December 16, 2005
Shaggy Dog Trailer
Looking around the net and I came across the Shaggy Dog trailer spotted over @ JoBlo's Movie Trailers: They are using a still from one of my shots on the site, the one below with zee long tongue.
'The Shaggy Dog' Exclusive Trailer Premire
This dog show is slated for March 10th, 2006
Posted by dschnee at 4:48 PM
Academy Announces Visual Effects Competitors
in bold are my predictions for this years shortlist...
Beverly Hills, CA — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced the seven films in consideration for Achievement in Visual Effects for the 78th Academy Awards®.
The films are listed below in alphabetical order:
"Batman Begins"
"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"
"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"
"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"
"King Kong"
"Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith"
"War of the Worlds"
Fifteen-minute clip reels from each of the seven films will be screened for the Visual Effects Award Nominating Committee on Wednesday, January 25. At this screening the members will vote to nominate three of the seven films for Oscar® consideration.
All nominations for the 78th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 31, 2006, at 5:30 a.m. PST, in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements for 2005 will be presented on March 5, 2006, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5 p.m. PST.
- Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Posted by dschnee at 10:34 AM
December 12, 2005
1 Week To Go,
(Ok, 2Days!?!) The second to last production diary covers the New York City Times Square premiere and after party... great stuph, check it out: "Post Production Diary - 1 Week to Go!"
Here is a nice spread on some of the visual effects on Kong,
Bigger and Badder
How Weta Digital Bulked Up for King Kong
By Barbara Robertson
December 1, 2005 Source: Film & Video
VFX supervisor Joe Letteri has won two Oscars, a Technical Achievement Award, and an Oscar nomination in the past three years at Weta Digital. Now, he’s doing something really big: Peter Jackson’s King Kong. We got him on the phone, a month from his deadline on Kong at Weta’s Wellington, New Zealand facilities, to talk about the new technology and techniques Weta devised to meet Kong’s many challenges.
Size Matters
Weta Digital grew from around 420 people to slightly over 500 for Kong. Letteri drafted Ben Snow as co-VFX supervisor early and, later, added two more top supes (see sidebar, below). "We have about 20 to 25 percent more people," says Letteri. "System-wise, we’ve about doubled our capacity in terms of render farm, disk space, and everything since Rings." As on previous films, Weta built its pipeline around Alias’s Maya, Pixar’s RenderMan and Apple’s Shake. Massive software, which had moved armies for Rings, managed the digital people and vehicles that populate Weta’s digital New York.
"We also used [Digital Domain’s] Nuke a bit because it has a nice ability to work with 3D, so it’s good to help build environments and do pre-comp," says Letteri. "And we still have Infernos here."
For Rings, Weta used a separate company for DI, but for Kong, they created an in-house DI department based on a Discreet Lustre system.[Color Supervisor Peter Doyle worked with Supervising Digital Colorist David Cole and Lead Colorists Billy Wychgel and Melissa Hangleon.] "We also streamlined and improved things in the back end — the hardware side, the networking and infrastructure," says Letteri, "and we had one big philosophical change in the pipeline: We are more geared toward pulling information together at render time than carrying it through individual scenes."
What does that mean? Technical directors now light and move low-resolution proxies rather than highly detailed geometry, whether they’re juggling complex scenes or complex characters. The high-resolution geometry rolls into RenderMan at render time.
"With a creature like Kong, you don’t want to open a Maya scene and have all the fur in it — and you obviously can’t open up a scene with all of New York in it — so we built a system that uses proxies," explains Letteri, "Everything is actually generated at render time. The system outputs whatever the camera is seeing whenever it needs it."
Working with proxies is not unusual. Studios typically use RenderMan’s RIB archives to see low-res on screen and then output high-res at render time. But rather than relying on RIB archives, Weta integrated a more flexible custom system into its pipeline.
"I’m guessing we’re not the only ones doing that," Letteri says. "As you start building bigger and more complex scenes, you still need fast feedback and turnaround time, and this is the only way to manage it. You can’t wait forever for things to update."
In addition, Kong’s demands required the creation of new simulation and motion-capture tools. New fur software made the ape hairy, new fluid-simulation software moved oceans, and new motion-capture tools helped animators ape Kong.
Super-Sized Sims
"We had a fairly good fur solution for Rings, but there wasn’t all that much fur," says Letteri. "And, there are good fur engines available — Maya’s got fur, and there’s also Shave and Haircut. But, when it comes down to putting five million hairs on Kong and making sure you can control what they’re all doing for every shot, you need your own software. If something doesn’t look right, you have to able to open it up and figure out what’s going on."
The fur-simulation software and new fur shaders generate, groom and animate Kong’s five million hairs when he moves, manage collisions with other objects, ruffle his hair in the wind and allow it to get dirty and muddy.
The crew also wrote a fluid-dynamics solver to create an ocean for Kong’s voyage to New York. The problems with commercial tools they had used and tested whirled around interaction and scalability. Some fluid solvers could manage an entire ocean or waves breaking around a boat, for example, but not both at the same time.
"When you need waves breaking off a boat in a whole ocean, it gets complicated," says Letteri. "We needed something that would do the broad solution and the small, specific solution where there is interaction."
Gorilla My Dreams
Of course, one of the biggest challenges in the film was its star. Modelers created Kong— and the digital doubles he interacts with— in Maya with help from a new tool Weta calls Mudbox. "It acts more like a painting system than a modeling system," says Letteri.
Looking for Mudbox?
See Also: Official Mudbox demonstration by Petey Konig at CA/MB Workshop! June 9-12-2006 in Montreal
To breathe life into Kong, rather than rely solely on keyframe animation for the CG gorilla, the crew turned to techniques and the actor who had created the Ring’s Gollum: they motion-captured Andy Serkis. Like Gollum, a gorilla has similar musculature to a human, even though the body and face shape is different. This time, though, the crew captured Serkis’s face and body simultaneously and the animators used data from Serkis’s performance for facial expressions as well. New software made it possible for animators to drive the CG gorilla with the mocap data or with keyframe animation, and a new system interpreted Serkis’s facial expressions before mapping data onto the 3D model.
"This is an expression-based system," says Letteri. "The software looks at the dots on Andy’s face, figures out what his expression says— that he’s sad, for example— and then applies that to Kong. We’re using mocap not just to move geometry around, but to actually interpret the actor’s expression and apply that to the character’s expression."
While Kong had to seem believable, Weta’s digital double for actor Naomi Watts had to be real. To capture Watts and create her double, the crew turned to Paul Debevec’s image-based Light Stage system at the ICT Graphics Lab. "We’ve moved more into image-based lighting than in the past for real actors and for real materials for set extensions," says Letteri.
As work on the production nears the end, Letteri sounds pleased. "We’re swamped right now, but it’s going well. The show is so big that people could take on large sequences and run with them. It’s given the crew good opportunities." And, perhaps, another Oscar nomination?
Bring In The Supes
At the start of the show, two-time visual effects Oscar nominee Ben Snow (Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones, Pearl Harbor) came aboard as co-visual effects supervisor. And then, during the last few months, two more heavy-duty VFX supes were brought in: George Murphy, VFX supervisor for Constantine, The Matrix Revolutions and Reloaded, who won an Oscar for Forrest Gump, and Scott Anderson, who received Oscar noms for Starship Troopers and Hollow Man, and won for Babe.
"A big chunk of the movie takes place in New York, another big chunk on Skull Island, and another on the voyage, so we broke it down roughly that way," Letteri says. "Ben is supervising and shepherding many of the big scenes on Skull Island and New York that we started early on. Scott picked up the new New York shots, and George has a lot of the coverage of Skull Island."
Joe Letteri’s Academy Awards History
2005 Oscar Nomination for Best Achievement in Visual Effects for I, Robot
2004 Oscar for Best Visual Effects for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2004 Technical Achievement Award for groundbreaking implementations of
practical methods for rendering skin and other translucent materials
using subsurface scattering techniques
2004 Oscar for Best Visual Effects for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
In Focus
Joe Letteri began his career at Industrial Light & Magic, where he was CG supervisor/artist on The Abyss, Jurassic Park and Casper. He was an associate visual effects supervisor on Mission Impossible and visual effects supervisor on Magnolia. Universal’s Kong, scheduled for release December 14, is his fourth film as visual effects supervisor at Weta, following the final two Lord of the Rings movies and I, Robot.
Posted by dschnee at 8:08 AM
December 6, 2005
Jackson's Kong finally unveiled
Last night with the premiere of King Kong in New York. A full scale Kong was set up in Times Square and there are some pictures here.
There are a slew of reviews out there, none of which I'm reading but they all look positive and seem to love the film. Rottentomatoes.com so far is @ 100%. Kongisking.net has tons of updates so go over there and get your fill on the latest Kong Updates...
The official site has put up 4 more TV SPOTs which include some of the last shots worked on in the shop and it's very exciting to see them completed and looking great. 3 of them also have that one shot from behind Kong grabbing hold of the native wall, it was my first shot with the monkey in it(well I did a shot with just his mit prior to that one), and it's fun to see it in the tv spots!
Here are some more TV Spots:
"Alone"
"Epic"
"King"
"Warrior"
Over @ vfxblog.com there is a decent spread on some of the vfx of Kong with an interview with VFX Soup Ben Snow.
Posted by dschnee at 7:56 PM
December 4, 2005
Raise The Woof?
ack... a friend of mine sent me this a couple weeks ago, here it is, The Shaggy Dog US Poster.
Posted by dschnee at 10:15 AM
December 2, 2005
Thinking Outside The Box Office
I just read a great article in the latest issue of 'Wired', with an interview with Director Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Ocean's 11). Soderbergh is going to release his latest film Bubble into theatres, on DVD, and on cable TV all on the same day. Saying that if you look at any of the big films in the last 4 years, 'It has been available in all formates on the day of release. It's called piracy.'
The biggest worry would then be, why go to the theatre if you can see at home on your nice projected screen without the fuss of dirty, loud, expensive theatres? I still enjoy the experience of going to the cinema, that will never change for me, but like Soderbergh says 'They're making it easy for people to stay home'.
It will be interesting to see what the reaction is of a simultaneous release in all the major formats.
Another portion of the article that interests me, while at the same time tires me is Soderbergh's interest in doing multiple versions of the same film. Stating 'I often do very radical cuts of my own films just to experiment, shake things up, and see if anything comes of it.' So the initial version would come out, then a few weeks later v2.0, recut, rescored, etc.
They say movies are made 3 times, the first time when it's written, secondly when it's filmed, and the 3rd time in editorial when you cut it all together. The director and editors have full control over how we will experience the story, so it's a cool idea to release alternative cuts, but it also seems like this concept would be abused and consumer whored out as a great way to make $$$, like squeezing 3 glasses of lemonade out of one lemon. For those seriously interested you will have ticket sales x3, dvd sales x3, etc. But then again it might just all even out becuase not everyone will watch all the versions. Anyhow cool concept, I think it could be a great thing for a few select projects, One cut could cater to the studios, another soley to the directors vision. I'd just hate to see 3 radical versions of White Chicks out there, =P
We are in a remix culture, he goes onto discuss Dangermouse's Grey Album which took the lyrics to Jay-Z's Black Album and remixed with The Beatles White Album. Onto how facinating it'd be to do a mash up of Gus Van Sant's Psyco with Hitchcock's Original Psycho, because Gus's Psyco was a shot by shot duplicate of the original.
