tip #5: Stop Letting Others Drag You Down (and also don’t forget the little people)

Your time has arrived! You’ve been baptized into the realm of the Hollywood Gliterazzi and now you’ll have to engage in that age old Tinsel Town tradition of blaming others when things go wrong and taking credit for just about everything when things go right. There is only one thing you must do to maintain your good standing. If you are ever in a position to receive an award of any type for your work, make sure you mention that you “couldn’t have done it without my super-talented crew”.

LINK to Variety article