VFXhack

What is “Nuking The Fridge”, you ask? Well, according to Urban Dictionary it’s…

A colloquialism used to delineate the precise moment at which a cinematic franchise has crossed over from remote plausibility to self parodying absurdity, usually indicating a low point in the series from which it is unlikely to recover.

Guy 1: “Wow. Did you see the new Indy movie? What the hell was that? It was like I was having some kind of flu induced absurdist nightmare.”

Guy 2: “Yep… did or did not that series permanently Nuke the Fridge?”

“Nuke The Fridge” has official replaced “Jump The Shark” as the term du jour on many Blogs and websites as well as IN the vernaculars of many VFX professionals. Does it trouble anyone else out there that a phrase previously used to conjure nostalgic memories of 70’s era schmaltz and lameness (c’mon Fonz, who wears a leather jacket while they are water skiing?) is now linked to an overwrought effects sequence? I’ve been bemoaning the fact that the modern VFX world is a lot more coulda’ and not enough shoulda’ on this blog for almost a year now and there are signs that things are coming to a head. Are Indy’s CG gophers and the technicolor dragon vomit that made up Speed Racer eliciting a collective cry of “Enough with the CGI already!” from the general public?

A case that a shift in popular opinion might be made based on the recent spat of blog posts and movie reviews based on the subject of a public grown desensitized and weary of movie magic. Scott Nye postED this tidbit on chud.com not to long ago.

But much as I support CGI, I do acknowledge it’s also an overused, lazy way to create what could have been an amazing sequence if done practically

And it’s not just the Matrix Generation thats bent out of shape about the state of visual effects. Johanna Schneller, movie critic at globeandmail.com observes…

I realize that CGI is a thrilling toy, a technology that seems to advance by the minute, that gets more fun the more you play with it. And I realize that in Hollywood, it’s become a tautology: Blockbusters have CGI, so if you want your film to be a bigger blockbuster, it must have ever-more-massive chunks of CGI. But I’m not sure that filmmakers realize what a yawn it is to sit through

This simmering animosity towards VFX has also jumped from film critics and nerds to the video game community. In a post on PTD magazine, William Stapleton asks these tough questions after taking his son to see the new Hulk flick.

what happens when the ‘gee-whiz’ wears off? My grandchildren will take CGI technology for granted, because they’ll grow up in a time when it’s the norm, instead of something that’s new and exciting. I’ll admit, I’ve gone to a few films where the only redeeming quality was the power of its special effects. But what will happen when special effects aren’t ’special’ anymore?

I realize that three fairly obscure blog posts do mot a backlash make, but I have to ask. Is this the begging of the end?. Visual Effects films, like any other cinematic style, have always been subject to cycles of popularity. The cold war fueled sci-fi boom of the 50’s eventually trailed off and didn’t pick back up again until the 70’s. It could be argued that we are on the downside of peak in interest in science fiction (the key driver of the VFX film) that was spurred on by the rise of the Internet. On top of that, we are quickly coming to a point where we are simply going to run out of comic books and sci-fi classics to “re-invent”. What’s next Power Pack:The Movie? Last Starfighter 2: Electric Boogaloo??

We all need to face up to the fact that the current trend of CGI blockbusters may come to an end some day. Heck even the sun will run out of fuel and burn itself out at some point. To survive VFX has to move past the gimmick phase and become a truly integral tool in production. Some films already do a great job of this (Children of Men comes to mind) while most use the technology as a crutch to prop up aging action heros or a way to create asinine comic relief for bad screenplays. Don’t get me wrong the computer artistry that goes into a lot of these films is astounding. Too bad it’s often wasted on a disappointing, or worse yet forgettable, piece of entertainment. Let’s hope that the entire VFX industry hasn’t collectively jumped the shark, I mean, nuked the fridge.

Thanks to VFXPlanet for the links to the stories used in this post

Just started this comic over at Strip Generator. Loads of fun, more to come.

LINK to the full Wireframez strip blog

With all the crazy hours us VFX peeps slog through on a regular basis, certain activities can get swept to the side. Reading seems to be at the top of that list. After a long day chained to the desktop it’s hard to do anything at home but veg and try to unwind. And carving out a hour or so a night for reading just doesn’t seem like the thing to do considering there are several more songs left to be unlocked on Guitar Hero (or maybe that’s just me). Lucky for me I have a about an hour and half commuting time to catch up on my book learnin. Of course holding a page full of printed words up in front of my face while I wind my way down Laurel Canyon every day might prove to be a bit problematic. Audiobooks to the rescue. Now I know some of you are saying “Audiobooks? That’s not really reading.” Well, I hate to inform you that you are wrong. All of my friends who are avid listeners have decided that as long as you listen to the whole audio program in it’s unabridged form, you can say that you have read the book. So there, print snobs. Here are my five picks for great listens picked especially for my VFX brethren.