It was a very interesting article, and it will be available to read on Wired.com on December 5th.
Posted by dschnee at 5:57 AM
November 30, 2005
Kong Goodies as of Late...
Since I've been on vacation with out much internet access, and my last week at Weta didn't leave me much time to update, here are a few tidbits of kong goodies to catch up with...
Cinefex has an Online Exclusive with Peter Jackson on King Kong
Here are a few TV Spots:
:30 "Tremble"
:30 "Unknown"
:60 "Unknown"
And feast on the latest Production Diary - 3 Weeks To Go which includes bits from our end, the compositing. Finaly! Should be interesting to see if they continue the production diaries right up until the release...
and WOW, my housemate was watching the tv ads between his show "LOST" and I just saw my first Kong shot in a new TV Spot on the tele, Sahweeet! A few frames of Kong landing on the natives wall, you see him grab onto a ledge and pull himself up, a nice shot of this silverback. Once I find this new TV Spot I'll post it up here!
Posted by dschnee at 7:11 AM
November 24, 2005
She Said Yes!
On our second night in Fiji I had arranged for a romantic evening to my lovley girlfriends surprise and it was on this night I popped the question. During a warm summer evening Fijian breeze (ok with a bit of a tropical storm mixed in), a bit of rain, under candle light, amongst a beautiful arrangement of tropical flowers and plants just near the beach and ocean, just before we toasted champagne and enjoyed some good food, She Said Yes!!!
Posted by dschnee at 8:09 AM
November 19, 2005
End of Days
...what feels over before it began, here it is my final day at Weta... 2 Shots left, one big one, and the other tossed at me a day ago which I will do a bit more on then pass it off to focus on getting my big shot out the door by tonight.
It's defenately bittersweet... It was the last day for 4 compositors including myself. I was hoping to get out of there in the early afternoon, but alas I needed to wait on some final rockstar TD renders from Michael Grobe which had me waiting until later in the night... This did give me time to say my good-bye's and gather my things before I leave the shop for the last time. Putting in over 100 hours the last few weeks doesn't leave much time to stop and clean up and sort everything for departure, so it was a fairly stress free evening once I got my final TD renders in the comp. Cooked it on the renderwall and off to show George Murphy our shot. Just a couple of final tweaks (for the dvd crowd) and I was home free! Just needs the PJ Approval tomorrow morning in Film.
There is still 8 more days left for the digital crew as the drop dead is November 27th, so I felt bad leaving a week before kong wraps... but I couldn't help it with my travel plans as my girlfriend flies into Wellington tomorrow morning... they tried to convince me to bring her to work the next couple of days though... ;)
Whats next? a solid week of travels through the north island of New Zealand, off to Fiji for a few nights, then back to New Zealand for a short stint, then it's back to the states for some more R+R.
Posted by dschnee at 7:08 AM
November 13, 2005
Into my final week...
It's sunday night an hour before my last week here at Weta Digital... and this last month has completley flown by. I put in 102 hours last week with 96 hours prior to that one... but I'm having a great time finishing the work I have left, all of which have the monkey in them.
I'm thriving off of excitment from a number of sources, mostly coming from flying my girlfriend Rebecca over here to New Zealand where we get to travel the North Island and Fiji together! We've been apart for about 3 months now, and it's been hard, but we are both greatly looking forward to this. We can't wait! On top of that it's the work, I'm really enjoying these last few shots, but I'm also looking forward to not working 100 hour weeks, excited to see King Kong in the cinema, excited to get back home, back with family and friends, excited to travel and relax and have a moment to catch up and look back at my experience over here.
BONUS: everyone received a small crew gift yesterday, that being the Official US King Kong Teaser Poster! Kool.
Posted by dschnee at 11:05 PM
November 5, 2005
Monthlies + The Kong Trailer
Final Monthlies?
We are under a month to go, and last night we had monthlies, huge respect to the people that bring this together, mainly editorial who slave over entertaining us with around 40 minutes of finals from the past month, the work is simply jaw dropping, Kong looks amazing, and it's a blast to see the sequences cut to perfect selections of music. A number of people also walked out with a few tears (and this isn't even how we'd see it ini the film)... as beauty killed the beast...
wow, what a great experience it's been to be here, I'm so happy to be even such a small part of this project... It's because of nights like these that I realize why I'm over here, doing what I love, such a boost to take a step back and truly see why we are putting in all these long hours, it's priceless.
On that note, check out the trailer below:
This thing speaks for itself... (so they show a bit too much), that aside, how can you not be energized to see this movie? The end as kong leaps up to swipe at the plane, ahhhh freaking great! I like that they are playing the dramatic level of this monkey movie as well.
Posted by dschnee at 12:10 AM
November 3, 2005
A Look Inside: King Kong
GO Take A Look Inside: King Kong
Triple Academy Award winner Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) directs the dramatic adventure King Kong, bringing his sweeping cinematic vision to the iconic story of the gigantic ape captured in the wild and brought to civilization where he meets his tragic fate.
...
Posted by dschnee at 7:37 AM
October 30, 2005
Kong Weighs In...
Kong has been on a rampage in the news as of late, with PJ not cutting like most of us working on the vfx would hope (less work), the film weighs in around 3 hours at the moment ('A Big Gorilla Weighs In')... Kong has gone over budget to something like $207 million, I think it cost $240 million for all 3 Rings movies, so there is your contrast... ('Jackson pays monster fine for taking 'King Kong' over budget')
Also Jackson has done some work to recreate the lost 'spider pit' sequence from the original King Kong film using the same techniques used in 33', stop-motion, rear-screen projection, glass matte paintings, and miniature shoots, then mucked up to match the quality of the original film. This will be on the Peter Jackson's Production Diaries DVD, can't wait to see that, should be neat. ('Jackson Makes a Lost Scene')
-from 'DVD producer saddled with 'Kong'-size task'
Official US Kong Teaser Poster and a new Trailer drops on Thursday
So on thursday November, 3rd, Access Hollywood is going to premiere the new Kong trailer, with it available for download on their website shortly after it airs.
I've seen it, it looks amazing, but god damn, they show way too much! :(
As for me, it's the home stretch, 4 more weeks to go, and I'm happy as hell because all of the rest of my shots are monkey shots from the Kong Kapture sequence... =p
ok, back to work...
Posted by dschnee at 11:57 AM
October 20, 2005
Kong Races Against The Clock
-article from the latest edtion of 'The Wellingtonian'
no comment.
Posted by dschnee at 11:01 PM
Bob Burns 1933 Kong Armature visits Weta
Bob Burns, came to visit Weta on Monday, and it was pretty damn cool to see and touch a piece of movie history. It's the original armature used in the 1933 film, that was actually used for the kong tests, but worked well so they used it in the film. Bob Burns managed to tell a number of interesting short stories, Karim took lots of photos, it was cool.
It may be 73 years old, fur-less and only 46 centimetres tall, but the original King Kong that terrorised New York is now in New Zealand ahead of its celebrated re-make.
American collector and film enthusiast Bob Burns. Burns and his wife, from California, are in Wellington with the frame of the animation model used in the original 1933 movie, as guests of director Peter Jackson.
"I thought since they are doing King Kong over here it would be good to bring him over," Mr Burns said yesterday.
"(Jackson) brought us over. It was really nice of him to do it. He just knows that I am such a Kong fan that he wanted me to see what was happening."
Mr Burns first met Jackson in the United States about 15 years ago. He had been given a sneak preview of the movie – a "couple of little scenes" – while in Wellington.
"It's such a homage to the old Kong . . . Peter has such love for the animal that you can just see it. You can see the love in the film."
Mr Burns even took the model with him to a Wellington pub yesterday.
"He thought he'd come in for a spot of ale."
Originally covered in sponge rubber and rabbit fur and with a pair of doll's eyes, it was one of two models made by modeller Marcel Delgado for the original film.
Mr Burns' model is the only one of the pair remaining after the other was cannibalised for parts.
The joints were moved between frames to give the appearance of movement. "At 24 frames (a second), when you project it, he moves."
The model is believed to be valued at more than US$100,000 (NZ$144,000) for insurance purposes.
Mr Burns said he had owned the model for decades. It also starred in the lesser-known Son of Kong in 1933 and two of its fingers were used for the model of the giant in the 1962 film Jack the Giant Killer.
Mr Burns has a museum of memorabilia from horror and science fiction movies, including Frankenstein's boots and latex props from Alien and The Terminator.
The Smithsonian Institution had tried to buy the King Kong model from him. "I think I'm going to keep him."
-via stuff.co.nz - "Not so Scary"
Posted by dschnee at 10:46 AM
October 19, 2005
Tippett @ eDIT 8 Festival in Frankfurt, Germany
At this years eDIT 8 Filmmaker's Festival in Frankfurt, Germany, Phil Tippett was:
"highlighted with the awarding of eDIT’s highest honor: Festival Honors, which where bestowed this year on animation pioneer Phil Tippett and distinguished actor Armin Mueller Stahl. Festival Honors were presented at a gala celebration on the evening of opening day. Attendees received a red carpet welcome and champagne reception during which opening remarks were made by aforementioned minister oaf arts and science Udo Corts."
See Also: Questions to Phil Tippett - Festival Honors
Good Stuff.
'He is currently developing several new directing projects, and Tippett Studio remains busy.'
Festival Honors
Attendees then moved into the theater, where the ceremony began with a welcome from Prime Minister Koch, followed by a choreography by Germany’s William Foresythe.
Then Festival Honors were bestowed on Phil Tippett, the award-winning visual effects supervisor, animation pioneer, director and founder of Tippett Studio, which produces animation and visual effects for feature and commercial projects. Tippett has earned two Academy Awards — for the visual effects on Return of the Jedi and Jurassic Park — and two Emmys during a career that has spanned more than 25 years. The audience was taken through a recap of Tippett’s career through a series of clips of his work, including The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Robocop, Jurassic Park and Starship Troopers.
Tippett’s direction began at the age of seven when he first watched visual effects legend Ray Harryhausen’s stop motion classic, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.
In a truly emotional moment during the Festival Honors presentation, Harryhausen appeared in a surprise video clip during which he congratulated Tippett on receiving Festival Honors. The clip concluded with one of the memorable stop motion skeletons that battled in Harryhausen’s Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts, who also “offered congratulations,” generating cheers from the packed theater.
A surprised Tippett was visibly moved to get this message from his mentor. In accepting the award, he simply said, “It was Ray whose Seventh Voyage of Sinbad sent me on this life in cinema nearly 50 years ago, on the way to receiving this great honor.” (Afterwards, Tippett said the message from Harryhausen was “the pinnacle… for me it was going to the full route, it was really moving.”)
As part of their recognition, Tippett and Mueller-Stahl each received a place of honor on the Wall of Fame, a permanent installation in the foyer of the German Film Museum in Frankfurt, which represents the Festival Honors awarded annually by eDIT. This marks the first time that an animator and actor have been honored. In the display, they join previous prizewinners director Peter Greenaway, the cinematographers Michael Ballhaus, ASC and Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC; visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren, ASC; editor Tom Rolf, ACE; production designer Dante Ferretti and legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick.
The actual display features items donated by the awardees as symbolic of their work, which are exhibited in glass cases on concrete columns. The two new columns were unveiled at the museum in conjunction with the eDIT Festival.
Later, a special eDIT session featured Tippett in a conversation with a fellow Academy Award winner, Chris Landreth, who was honored with an Oscar earlier this year for the animated short Ryan.
During this session, Landreth walked the famed animator through his inspirations, career highlights and screening of Tippett’s film work, as well as those of his inspirations, such as the aforementioned Sinbad. Landreth emphasized Tippett’s unique role in vfx’s history, through his “survivability from stop motion to digital.”
Discussion included Tippett’s start at George Lucas’s ILM, where he developed the animation technique known as Go-Motion in 1982 and earned his first Academy Award nomination for Dragonslayer. In 1983, he began work on The Return of the Jedi, for which he received his first Oscar.
Tippett Studio was founded in 1984 when Tippett left ILM to create a 10-minute experimental film called Prehistoric Beast. The realism of the dinosaurs led to his work on the 1985 CBS animated documentary Dinosaur!, for which Tippett Studio won its first Emmy.
Tippett explained that based on his dinosaur experience, he was contacted by Steven Spielberg in 1991 and asked to supervise the dinosaur animation for Jurassic Park. It was this project that was responsible for Tippett Studio’s transition from stop-motion to computer-generated animation and for which Tippett earned his second Oscar.
More recently, the animator took an interest in directing. A few years ago, he partnered with longtime associate, writer Ed Neumeier (with whom he worked on Starship Troopers and Robocop); the two wrote the story for Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation, which Tippett directed. He is currently developing several new directing projects, and Tippett Studio remains busy.
Looking ahead, Tippett said he believes that “visual effects will just fall into the nomenclature of filmmaking.” And when asked about techniques he will use going forward, he said that he expects to be working in an all-digital realm, although he would return to stop motion “if it was appropriate in the context of a film.”
Posted by dschnee at 10:27 AM
October 15, 2005
Birthday Abroad
I received a huge box full of goodies from my lovely girlfriend Rebecca, including a new sweatshirt and beenie for the chilly walks to and from work... it was so fun go get a huge package over here and tear into it finding all sorts of great gifts, perfect! Thank you Love!
So it's Saturday, I'm at work, and it's me birthday... just another day right? Didn't take the day off as some asked why? but I spent it working but left a bit early to catch a flick with Jeffj. We went to the Cinelounge and caught '40 year old virgin'. Now the unique and cool thing about the cinelounge is that the seats are damn near lazy boys, you can have drinks(beer, wine, cocktails) brought out to you during the show, as many as you like, there's free popcorn, and you don't have to cram up next to a stranger, you have an assigned seat. I wish they had these in the states! As for 40 Year Old Virgin, pretty damn funny, some great laughs, it was a fun movie.
After that we went to a bar the Weta folk frequent, 'The Motel', had a number of drinks and hung out for a few, it was a laid back but enjoyable night.
This is my second year in a row I've been away for my birthday, as last year I was on my way home from a great roadtrip with my girlfriend. We were in Salt Lake City, Utah on our way back from Colorado.
so how young am I? twenty-five, err eight, 28...
Posted by dschnee at 10:17 PM
October 9, 2005
Troopers 2 animators show up in Kong Diary
In the latest King Kong production diary '10 weeks left' It's part 2 of animation showcasing some 'keyframe' animation on Kong, and you get to see a couple of talented animators who I started out with on Starship Troopers 2, one Mr. Mike Leonard, and one Mr. Jeremy Bolan, so that was damn cool to see! (both in black beenie caps)
The image to the right was rumored to be another teaser poster, but I think it's just for the cover of 'Empire' magazine... But still, thats Kong on the Empire State Building holding Ann at sunrise over New York... pretty damn cool.
Lastly, look for The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island by Weta Workshop a book that will be coming out that I'm sure will be a nice coffee table book described as "this book is a lavish visual tribute to the fabulous movie art which created the world of Skull Island and its fauna and brought them to vivid, stupendous life on the cinema screen."
Posted by dschnee at 8:20 AM
October 3, 2005
Kong's Production Diaries go to DVD
Update:
Universal is releasing a production DVD just one day prior to the theatrical release of King Kong. (December 14th so the DVD to release December 13th). Here is the details in short:
"The DVD collection, expected to be priced at $39.98, features the journals from the first eight months of production ending with principal photography as well as original footage produced specifically for the DVD and a 50-page four-color book."
"The continuing video journals featuring Jackson and all the stars and crew at work on the movie, as well as early looks at the various incarnations of the giant ape have been posted regularly all year at fan web site KongIsKing.net. The shorts were produced by Lord of the Rings DVD production company Pellerin Multimedia Inc."
Head on over to Video Business Online for the complete article.
It's a bit weird that they are marketing and releasing this a day before the film opens, but regardless it should be a great way to experience the journey it took to make King Kong, very cool indeed.
Monthlies!
I remember watching the extra features on one of the Lord of the Rings DVDs and seeing the crew gether in the theatre to watch 'monthlies' a recap of all the glorious finals from the past month. This Friday past, we were all invited for Kong Monthlies, and it had been over a month since they had done it last, so there was tons of work on screen, all cut to interesting choices of music, all fun, comedic, and entertaining. The work? simply amazing, I was pretty blow away by all of it... I can't say much more, but it's just insane. So happy to be even a tiny part of this big monkey movie!
Posted by dschnee at 8:25 AM
September 29, 2005
Kong is Coming...
Wired Magazine's October issue has a spread 'Return of the King' - check it out! Lots of great info on Kong, Peter Jackson, the production, video diaries, and more.
PJ Finals!
And at long last I have my first batch of PJ (Peter Jackson) approved Finals as of yesterday. One of my shots was actually just up for review on the 'look' of the shot, but he finaled it, so that was pretty cool. (then again we are running out of time) The shot had some technical issues so I was able to clean it up right and re-filmed it out last night. Plenty more shots though, it seems like every batch of finals, he turns over a new batch of shots... how all of this work will complete in 7 weeks has got me.
Other Kong Goodies
- King Kong and Volkswagen
Contains some sweet concept art, backgrounds, and the Kong car 'Touareg'
Ohh and it looks like they have dismantled the 'Venture', I'm glad I got to see it while it was still in one piece, and a couple weeks ago we had a crew picture taken on the Venture, it was with all of the compositors, I'll try and get one of those on here soon.
Posted by dschnee at 9:05 AM
September 20, 2005
7 Day Weeks...
Now that the lap of luxury staying at the Duxton Hotel has expired, my rental car days over, I find myself walking about 3km to and from work up a fairly steep hill. It takes me about 20-25min to get down the the hill to work, and about 30-35min to get up it, it's good for me though, and I need it sitting on my ass all day. There's a pretty big storm coming, so the winds were blowing me around tonight on the way home, and it's damn cold, but I was spared with rain... for now.
Have I mentioned that I'm staying with former Tippett Trooper Jeff Johnson here in Miramar? I'm staying in one of the rooms in this 3 bedroom house on the hill overlooking the ocean, it's a beautiful view and an awesome place to live, so I'm going to enjoy what little of it I can...
Which brings me to us being given the official word that everyone is now on 7 Day weeks at Weta, in order to complete some 1200+ shots left on Kong. Do the math... its just krazy. =/ This is how the collective at Weta feels: (donkey --->)
Posted by dschnee at 12:32 AM
September 13, 2005
New Zealand Photos
Well I have been in New Zealand almost 2 weeks now, and have started my second week at Weta... I'm settling in now, making some dailies, and I've got about 15 shots on my plate right now... :/ I had this past Sunday off, and took advantage of it, as I'm not sure how many free Sundays I'll have from here on out...
I spent the day doing a bit of scenic driving and a lot of parking and walking to enjoy the views, the coast, and other odds and ends along the way... I used photoshop cs to create this nifty web gallery from my digi stills, it is much nicer than I remember... So if you no longer want to be bored from reading this, visit my New Zealand photo gallery here: (You will need Flash)
davids New Zealand [digi] Photos - galOne
The gallery has photos from the hotel room over looking Wellington Harbor, Te Papa museum, Civic Square last weekend, and I drove up to the lookout atop Mt Victoria, and it's an awesome view of Wellington's City Center, and the sourrounding Towns, including Weta Digital. I also took a long drive around the coast line, houses on the hills all with amazing views of the bays, it's truly beautiful around here. I also snapped some images of the 'Venture' which is the ship used in the filming of King Kong, it's docked up in Miramar, pretty cool.
Lastly, I parked my rent-A-car and made my way in a restricted area and took this quicktime movie...
Cheers, thats all for now, more to come...
So now that my gallery is way 2 sluggish to view, I'll get an html version up tomorrow...
Posted by dschnee at 1:28 AM
September 5, 2005
Weta, Day 1
So today was my first day at Weta Digital, and it was great to take a tour through the places that cranked out the magic and lore of the Lord of the Rings… Orientation sums up my first day though, meet and greet, paperwork, set up a NZ bank account, driving lesson, tour of the facility, and things of this nature.
I had lunch at one of the new facilities for Editing and Sound at Weta, equipped with a nice fancy cafeteria. I sat down with a few x-Tippett folk (jeffj, jbolan, ericj, and others), and later on in the afternoon after my driving lesson stopped by and chatted with some good old Troopers 2 soldiers Mike Leonard and Jeremy Bolan! I embarked with them a few years ago working on Troopers 2, they were the first 2 Troopers2 crew I met, so it was great to have a small mini reunion of sorts.
So it was a pretty relaxed day… for now. They are working on creating a place for me to sit, it’s getting pretty crowded around Weta these days, there is ship loads of work left, it’s going to be crazy, but I love crazy and can’t wait to get to compin’ my first shot!
Posted by dschnee at 11:44 AM
September 3, 2005
Arrival to New Zealand
Whew! What a journey it has been for me… I departed SFO to LAX about an hour and a half late, which meant by the time I arrived at LAX, a runner rushed me to the gate to board my plane from LAX to Auckland, NZ… this meant that my luggage wasn’t going to make it to Auckland with me for the 12 hour flight… Ok, so it happens. The 12 hour flight wasn’t half bad, I slept through most of it with out too much discomfort.
Then the fun begins...