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman-

I’m a huge fan of audiobooks that are read by their author. Hearing Neil Gaiman recount many of the short stories he’s written over the years is pure magic. The tales the gamut including examples of Gaiman’s sci-fi, fantasy, horror and even a bit of poetry. There is a story set in the world of the Matrix and novella that features the continuing adventures of some of the characters masterpiece American Gods. A lot of the stories are bite-sized and easy to finish off if you’ve only got a few minutes to kill between renders.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson-

If you are a know-it-all like me, you must read this book. It gives you just enough info on about this rock that we live on to be dangerous, or at least completely annoying over cocktails. Bryson covers a wide range of scientific discoveries that you alway thought that you should know about and presents them with a mater of fact sense of humor that even makes them interesting. A word of warning though. This book shows how humans scientists use their powers of reason and observation to create “theories”. Intelligent designers might be offended.

Star Wars (Dramatized) by George Lucas-

Imagine watching the original Star Wars (episode IV, in case you just arrived in a time machine from 1976) without any visuals what-so-ever. I mean just the audio and a blank screen. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it would be a tremendously boring experience. So when, Lucas commissioned the for Radio version of his Sci-Fi classic in 1981 he made sure that it included expanded scenes not featured in the film to flesh out the radio play’s 6 1/2 hour running time. The result is a must for any Star Wars fan and includes great performances from Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels.

World War Z by Max Brooks-

I’m not a huge fan of the alternate history genre. I really couldn’t give a crap what some history nerd thinks the world would be like of the South actually won the civil war. But if you are like me, you have spent countless hours thinking to yourself “Now what would I do during a Zombie apocalypse?”. Well World War Z gives you a ground level view of what happens when the dead roam the earth on search of human flesh in the form of first person accounts from the Zombie War. If there is one thing I’ve learned from this book, if you are ever in the front lines of a confrontation with the undead, stay away from large bodies of water.

The Areas Of My Expertise by John Hodgman-

Hodgman himself reads his Farmer’s Almanac meets The Onion send up of a variety of topics from Lobsters to Hobo Matters. You’ll probably recognize Hodgman from the Daily Show and as the PC on the “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” commercials. Be careful though if you are listening on headphones while other people are around you will laugh out loud and appear to be an insane person to other join your vicinity. Take note that the list of 700 hobo names is available for free from Hodgman’s web site and takes over an hour for him to read.

LINK to hobo drawings at e-hobo

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)

AWN has posted an article revealing the results of an animation survey filled out by over 300 readers. It’s not surprising that most of the surveyed are guys who have a boner for hand drawn animation. It seems that they are particularly disturbed about the direction the winds of change are blowing in regards regards to mocap. Mark Simon sums up the issue thusly.

Sony Imageworks and Beowulf director Robert Zemeckis spent over $150 million producing a motion-capture CG animation movie. Want to know what scored the lowest in the survey of favorite animation styles? Motion-capture CG animation. Barely 2% of the survey-takers prefer this style of animation. It would seem that this is not a good investment.

I do have to agree that the Citizen Kane of mo-cap movies has yet to be made. And It looks like the movie biz has a long way to go in convincing the animators of the world that scaling the cliffs of the uncanny valley is worthy a pursuit.

LINK to full survey results (via VFXPlanet)

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.

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

Here’s a dirty little secret of CGI. VFX artists and supes depend on a limited bag of tricks to pull off even the most complex of shots. In fact these techniques are used so much you don’t have to look very to find them in nearly every TV show, feature film, commercial, youTube video or school fund-raiser slides show with eye-shot. If it makes you feel any better, you can call these war-horses an homage but thing about clichés is, that that they work. Heck even I am far from beyond the judicious use of these VFX canards. So at the risk of getting my membership at the Magic Castle of Visual Effects revoked for revealing secrets to all you muggles out there, I present to you some of most overused techniques in the biz.

Camera Shake

What is it?

If a civilization from a distant galaxy was analyzing our technology based solely on visual effects based media, they would have to conclude the computers that made CGI were built from parts formerly used to make tripods. It seems that these days a computer generated bunny bouncing on a field of clover will cause a shake comparable to 10.5 tremor. Shaking the camera makes sense when bomb blows up or 18 wheeler scrapes by the lens, but lately any vibration above a pin drop opens the door to a rumble-fest.

Why do we use it?