I arrived in Auckland, about 5:15am local time, it was on this flight I lost a day, it’s 5:15 on Friday, I left on Wednesday… I went through customs, and waited at the baggage claim in case my luggage might have made it… but nope. I ventured on, well after a cute sniffing dog from customs stuck her muzzle in my bag. I had half of a turkey sandwich in it the day before, and that’s what she smelt. So I was ok, my smuggling days have long since past. I made it over to the baggage services and have come to find that my luggage was on it’s way to Melbourne, Australia, which then would go to Auckland, then to Wellington, and on to my Hotel at the Duxton. Sounds easy enough right?
By the time I was finished, I had to rush over to the domestic terminal to catch my flight to Wellington. So I jogged about 1km, rushed up to the gate, got on board, and sat… and sat… and sat longer. Due to the dense Fog, we were not able to take off on time. We sat in the plane for a good hour waiting for it to let up for the minimum visibility range. Once we achieved that range, a generator powering the lights on the runway broke down, this meant that our visibility range now had to clear up a substantial amount more… But the fog got worse. Long story short we sat on the runway for 2.5 hours before running out of enough fuel to make the flight to Wellington, turned back and the flight was cancelled.
Ok, so I just need to catch another flight… the next flight was 12pm, but that was full, so 3pm would be the next flight for me. So I hung out at the Auckland airport for the better part of the day, went to some shops, had a bite to eat, checked my email, contacted some loved ones, etc.
A couple hours before my flight I ended up at the airport bar have a few pints with a Kiwi Fisherman and an older Ausie man. This was pretty cool talking to them about a variety of things from rugby, fishing, locals, things to go see and do, petrol, you name it. So I lost track of time, and again needed to jog over to catch my flight 1km away, I arrived over there sweaty and panting, to find out that my 3pm flight has been delayed until 5pm! Son of a Bitch!
The 5pm flight was delayed only until 5:15pm, I arrived in Wellington shortly after 6pm, and a runner from Weta took me over to the Duxton Hotel in downtown Wellington. My luggage arrived the next day about 5pm’ish… The next day the Auckand Airport was closed down due to fog… never easy. =)
The Duxton Hotel? Simply awesome, they set you up in a really kick ass suite and make you feel like a king, it’s really, really nice here.
Posted by dschnee at 11:32 AM
August 31, 2005
meyemindVFXlog Widget v1.0
New in Mac OS X 'Tiger' is the introduction of the Dashboard and the thousands of Widgets that you can download and throw on your dash. So what is it? "Dashboard is home to widgets: mini-applications that let you perform common tasks and provide you with fast access to information. With a single click, Dashboard appears, complete with widgets that bring you a world of information — real-time weather, stock tickers, flight information and more — instantly. Dashboard disappears just as easily, so you can get back to what you were doing." as described by Apple.com. So for instance, there is a Gas widget that allows you to put in your zip code and check local gas prices, another is for Google Maps, a scoreboard for your favorite sports team, Wikipedia search, send text messages to cell phones, check out the moon phase, lots of cool widgets. You can also get the latest news say from Wired or the BBC using RSS feeds.
So I have assembled a widget for meyemind.com VFXlog updates! Download it below and let me know what you think.
Not much functionality but it should work fine. I'm working on a better version with the ability to flip to the back for more info, and a better dashboard icon.
So stay updated with what the funk I'm up to with this nifty widget for the Mac OS X Tiger.
Download meyemindWidget v1.0:
>>> meyemindVFXlogWidget.zip or meyemindVFXlogWidget.sit <<<
In Other News...
I fly to New Zealand tonight!!! This should be about a 20 hour voyage by the time I get to my hotel in Wellington, good grief!
Posted by dschnee at 10:27 AM
August 25, 2005
Powerbook G4 15" + Sony DSC-P200
I have recently purchased a fresh sexy sleek Apple PowerbookG4 15" for my travels, now I can stay connected, do the internet phone(Skype) thing with my girlfriend, friends, and family, and keep my website updated and easily share any pictures I take while I'm gone. This is the first laptop I have ever owned, and I have to say, I love it! Mac OSX 'Tiger' is so damn easy, its the way computers should be, 'plug-and-play' everything just works.
I have been wanting a mac for sometime now, mainly for the use of Final Cut Pro, which I havent used extensivly since assistant editing over at Summit Pictures. Now I have the tools to complete a series of projects as time permits... And of course using the latest version of Shake at home.
Posted by dschnee at 10:01 AM
August 12, 2005
Last Day at Tippett + King Kong
Wait? What? yes... today marks my last day at Tippett Studio... :( (for now). After 2 and 1/2 years working at one hell of an amazing studio, I'll be packing my bags and heading down to Skull Island (New Zealand) to help complete work on "King Kong" for Weta Digital!?!
I have completed my work on Disney's "The Shaggy Dog" and the timing worked out for me to take on this opportunity to visit New Zealand and work on King Kong for a couple of months. Tippett was awarded a dozen more shots, so the show has been extended, I'll be looking forward to see how the new shots turn out.
I plan to return to Tippett once my Weta gig is up in the second week of November. So after some travels I should be back in December sometime. I'll be flying out on Wednesday, August 31rst and arrive in Wellington, New Zealand on Friday, September 2nd about 8am NZ local time. So my first day at Weta will be on September 5th. I'm crazy excited to get over there and work my a$$ off. It's going to be crazy, but one hell of a ride!
See Also:
Kong Is King.net
Weta Digital
King Kong IMDB
King Kong (Offical Movie Site)
Posted by dschnee at 6:52 PM
August 5, 2005
Siggraph LA 2005 Aftermath
I wanted to post my thoughts and some details of my journey to this years Siggraph in Los Angeles...
I flew into Long Beach early tuesday morning and headed on over to the Los Angeles Convention Center to start the Siggraph 2005 experience. Once there, I found a couple of compers at Tippett in line for some coffee, Craig Hayes joined us in line a few minutes later to get coffee for the crew setting up the Tippett Booth, so that was pretty cool.
Shortly after coffee the expo opened it's doors and a frenzy of crowds rushed in to grab freebies, drop off demo reels, and soak up the latest and greatest from all the vendors. I made the rounds for a couple hours just trying to see everything and note the booths I wanted to explore in more detail at a later time.
First impressions on the booths, nothing jaw dropping but a lot of them were nice.
Nvidia housed a inflatable dome theatre that showcased a story about the possiblity of life on other planets narrated by Harrison Ford. It was a journey through space and the screen was just about the entire top of the dome, it was pretty darn good.
Sony Pictures Imageworks had their usual drawing session with live models and such. It felt like Autodesk had the biggest booth, with stations around demoing the numerous software they carry, and a center theatre/seating space for the bigger demos. But the alias and Softimage booths were large as well with the big screens and demos all day long. The Disney booth was hiring big time for Toy Story III.
Apple's booth had a cool setup, a short wall that housed workstations for interactive demos, and also gave enough room for the on-lookers to watch the demo from around it comfortably. They used a shot from Starship Troopers 2 to demo a basic shake comp with, it was a shot completed Daniel Bryant from the Outpost sequence, and that was pretty nifty to see demo'd. (even if it was a very bare bones basic script, and they did things I wouldn't do, but still... =) )
As for our booth? I'd say considering the space size 10 out of 10, it was clean, stylish, and friendly. The Tippett booth was mobbed by a crowd relentlessly Tuesday, this was very exciting to see. It very much follows the website, with slices of our images rounding the top of the booth, but it gives way around a display case with 4 maquettes (Tank Bug and Warrior Bug from Starship Troopers, Robocop, and one other green guy). Our logo was backlight bright white and red on a dark gray background so that you can see it all the way across the expo floor, very nice.
Later Tuesday's events included attending a sketch on 'production rendering' the creation and rendering of the cg clouds used in "Stealth" from the team at Digital Domain.
See Also: Wookiee Hair, rendering ambient occlusions with all that fur.
In the later part of the afternoon, another Tippett artist Ari Rubenstien and myself supported Matt Jacobs with his presentation for "Highway to Hell". We found ourselves in a Siggraph prep room, where at the table right next to us, John Knoll, Rob Coleman, and Dennis Muren were preparing for the 'Star Wars Retrospective From Industrial Light & Magic' session later that day, it was the right room to be in, ;) We later went into West Hall B where Matt plugged-in his presentation and we assisted in making sure the audio and video were good to go.
After that the night consisted of making sure the Blur tickets were in hand, thank you Ari. Over the past few years Blur Studio has put on some great parties during Siggraph. I had dinner with Matt and Alan Boucek at the Los Angeles Athletic Club, after that we tried to make it out to the Houdini "Get.Hip" party, but due to some after dinner hotel room drinks we waited until later to attend the Blur Party at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood.
The Blur party was decent, The Crystal Method was great, I have seen them a number of times, and this was the first time I had seen them take turns behind the tables, it was a cool dynamic to have one behind and the other on stage pumping up the crowd along with the female dancers... Anyhow good people to meet and socialize with a bit, good techno to dance too, and after the Blur party ceased, the after party continued in Venice at Blur Stuidos. It was really cool to check out Blur's digs and hang out with some of the artists there. It was a fun night indeed.
We got back around 5am on Wed, so we slept in a bit, and made it back to Siggraph around Noon... checked out a few more booths, and then made my way to the Gurilla Studio to check out Nuke. I sat down with an intern at Digital Domain who ran me through the Nuke interface and we talked about some of the features and pipeline usage. Some things I found of great intersest is the toggle into 3d space with 3d cameras, projections, tracks, and tons more. It's really easy to take a plate strip its parts, project it back onto some rough geometry, and create a new camera move.
Another is Nuke's Gizmos, so what the heck are Gizmos? well they are basically a smart grouping of node tree that has a switch and slider GUI for control of everything in the gizmo, for example, the Lead Compositors would build a gizmo for the look of the robot in I-Robot, and build in all the parameters that would need tweaking for the robot, then pass this gizmo onto the other compers for them to use. This is great for the lead, but for the general compositor, it means to some degree just monkeying around sliders, and not building, ceating, and problem solving most of their shot. I realize that everyshot is different and has it's own issues to solve beyond the gizmos, and they are a great way to maintain good continuity between shots in a sequence, but come on, let the comper comp! =)
I did some more booth browsing, and briefly checked out a demo of Autodesks Toxik. They were demoing the use of HDR images and the controls for expousure for the image, with the ability to take down hot parts of the image and bring up the darker regions, complete control, very neat.
Wednesday evening was my Electronic Theatre Ticket night, the pre-show entertainment was a live performance hand drawn driven piece by J Walt, with the use of the latest Nvidia technology had the ability to draw in 3d space with the ability to move the camera and place tubular shapped organic shapes like a garden. Autocosm: Gardens of Thuban was quit the trip... lots of groovy colors and shapes and a bit of a build up and climax. Very geeked out, but cool.
The rest of the show was pretty darn good, I always enjoy the VFX company showcase and breakdowns, ILM is still top dog, showing the work on the Lemony Snickets baby, EPIII, and War of the Worlds. DD showed us some good stuff with Stealth and some others... I feel our animation theatre Constantine reel could have been shown here as well. Anyhow, on to the shorts. "9" stood out, very well animated, and it was in a very cool environment with decent art direction.
Other highlights was an abstract piece "Helium", "La Migration Bigoudenn" which follows some old women's ritual of making some sort of flat bread that has to be perfect for approval of the head lady. They showed "Gohper Broke" and that was great to see up on the big screen, that has a great halarious ending to it. "Dice" was an awesome short piece following one die rolling across the ground adding it self to other dice, creating patterns and such, very, very neat stuff. "Cubic Tragedy" was great! It was a pologonal low rez piece where a women in the vanity mirror attempts to smooth out a hard edged cheek bone, she uses 3d modeling tools to try and smooth it out, but ends up merging verticies and ultimatley ends up as the basis of cubisim, awesome short.
"Fallen Art" was great, awesome art direction, interesting charachters and a very interesting story, it's a must see. "Learn Self Defense" was quit funny. "Workin Progress" was brilliant, this one you just have to see for your self...
I however didn't care for the beavis and butthead characters represented by a brain and a crumpled up piece of paper as in-between time fillers... thumbs down.
All though there were a few parties on Wednesday night, EA and Zoic, but I caught up with about 8 others from the Academy of Art days, and we went to Korea town and ate some dinner at a great Korean place. Good food and good friends catching up.
Thursday was more or less my last chance to check out anything I wanted to before my flight home... So I walked around the emerging technologies, but wasn't very impressed with this years geeky gizmos, there was a lot of cool stuff, but nothing that great. I went and saw "Discover" in the animation theatre to watch Tippett Studios Constantine work, and to see the breakdown I did for ha090. The audience liked it, but the gamma and saturation was mush, it looked like mud, flashed and had no 'hell' red in it... that was unfortunate.
All and all it was a fun trip to Siggraph, I'm not sure if I'll go to Boston next year, but it is an excuse to travel to the east coast and visit Boston, so who knows...
Posted by dschnee at 3:13 PM
August 1, 2005
I'm @ Siggraph 2005 for the next couple days!
Siggraph 2005 is back at the Los Angeles Convention Center this year. I haven't been since 2001, and I'm excited to attend this year!
I'm looking foward to a number of events at the convention,
emerging technologies is always fun and facinating... I'll be attending a number of sketches and some special sessions, and I want to hit up Digital Domain's NUKE - Hands-On Training in the guerilla studio, and of course there is the computer animation festival for your eye candy enjoyment.
Of course I can't not mention my lead compositor on Constantine, Matt Jacobs sketch Highway to Hell as part of the Effects Omelette on Wednesday!
I should be attending the Houdini Annual Meeting Tuesday evening, which is followed by the "Get HIP Party", but I'll probably head on over to the infamous "Blur Party" with some friends instead.
Otherwise connecting with some old friends and enjoying my time cruising the vendor floor during the Exhibition portion of Siggraph.
I'll post some aftermath thoughts at the end of the week, along with some Amazing Exciting News to share!?!
-stay tooned...
Posted by dschnee at 4:09 PM
July 28, 2005
Some Shaggy Dog Trivia? director Brian Robbins
I came to find out a while back that Brian Robbins, our Director on "The Shaggy Dog" is none other than 'Eric Mardian' from the popular 80s TV series "Head of the Class".
He has since gone on to produce and direct a number of projects, including director on 1999's controversial "Varsity Blues" and 2004's "The Perfect Score"
Acting as producer from 1995's "The Show" to 2005's "Coach Carter". It's always facinating to learn where teenage TV show actors end up when they grow up...
See Also: Brian Robbins entire IMDB resume...
Here are a couple more pictures:
Posted by dschnee at 11:25 AM
Hot 'Constantine' tops DVD sales
As reported by TheHollywoodReporter.com
Warner Home Video's "Constantine" has become the latest comic book-based movie to top the sales charts, entering VideoScan's First Alert chart at No. 1 its first week in stores. Another new release, Buena Vista Home Entertainment's "Ice Princess," took the No. 2 spot on the preliminary national sales chart for the week ending July 24, bumping last week's top seller, Warner's "Million Dollar Baby," to No. 3. "Constantine," which grossed $75.5 million in theaters, proved so popular at retail that while the regular DVD was ranked No. 1, the deluxe edition, which includes a comic book-and a heftier price tag-clocked in at No. 4. "Million Dollar Baby," however, remained the top renter for the week ending July 24, according to Home Media Retailing's rental chart, earning an additional $12 million to bring its two-week take to $27.4 million.
(Thomas K. Arnold)
FULL STORY
Posted by dschnee at 10:06 AM
July 19, 2005
Constantine Deluxe Edition DVD Released!
Both the Single Disc and Deluxe Editions were released today, I'll be picking up the Deluxe edition sometime today and have some feedback on the dvd master and extra features and hopefully have some new content to add to the CN Comp Department. A friend at work got his hands on the Single Disc Edition and he mentioned that they have clamped the whites and are about 1 full stop darker then our finals we sent to WarnerBros. So the dvd is cutting out a huge range of detail, I'll find out soon enough with my own eyes... Thats it for now, click below for the complete Details
Here are few Constantine: 2-Disc Deluxe Edition DVD Reviews:
Chud.com Review - 9/10
Movies For Guys Review - 4/5
DVD Town Review - 7.75/10
DVD Talk Review - Recommended
IGN DVD Review 7/10
Total DVD Review - 7/10
Rope Of Silicon Review - Recommended Highly
Constantine Deluxe Edition (Dbl DVD)
Widescreen, Original Aspect Ratio - 2.40
Format: DVD
Genre: Action/Adventure
Rating:
for Violence and Demonic Images
Runtime: 121 mins
Original Product Release Date: 07/19/2005
# Video Clips: Trailer
Studio: Warner Bros.
Theatrical Release Date: 02/18/2005
Actors:
Djimon Hounsou, Gavin Rossdale, Keanu Reeves, Peter Stormare, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Rachel Weisz, Shia La Beouf, Tilda Swinton
Director:
Francis Lawrence
Other Talent:
Akiva Goldsman, Benjamin Melniker, Brian Tyler (Ii), Erwin Stoff, Frank Cappello, Gilbert Adler, Kevin Brodbin, Klaus Badelt, Lauren Shuler-Donner, Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, Michael Aguilar, Michael E. Uslan, Philippe Rousselot, Wayne Wahrman
Synopsis:
Based on the DC Comics/Vertigo Hellblazer graphic novels and written by Kevin Brodbin and Frank Cappello, Constantine tells the story of John Constantine (Keanu Reeves), a man who has literally been to hell and back. When he teams up with skeptical policewoman Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz) to solve the mysterious suicide of her twin sister, their investigation takes them through the world of demons and angels that exists just beneath the landscape of contemporary Los Angeles. Caught in a catastrophic series of otherworldly events, the two become inextricably involved and seek to find their own peace at whatever cost.
Special Features:
Additional Scenes - 18 minutes of Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary by Francis Lawrence
Alternate endings
Audio Commentary
Documentaries - THE PRODUCTION FROM HELL *Director's Confessional *Collision with Evil *Holy Relics IMAGINING THE UNDERWORLD *Hellscape *Visualizing Vermin *Warrior Wings *Unholy Abduction *Demon Face [Easter Egg] FORESIGHT: THE POWER OF PRE-VISUALIZATION with Optional Commentary by Francis Lawrence
Documentary - Conjuring Constantine: from comic book to movie
Featurette - ? Imagining the Underworld ? Hellscape ? Visualizing Vermin ? Warrior Wings ? Unholy Abduction ? Demon Face [Easter Egg]
Music Video - A Perfect Circle's "Passive" music video
Theatrical Trailer
Critic Quote:
"Action-packed and mind-blowing." Shawn Edwards / FOX-TV "A smart, wildly entertaining thrill ride." Glenn Whipp / LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS "It's a smart ride. There's both eye and mind candy in this cleverly berserk spawn of Blade Runner." Richard Corliss / TIME MAGAZINE "Devilish fun." Peter Travers / ROLLING STONE "Wow! An amazing, fascinating trip!" Fred Saxon / FOX-TV
Screen Aspect:
Original Aspect Ratio - 2.40
Widescreen [16:9 Transfer]
Sound Quality:
English: Dolby Surround 5.1 -
Francais (Quebec): Dolby Surround 5.1 -
Subtitles: English, Espanol, Francais
Media Quantity: 2
Media Sub Format: Multi Disc
Packaging Type: Slipcase
Posted by dschnee at 7:19 AM
July 18, 2005
Tippett Adds Pair to Production Fold
Here is the official press release that Tippett Studio Announces Key Senior Management Changes and below:
Tippett Studio in the news @ The Hollywoodreporter.com...
July 18th, 2005
By Sheigh Crabtree
Tippett Studio, the Academy Award-winning visual effects firm founded by Phil Tippett, has confirmed senior management changes.
The studio said Friday that Kip Larsen and Carolyn Pistone have joined as executive producer and head of production, respectively. The execs replace Alonzo Ruvalcaba, Tippett's previous head of production, who is leaving after nearly 11 years to produce a film.
"It has been a true privilege to work with Phil Tippett and Jules Roman and the brilliant group of artists and production staff at Tippett Studio," Ruvalcaba said.
He and partner Kenneth Bielenberg, the "Shrek" visual effects supervisor at Pacific Data Images, are teaming with writer-producer Christian McLaughlin for the upcoming project, a gay-themed horror movie, and will direct under their production company, Eyebeam Pictures.
At Tippett, previous Industrial Light + Magic exec Larsen will supervise the production management team and is responsible for project bidding. Pistone, previously an animation exec at DreamWorks, will oversee all aspects of the production environment, providing guidance to the creative management staff.
Tippett Studio has created visual effects for more than 50 films, including "Hellboy" and "The Matrix Revolutions." Tippett is working on Disney's "Shaggy Dog" and Paramount's "Charlotte's Web."
-via the hollywoodreporter.com
Posted by dschnee at 9:55 AM
July 15, 2005
Worth a Mention - VFX Production Office
Here at work, I'm on a great industry resource mailing list "Worth a Mention" it covers and sites a great deal of news, articles, and latest tid-bits revolving in and around the VFX community.
I wanted to note that there is now a blog "VFX Production Office" hosted by the WaM Press (Worth a Mention) over at blogspot.com.
Check it out @ vfxproductionoffice.blogspot.com
So far it only has updates from yesterday and now today, but it should prove to be a great online resource echoing the WaM mailing list...
Posted by dschnee at 9:58 AM
June 26, 2005
VES 2005 Review & Aftermath
Is Coming Soon...
I started to write a brief review of what was covered during VES on Saturday, but it's turned into a more complete documented review and thoughts of the event. I will probably be breaking it up into a couple sections.
Stay Tooned...