Camera shake is essentially a psychological tool to try and trick the viewer into thinking that a real camera photographed a CG element. Why else would the camera react unless something was physically affecting it? The other tid-bit of insider info about shake is that it increases as objects get closer to lens. Without camera shake streaking and obscuring the it, an object close to the camera lens would be very hard to render in enough detail to hold up without the help of our old buddy camera shake.

Lens Flare

What is it?

A lens flare occurs when a light source is pointed directly at the camera lens and light reflects on the glass elements inside of it. Optics engineers, DPs and Grips spend there entire careers trying to eliminate lens flares in order to get the cleanest image possible. VFX guys dole out lens flares like candy on Halloween. Every compositing package has the ability to generate lens flares and they all pretty much look the same. Some artists keep a reel of actual photography of lens flares to give their shots a more organic look. This can work fine, but a flare over a poorly rendered CG element isn’t going to fool anyone.

Why do we use it?

Well the obvious answer is, to cover up crappy CG. But there is a more artful application as well. A lot of recent VFX work revolves around the idea of creating one continuous, impossible-to-get-in-camera shot. This type of shot requires tons of preparation and a great degree of technical skill on set to pull off, and we all know what short supply those things are in. Lens flare to the rescue! A well placed camera pan into a flaring light source is a sure fire way to transition between two shots seamlessly.

C.F.I.L (Crap Flying Into Lens)

What is it?

It seems that CG cameras are imbued with a magical magnet-like property that causes materials of all types to be hopeless attracted to them. Everything from a school bus to used tissue seems get sucked into a vortex that inevitably obscures the frame. In the early days of “traditional” animation, action could only occur on a flat plane to camera. Making objects appear to travel closer during a shot meant scaling them up each frame, a laborious process to say the least. Now with 3d all bets are off we can show an object of any depth at any angle without any extra work. But just cuz’ ya can do it, doesn’t mean ya’ should do it. The impact intended by this shot with tons of crap comming into the lens has been greatly diminished by it’s over-use and with stereoscopic 3d flicks about to make a comeback, I don’t see that changing any time soon.

Why do we use it?

This one is really a case of artists and production folks alike collectively saying. “Hey we took the time and money to build this thing. Let’s see it for God’s sake!” On a VFX project people spend countless hours building junk in 3d, looking at turn-table after turn-table and obsessing over every detail. Then they see it in a shot and vanishes so quickly you hardly notice. Inevitably some genius cries out “Why don’t we have it fly into the lens!”. Cheers erupt, all that hard work has just earned a few more frames of precious screen time. It’s kinda the opposite of the Camera Shake scenario (see above).

God Rays

What is it?

God Rays are volumetric beams of light, like the kind that you get when you turn on a flashlight in a smoky room. There are a coupla’ ways to create them, the fastest being to shoot an element over black. But times being what they are, the more common method is to create them by either rendering a volumetric light pass in CG, which can look great but takes some time, or to use a filter in a compositing program which is wicked fast but can look, well… crappy. Over-use of the God Ray can result in not-so-glorious blast that seem to come out of nowhere. Case in point, this heavenly effect has a bad habit of appearing over screaming faces, especially at the end of a dream sequence or just before time travel.

Why do we use it?

When used properly, God Rays can create a nice sense of depth and atmosphere to a CG scene or matte painting. Unfortunately, they are more often employed in poorly designed, cheesy magic effects. Designing magic is tricky, a spell should always look connected to it’s caster in a unique way. All to often a supe will see the words “magic spell” written on a script page and they’ll automatically set to work lighting the shot up like a Frankie Goes To Hollywood video.

Bad Camera Work

What is it?

As the name implies, this is the technique of simulating a novice behind the lens in order to lend more credibility to a shot make it seem more “real”. This technique has it’s roots in documentary photography and cinema vérité, styles that burned the aesthetic of reality into our subconscious. The dark side of all this a plethora of CG DPs who aim a camera like a Storm Trooper aims a blaster. Lately, every camera pan misses it’s intended target and has to whip back to find it and nearly every other shot also has a snap zoom or focus pull that intentionally misses the mark. Maybe a side benefit of this will be a generation of filmgoers immune from motion sickness.

Why do we use it?

In an attempt to convince the viewer that the scene they are watching is real, VFX pros have created detectable presence behind the camera. The logic goes like this. If there is a real person shooting the CG stuff it too will appear real, right? The problem with line of reasoning is that the virtual cameraman that we’ve created to film our scenes is a chowderhead. In a lot of cases the effect of an overall shot is lost by an artificial life form screaming “Look, I suck at working a camera!” from behind the frame. Well, here’s hoping in the future good shot design and dazzling technical artistry will win out over gimmicky grandstanding. Until then, hang onto your barf bags folks!

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