Posted by dschnee at 7:28 AM
June 23, 2005
Constantine - Post Production Summary
I received the July Issue of Cinefex, #102 in the mail today! I ended up creating 5 hi res stills from my hell apartment shot showing a few stages of the shot for Cinefex, but it looks like none of them made it in the issue, :( A good number of other Tippett Shots did though. I was thinking that Constantine wouldn't get a very big spread considering it's tossed in with Star Wars III, Sin City, and Hitchickers's Guide, but it's a nice sized article covering Constantine's VFX, good stuph, just dissapointed the stills we sent that I worked on didn't make it in...
One thing to note is that they do show 2 shots of the Vermin Man done by ESC in this issue, 2 of which didn't make it into the movie and were re-worked and extended by Tippett Studio. The work they did on Vermin Man though was very cool, so it's good to see ESC's work on VM in there.
A Warner Brothers Release
Directed by Francis Lawrence
Special Effects
SPecial Effects Supervisor - Allen Hall
Makeup & Animatronics
Stan Winston Studio
demon character designs & animatronics / exorcism prosthetics / Vermin Man suit/ Balthazar makeup / holy water flesh burns
Makeup & Animatronics Supervisors - John Rosengrant, Shane Mahan
Visual Effects
Visual Effects Supervisor - Michael Fink
Visual Effects Producers - Donna Langston, Denise Davis
Tippett Studio
Hell environments / demonic extrusions / exorcism / Vermin Man / Mammon / Chas angel
175 shots
Visual Effects Supervisor - Craig Hayes
ESC Entertainment
Anela abduction / time slows / Vermin Man / sprinkler sequence / CG Balthazar
135 shots
Visual Effects Supervisors - George Murphy, Greg Juby
CIS Hollywood
L.A. Exteriors / Hennessy death / Balthazar makeup manipulation / shattered Balthazar / Satan drags Constantine
146 shots
Visual Effects Supervisor - Bryan Hirota
Hydraulx
cattle dying / Beeman's death / electric chair / light command
16 shots
Visual Effects Supervisors - Colin Strause, Greg Strause
Furious FX
demon eyes / Hennessy eye rollbacks / wing embers / CG veins / water into wine
22 shots
Visual Effects Supervisor - David Lingenfelser
New Deal Studios
miniature construction & photography - Angela's office destruction
Miniature Effects Supervisor - Ian Hunter
Hatch Production
Heaven
5 shots
Visual Effects Supervisor - Deak Ferrand
Pacific Title
traffic light removals/ misc fixes
16 shots
Visual Effects Supervisor - David Sosalla
Proof
3D animatics
Previz Supervisor - Rich Lee
Illusion Arts
Constantine apartment matte painting
1 shot
Matte Artists - Syd Dutton
Fantasy II
water & cloud elements
Visual Effects Supervisor - Gene Warren, Jr.
Posted by dschnee at 10:58 PM
June 20, 2005
2005 VES - VFX Festival
I'll be heading on down to LA this Saturday, June 25th for the 2005 VES Festival with Aruna, this will mark my 3rd VES Festival, and I love'em. It's a great opportunity to sit in front of a panel watching some of our industry professionals discuss and showcase their latest work and accomplishments. It's a fun atmosphere to be around fellow industry artists, and industry icons, where you have a chance to interact, ask questions, meet and greet, it's great!
Check out Saturdays Schedule!?!
9AM VISUAL EFFECTS PARADISO - 700 YEARS OF VFX
Distinguished Visual Effects Supervisor Mike Fink takes us on a tour of the evolution of visual effects.
11AM SIN CITY
Panel featuring the visual effects team from CafeFX, The Orphanage and Hybride who brought Robert Rodriquez' vision to life
1:30PM STAR WARS III
From 300 visual effects in the original STAR WARS to over 2000 in the current installation, this panel will feature the visual effects wizards from ILM who created the magic in STAR WARS III
3:30PM VES INSIDERS
Academy Award® winners Jim Rygiel and Richard Edlund in conversation
5:30PM NEXT GENERATION: THE FUTURE OF GAMING
VFX leaders who create the industry's hottest games talk about this rapidly expanding and money-making area of the visual effects industry. Moderator Richard Taylor leads a lively conversation with panelists that include Lorne Lanning, Glen Entis (Madden, NFL Football, Underground) and others to be confirmed.
8PM BATMAN BEGINS
Screening preceded by panel with Visual Effects Supervisors Janek Sirrs and Paul Franklin from Double Negative
For more information please visit: www.vesfestival.org
Posted by dschnee at 11:13 PM
June 4, 2005
Effects Omelette - Siggraph Sketch
Wednesday, 3 August
1:45 - 3:15 pm
Hall B
Session Chair: Diego Gutierrez, Universidad de Zaragoza
Highway To Hell
For "Constantine," we had to create a highly stylized depiction of hell. A 3D world was rendered with burning sky, crumbling buildings, flying debris, and crawling demons.
Jay Heapy
Tippett Studio
jay (at) tippett.com
Matt Jacobs
Tippett Studio
- Siggraph 2005 Sketches "Effects Omelette"
Posted by dschnee at 8:01 AM
June 1, 2005
The Connection was Refused...
Last Friday (5.27.05), vfxblog featured meyemind.com after I updated my demo reels page with new clips and breakdowns. Over the weekend a number of other 3d websites posted a short description of the same linking to my demo reels page causing a huge amount of traffic traveling through meyemind.com. It has been exciting to have so many people from all over the world visit my site and hopefully enjoy the work they see. Thank you.
Last night, unfortunatley I had to shut the server down hosting these clips because it was slowing down everything over here to a crawl. I apologize for those of you still trying to download from my demo reel clips and shots, all I can say for now is stay tuned, hopefully tonight or tomorrow I will get the server back up and running with a user cap limit.
Came From:
artistpub.hu
digitaldna.jp
www.mugget.com
mundodeconstantine.zip.net
www.inkietos.com
www.vfxblog.com
www.3dtotal.com
www.3d-station.com
www.3dinside.com
www.my3dbox.com
www.3demotions.com
www.renderglobal.org
www.pixelcorps.com
Posted by dschnee at 8:03 AM
May 27, 2005
Final Shots, Breakdowns, and Extra Features
Have been added to my demo reel section of meyemind.com. Updated with work from Constantine and Son of the Mask, and also includes a couple extras from Starship Troopers 2.
~enjoy
final shots, breakdowns, and extra features
Here is a shot build up I created from one of my Hell Apartment shots in Constantine. It will be featured along with other Tippett Studio work in Siggraph's 2005 Animation Theatre. (Tippett Studio Creates) "Hell L.A." & "Vermin Man" in "Constantine"
HA090 buildup (30mb) - (Digital Backgrounds CG Element Layers and Compositing Layers)
HA100 (5.53mb) - Constantine gets up from Angela's apartment now in Hell LA.
HF070 (1.62mb) - Constantine walks the Hell Freeway as a scavenger demon emerges behind him from a smuldering ever decaying car.
HF210 (435kb) - Nearing the climax of the sequence Constantine runs toward Angela's sisters wrist tag escaping the scavengers.
VM150 Breakdown (10.4mb) - Breakdown as Constantine runs infront of on-coming traffic away from the Vermin Man, made of bugs he breakd form flies infront of Constantine and forms infront of him.
VM150 TAGS (1.66mb) - Tag Channels for the CG car and Vermin Man allowing me to isolate and treat different pieces of the CG creature and vehichle.
VM155 Breakdown (4.57mb) - Close up on the Vermin Man's face, as he readys to strike Constantine, not realizing that on-coming traffic is about to crash into him.
VM155 xRay (973kb) - This is a pass from a normals render using the blue channel which is like an xRay shader, what it shows us is how many bugs and FX are driving this creature made entirely of bugs and nasty critters.
CH3 (2.68mb) - Otis after a bone exploded in his mouth, baby Alvey from ILM scares him with a good old Lions Roar! Practical smoke elements are composited in.
CH4 (3.03mb) - Otis then shoots up to a chandelier grips and holds on for dear life...fx chards of charred otis fall to the ground
OB5 (2.01mb) - The God Odin speaks to Loki from the heavens between the clouds. I was responsible for the look, atmospherics, god rays, and over all CG clouds with the sky matte painting integration.
OV1 (3.84mb) - Otis spends a romantic evening with his love interest Venus in luxury. Responsible for the star filter effect over the shot and integration of our CG Otis head into the real dog on sets body.
OW6 (1.61mb) - Odin speaks to Loki this time via a nightlight plugged into a socket in the wall, projected on and in the walls in the room. Responsible for constructing, color matching, and tracking together pieces of the set and walls from clean plates with a green screen foreground.
DVD features from Starship Troopers 2 showcase a couple breakdowns on my shots ZA12 and SP3,
with commentary by the VFX Supervisor Eric Leven.
ZA12 breakdown (17.8mb) - (storm rise and crash)
SP3 breakdown (6.24mb) - (spy bug pulled out of head)
Posted by dschnee at 7:54 AM
May 18, 2005
Constantine in Cinefex #102
This issue will feature ILM's work on Star Wars EPIII Revenge of the Sith, but cover articles on Sin City, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Constantine.
Alan Moore's graphic novel, about a world-weary investigator of supernatural mysteries prone to walking a thin line between good and evil, is brought to the screen by director Francis Lawrence. Visual effects supervisor Michael Fink oversaw an assemblage of nine effects companies to bring the effects extravaganza to fruition.
More details on this issue once it comes out in July...
Posted by dschnee at 2:50 PM
The Great Divide in CG Facilities
: A Metamorphosis
Tony Cristiano looks at the lightning speed advances in the visual effects industry and how it affects the big studios vs. the smaller ones.
By Tony Cristiano who is the coo and vp of U.S. operations of Side Effects Software, makers of Houdini. I studied Houdini extensivley in school, its an amazing piece of software.
This is a very interesting article covering a view on where this industry is headed for small, medium, and large visual effects companies. Tippett Studio would be considered a mid-size facility.
Head on over to VFXworld to read The Great Divide in CG Facilities: A Metamorphosis
There is an overarching sentiment in the visual effects community that the industry has changed very quickly in the last few years. CG production is undergoing a rapid metamorphosis based on technological advances and market demands. Today’s shift to commercial production pipelines and the use of digital assets are examples that twist the playing field. In the next few years, we’ll witness the continuing evolution of the way people, process and technology are combined and optimized in production. These changes are enabling innovation and improving the predictability of production variables. During rapid change, large and small boutique facilities are the most adept at change, leaving some mid-size facilities behind. Furthermore, the large and small adapt differently, thus creating a great divide.
CG effects have become an essential element of movie making. The trailer for Columbia’s Stealth (opening July 29) offers a good example of recent innovation. Many of the challenging airplane sequences were pre-visualized in CG well in advance, which would have been very time-consuming to choreograph otherwise. Yet the realism was kept high. By anticipating and narrowing the production variables, Digital Domain took advantage of all the precious time on set. Finding repeatable methods and re-usable tools to foster such innovation will be key to staying competitive in the future.
The current euphoria in our community is that the “sky is the limit” when it comes to producing cutting-edge effects. The multi-million-dollar question has changed from “can we do it,” to “how should we do it efficiently and within budget.” However, as both large and small facilities grow, there are two key factors that will determine success. First, the facility needs to highlight its artistic strength. Second, CG production needs to be far more efficient.
Thus, artistic control and efficiency are going to widen the great divide between large and small facilities. Always knowing the reality of one’s business model and staying focused is what’s key in defining the positioning on either side of the divide. At the same time, the materialization of “disposable pipelines,” where the production focus will be on re-usable digital assets, is propelling many boutiques to jump the chasm. It’s a large, dangerous step through the middle zone. However, today’s commercial software lays a foundation for pipelines, making the leap much faster and less treacherous — provided you anticipate the jump!
Large Facilities Innovate and Mass Produce
Large facilities obviously have the financial capacity to experiment and quickly bring together people, process and technology. At the same time, they have staffing depth with a diversified set of expertise and an “aggregated wisdom” they can apply to repeatable production methods. Clearly, those additional resources and competencies afford bigger shops more time to fine tune the production pipeline, while ensuring their work can be scaled up with volume. They all have an existing infrastructure to handle a large number of shots from start to finish, thereby reducing the risks associated with completing complex productions. Those bigger budgets also afford them the opportunity to think longer term about the selection of digital assets and associated cataloging.
An excellent example of innovation is the work Sony Pictures Imageworks mastered on The Polar Express, where character animation was de-coupled from the rest of the effects. Today, directors want to choreograph animation and previs effects without the pressure of wasting time and money while on set. Directors can now have few actors on stage and focus on the emotional side of the story for the entire movie. This process inspires us to improve storytelling without getting bogged down with the complexities of “how” to do it. De-coupling the art from the technical complexities is now possible in many areas throughout the pipeline. Such techniques have the potential to provide large advantages over time.
As one of those large facilities, Sony Pictures Imageworks can plan over a longer period of time and oftentimes develop pipelines and digital assets to be used over many productions. They are successful partly because they can push multiple projects through the same pipeline and achieve economies of scale. As a result, they can step back and innovate while building re-usable methods to capitalize on large volumes of work.
The “Boutiques” Have a Secret Weapon
Boutiques are effectively finding a place for themselves in this industry by building relationship bonds with their customers through smaller, custom projects. Hanging out at the right pub and film festivals wouldn’t hurt either. Smaller facilities must be flexible enough to meet the special needs of their customer, while not compromising efficiency. Boutiques are most profitable and successful when they have clearly chosen their area of strength or specialty. Once that area is chosen, it is important for them to build a custom result that is reasonably predictable. Successful repetition quickly breeds a positive reputation.
As small facilities build on niche specialties, they focus on a subset of the art or one part of a pipeline. They must do so without the luxury of large budgets. For the purpose of this discussion, let’s define a boutique as a facility that usually has a core staff of less than a hundred, yet can ramp up to handle a large number of shots from a couple of projects. For example, soho vfx in Toronto grew to about 32 people to handle shots of Mr. Fantastic in the upcoming Fantastic Four movie, and New Deal Studios in Los Angeles ramps up to more than a 100 staff, when they take on projects such as The Aviator. However, due to their smaller size, boutiques can often implement much faster. Their pipelines can be optimized for the current project and they can implement re-usable digital asset with a narrower scope and recoup benefits sooner.
Small shops must be even better at managing time and money. They are very fortunate if projects overlap to provide cash flow continuity. If an individual production is profitable, it is common for profits to erode in between projects. The biggest challenge for small shops is ramping up and ramping down staff, especially without an HR department. However, the way the pipeline and digital assets are designed can become a key advantage.
Often boutiques must have a large relative number of senior-level staff, who are each a “jack of all trades.” To leverage lower cost talent, it is now becoming more popular to mechanize common and repeated production tasks. Digital assets are prepared in order to build confidence in the ramp down and ramp up ritual. The advantages of having catalogued digital assets include reduced total salary costs, better specialization of tasks and senior staff spending less time training and assisting others. Such an undertaking requires focus and commitment, and it’s not for the flaky.
Shift or Sink
It’s important not to become complacent with yesterday’s approach and technology. Both large and small facilities should carefully revisit old pipeline choices and inherited legacies with a fresh outlook. Facility leaders must visualize a world when today’s CG production will be done in a 10th the time. They must do their homework and make some changes, while stepping out of the familiar comfort zone.
The commercial implementation of digital assets several years ago allows us to see pipelines differently. Today, a pipeline is more about choices regarding which digital assets to catalogue and where to attempt to gain efficiency. That set of digital assets creates a new level of speed for the next project and liberates the team to innovate and do the fun stuff. The underlying technology has become so well designed in commercial packages (albeit with widely varying design points, approaches and reliability), that for the equivalent cost of a couple of staff, all boutiques have access to the same efficiency levels of the most prestigious facilities.
As the visual effects industry continues to evolve, this year will bring even more change, making the “great divide” between large and small facilities seem deeper and wider. Those in the middle need to make a decision. Simultaneously, many are seeing production pipelines differently today and use modern methods and disruptive commercial software to make changes successfully. In order to survive, facilities large and small alike, must adapt to a new reality — and do it fast!
Tony Cristiano is coo and vp of U.S. operations of Side Effects Software, a 3D animation technology company dedicated to advanced digital content creation software (Houdini). Cristiano joined the firm in 1996. The company’s prestigious clients include content creators such as Digital Domain, Disney Feature Animation, DreamWorks SKG, Rhythm & Hues, Sony Pictures Imageworks and WETA Digital Ltd. Its software supports such high-profile films as Spider-Man, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and X-Men. A graduate of the University of Waterloo (Toronto Canada) in math and computer science, Cristiano spent 11 years at IBM, where he became the national manager of marketing and sales for IBM Canada. While Canadian-born, he currently resides with his wife and two children in Pacific Palisades, California.
© 1996 - 2005 AWN, Inc. All rights reserved.
Posted by dschnee at 12:51 PM
May 17, 2005
Son of the Mask is Out on DVD Today
DVD Features:
* Available subtitles: English, Spanish
* Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
* Commentary with director Lawrence Guterman and writer Lance Khazei
* Deleted Scenes (with optional director commentary)
* "Chow Bella - Hollywood's Pampered Pooches" featurette
* "Creating Son of the Mask: Digital Diapers and Dog Bytes" featurette
* Storyboard and conceptual art gallery
* Theatrical trailer
- Son of the Mask @ amazon.com
Aweee Yeah! =P
Posted by dschnee at 8:14 AM
May 11, 2005
Starship Troopers 2 Wins Saturn Award
Sci-Fi Adventure Starship Troopers 2 Wins Saturn Award for Best DVD Release
Check out the details over @ tippett.com
Congratulations and Kick Ass!
May 4, 2005 – BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA – Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation was honored by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films with the award for Best DVD Release for 2004. The 31st annual Saturn Awards, honoring the fine cinematic achievements in film and television programs, was held May 3, 2005, in Los Angeles, California. Accepting the award was producer Jon Davison.
“I am very pleased the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror has voted Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation Best DVD Release of 2004. It means so much to producer Jon Davison and myself that this society has honored us with a Saturn Award because it is for all the fans of Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror that we love making these pictures,” said Phil Tippett, award-winning visual effects supervisor and animation pioneer, who made his directorial debut with the direct-to-video release of Starship Troopers 2.
In Starship Troopers 2, a group of soldiers find themselves stranded on a remote outpost of an alien planet and are terrorized by enemies both seen and unseen in the sequel to the successful sci-fi adventure Starship Troopers. Visual effects supervisor Eric Leven led his team of artists in creating massive armies of warrior bugs as well as other surprising digital horrors designed to squash the soldiers’ chances for survival. Starring Richard Burgi and Ed Lauter. Produced by Jon Davison. Distributed direct-to-video by Screen Gems, 2004.
Posted by dschnee at 8:37 PM
May 9, 2005
2005 Siggraph Sketch "Highway to Hell"
has been accepted to this year's Siggraph Conference!
This sketch is by one of Tippett Studio's lead compositors, Matt Jacobs, and is based on the creation of the Hell Freeway, Hell Hydrotherapy, and Hell Apartment sequences in Constantine.
Siggraph's Sketches review the latest work in every aspect of computer graphics and interactive techniques: art, cinema, advertising, design, science, and engineering. Following each sketch presentation, authors answer questions and discuss future implications of their work.
Posted by dschnee at 10:18 PM
May 4, 2005
Lightsabre Interviews Phil Tippett
Special Effect Legend, Director, Studio Head, Oscar Winner and Rancor Suit Wearer,
Read The Phil Tippett Interview Here
- via lightsabre.co.uk
See Also: Another interesting read from stopmotionanimation.com a few years back... Stop Motion - Go-Motion - CGI, Phil Tippett Inovator of Current SPFX Technology
- via stopmotionanimation.com
Posted by dschnee at 9:55 AM
May 3, 2005
Constantine 2-Disc Deluxe DVD
The 2-Disc Deluxe Edition for Constatine on DVD July 19th, 2005.
Disc One: Movie
* 2.40:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
* English and French DD5.1 Surround
* English, French and Spanish subtitles
* Commentary by director Francis Lawrence, producer Akiva oldsman and screenwriters Kevin Brodbin and Frank Cappello
* A Perfect Circle's "Passive" music video
* Theatrical Trailers
Disc Two: Extras
* 18 minutes of Deleted Scenes including an alternate ending with optional director's commentary
* Conjuring Constantine: From Comic Book to Movie documentary
* The Production from Hell Documentary: Director's Confessional, Collision with Evil, Holy Relics
* Imagining the Underworld Documentary: Hellscape, Visualizing Vermin, Warrior Wings, Unholy Abduction, Demon Face [Easter Egg]
* Foresight: The Power of Pre-Visualization with Optional Commentary by Francis Lawrence
* DVD-Rom Content
** Exclusive Collectible Hellbazer Comic Featuring a Reprint of Issue #41 Dangerous Habbits and a Hellblazer Short Story
Posted by dschnee at 9:21 PM
April 25, 2005
Constantine Single Disc Widescreen DVD
Here is Constantine's DVD cover art for the single disc edition. Hellbent to release July 19th, 2005.
Note: This could be the Region 2 UK release cover, set to release July 11th.
Posted by dschnee at 12:12 PM
SIGGRAPH 2005 and Tippett Studio
Tippett Studio can be seen at this years Siggraph convention in L.A. in a few forms, including for the first time ever our very own booth on the exhibit floor! Below are a few details from a submission we have in the Animation Theater, and rumblings of a possible sketch are in the works...
Animation Theater
- (Tippett Studio Creates) "Hell L.A." & "Vermin Man" in Constantine (Tippett Studio)
I created a breakdown for the "Hell L.A." portion as Constantine gets up from Angela's apartment in the real world, as the camera pulls back to reveal Constantine in hell looking out at the 405 freeway. This breakdown will be included in Tippett's Animation Theater, very cool!
I've posted a quicktime of the breakdown, and it doesn't nearly do justice to viewing it on the big screen, but it will give you an idea of the work involved in putting together a shot from the Hell Freeway sequence we completed for Constantine.
So get down to Siggraph 2005 this year!
Posted by dschnee at 10:07 AM
April 15, 2005
Mike Fink on Constantine
See Also: Constantine's Production Information which includes some more insight from Mike Fink, Francis Lawrence the Director, and more.
Posted by dschnee at 11:24 PM
March 26, 2005
Son of the Mask - Post Production Summary
A New Line Cinema Release
Directed by Lawrence Guterman
Special Effects
Special Effects Supervisor - Brian Cox
Makeup & Animatronics
Captive Audience Productions
Alvey animatronics / Mask & Odin makeups / early Otis transformation / Loki manifestations
Makeup Effects - Keith Vanderlaan
Special Makeup Effects Supervisor - Brian Sipe
Visual Effects
Visual Effects Supervisor - James E. Price
Visual Effects Producer - Susan Macleod
Industrial Light & Magic
CG Alvey & Alvey morphs / CG Mask car / live-action Alvey digital enhancements
81 Shots
Visual Effects Supervisor - Edward Hirsh
Animation Supervisor - Tom Bertino
Tippett Studio
CG Otis / Loki Mask animation / glowing vortex / digital matte paintings
153 shots
Visual Effects Supervisor - Thomas Schelesny
CG Supervisor - Todd Stinson
Giant Killer Robots
Mask donning & removal / Loki-Tim showdown
77 shots
Visual Effects Supervisor - Michael Schmitt
Pacific Title & Arts Studio
wire removal & 2D compositing
108 shots
Visual Effects Supervisor - David Sosalla
Digital Dimension
Tim's daydream / Loki Mask morph
27 shots
Visual Effects Supervisor - Benoit Girand
Gang of Seven Animation
2D cartoon fantasy sequences / end sequence 3D cartoon
4 shots
Animation Supervisors - Rich Arons, Tim Sito
Kleiser-Walczak
animated sperm sequence
11 shots
Visual Effects Supervisor - Jeff Kleiser
Illusion Arts
digital matte maintings - arena interiors
3 shots
Visual Effects Supervisors - Syd Dutton, Bill Taylor
Toybox
Mask exhumation
1 shot
Visual Effects Supervisor - Phil Jones
Look! Effects
2D Composites
3 shots
Visual Effects Supervisor - Max Ivins
Teamworks Digital
3D monitor graphics
2 shots
Visual Effects Supervisor - Dave Allen
Pixel Liberation Front
Previsualization
Previsualization Supervisor - Chris Batty
Posted by dschnee at 1:47 PM
March 22, 2005
Son of the Mask in Cinefex #101
In the latest issue of Cinefex, Son of the Mask is covered in great detail from the work Tippett completed, ILM's digital baby Alvey, and a host of shots from other vendors including: Giant Killer Robots, Pacific Title & Arts Studio, Digital Dimension, and more.
See Also: (on page 99) my first ever publicity still from a shot I composited published in Cinefex!
The shot above is from the Odin Beach sequence. Loki is the guy with the black spiked hair in the foreground shot on a blue screen, while the God Odin in the background was shot on a green screen. The background sky is a digital matte painting by Kent Matheson, CG clouds were generated in and around Odin from out FX department. I ended up developing the look of these shots with multiple color treatments, god rays, color and atmospheric contamination, and how Odin blended in with the sky and clouds.
Son of the Mask
Acme Effects
Acme Effects
In a zany sequel to The Mask, the 1994 comedy hit that provided fertile ground for the comic contortions of actor Jim Carrey, Son of the Mask introduces an all-new plot and cast of characters, whose encounters with the transformative Mask wreak havoc on their household. Director Lawrence Guterman, in search of Chuck Jones-inspired animation and a classic cartoon aesthetic, turned to visual effects supervisor Jamie Price, and a team that included special effects supervisor Brian Cox, makeup effects and animatronics artists at Captive Audience Productions and animators at Tippett Studio, Industrial Light & Magic and nearly a dozen other digital vendors.
Article by Joe Fordham
Next Issue #102 will feature "Constantine"
Posted by dschnee at 2:44 PM
March 18, 2005
Other vendors Visual Effects work on 'Constantine'
VFXblog Interview: Deak Ferrand on 'Constantine'
VFXblog Interview: ESC's visual effects for 'Constantine'
Interviews by Ian Failes via vfxblog.com
Posted by dschnee at 12:50 AM
March 8, 2005
Fresh New Look for Tippett Studio
Tippett Studio has performed a complete overhaul from their old website, and also has a slightly smoother logo to go with it.
Check it out @ www.tippett.com
There is plenty of great content to soak up, its loaded with quicktime reels from most all of our recent movies in the filmography as well as some older Gems. Learn about Tippett's history, about the films we have worked on, what creative services we offer and perform, and a whole lot more! - Tippett.com
Looking over the reel from Constantine it showcases a few shots I was fortunate enough to work on, =)
See Also:
Tippett Studio Demo Reel 2005 the first shot is in Angela's Hell Apartment from Constantine. It's a shot I completed and am most proud of during my work on Constantine.
© 2005 Tippett Studio | All Rights Reserved.
Posted by dschnee at 10:05 AM
March 2, 2005
More clips and demo reels are up
I've been slowly adding more and more reels throughout my site, check out a couple of my demo reels from October of 2004 and February of 2003. Also, I've added more reels and clips from Starship Troopers 2 in the Comp Department.
I should have some reels and clips up from The Stepford Wives in the next week or so.
Constantine and Son of the Mask media will have to wait until the DVD release... but I'll have some small quicktime clips from Tippett's work up sooner than that.
stay tooned...
Posted by dschnee at 10:25 PM
February 28, 2005
Oscar Night - Winner: Visual Effects
SPIDER-MAN 2
John Dykstra, Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara and John Frazier
Congratulations to the Spiderman 2 Visual Effects Team. The work they did on Doc Oc's Tenticles and the vfx during the Train Sequence was exceptional, but it's not something we haven't seen before... think of the Matrix Sentienels. They also did a lot of the digital backgrounds that were created and developed in the first Spiderman. The digital backgrounds still look amazing and much more perfected in 2, but of the 3 nominees, my vote went to I-Robot, and my true vote went to The Day After Tomorrow, its a crime that this film was not nominated...
visit Oscar.com for more details, press room interview, acceptance speech...
Spider-Man 2 Visual Effects @ oscar.com
THE INCREDIBLES
Won a couple Oscars last night, for best Animated Feature Film and Sound Editing.
Congratulations to Brad Bird (The Iron Giant) and Pixar, I loved the Incredibles!
RYAN
And lastly to note, winner of the best animated Short Film went to Chris Landreth for "Ryan"
-View a clip from the film
for more information on:
The Film "Ryan" Official
Ryan @ oscar.com
Ryan on AWN.com
Back to Best Visual Effects:
ACCEPTANCE SPEECH John Dykstra: I love my job. What an honor to be singled out in a year with so much terrific work. Boy, am I glad there wasn't a forth episode of THE LORD OF THE RINGS! What a joy to work and share this award with so many talented people ... Our director, Sam Raimi, Scott, Anthony, John. All of the artists, technicians and producers that collaborated on the effects for this picture. We'd like to thank our families. Hi, Cass, Chloe, Mom. We'd like to thank Sony Pictures for all your support. Thank you Academy. Thank you, everyone.SPECIAL ONLINE THANKS
The Spider-Man 2 Visual Effects Team would like to thank:
Their families for their constant support, and the artists and managers at Sony Pictures Imageworks, Sony Pictures Entertainment and the countless number of people who helped to create Spider-Man 2, with special thanks to:
Executives: Amy Pascal, Matt Tolmach, Gary Martin, Lori Furie, Yair Landau, Tim Sarnoff, Jenny Fulle, Debbie Denise, and Don Levy for their continued support of the project.
Actors: Tobey Maguire, Alfred Molina, Kirsten Dunst, Rosemary Harris and James Franco for putting up with cruel and unusual visual effects procedures.
And for their creative vision and untiring commitment:
Director Sam Raimi, Producers Laura Ziskin and Avi Arad, Exec Producer Joe Caracciolo, Co-Producer Grant Curtis, Editor Bob Murawski, Director of Photography Bill Pope
Visual Effects Producer Lydia Bottegoni, Visual Effects supervisor Eric Durst, Visual Effects Art Director Tom Valentine, Digital Production Manager Carey Smith, CG Supervisors Daniel Eaton, Peter Nofz, Ken Hahn and Seth Maury, Visual Effects Coordinators Carlye Archibeque & Chris McLeod, Visual Effects Editor Kevin Jolly
Production Designer Neil Spisak, Stunt coordinator Dan Bradley, Costume Designer James Acheson, Production Manager Denis Stewart, 1st AD Eric Heffron and 2nd unit 1st AD Lisa Satriano, 2nd unit Director of Photography Jonathan Taylor, NY Production Manager Richard Baratta and NY Location Manager John Fedynich, Miniatures Director of Photography Timothy Angulo, Edge Effects, the makers of the Spider Cam, E-Film, Grant McCune Design, Barbed Wire, Entity FX, Pacific Title, Pixel Magic, Radium, Ring of Fire, Title House Digital, and Zoic Studios
Additionally
John Dykstra would like to thank his agent David Gersh
Anthony LaMolinara would like to say a special thanks to the entire Animation Crew at Sony Pictures Imageworks and Scott Stokdyk would like to thank everyone associated with the project for their hard work and dedication.
NOMINEES IN THIS CATEGORY
SPIDER-MAN 2 (Winner)
HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN
I, ROBOT
Posted by dschnee at 10:41 AM
February 22, 2005
VFXTalk interviews Constantine Lead Compositors
VFXTalk.com is interviewing Matt Jacobs and Dan Cayer, Tippett Studio Lead Compositors on "Constantine" and you have a chance to ask the Questions?!?
So get over there and ask them!!!
Posted by dschnee at 8:07 AM
February 20, 2005
Going to Hell and Back
is a Nuclear Blast in Constantine
A brief calm moment as the Vermin Man readies to lunge at Constantine, above is one of the Vermin Man shots I composited.
Go over to VFXWorld, this featured article covers some of our (Tippett Studios) major sequences, including the Vermin Man, Exorcisms, and Hell Freeway.
VFXWorld / Feature Article Going to Hell and Back is a Nuclear Blast in Constantine...
Alain Bielik uncovers the demonic inspirations and digital challenges of bringing Hellblazer to the big screen as Constantine.
By Alain Bielik
[ Posted on February 18, 2005 ]
the entire article from VFXWorld.com,
From What Dreams May Come to Spawn to Bedazzled, Hollywood keeps sending film characters to hell and vfx artists keep struggling to visualize it in an imaginative and convincing way. Since heaven and hell are ultimately very personal beliefs, it is almost impossible to create imagery that will satisfy everyone. This turned out to be a major challenge for everyone involved in Francis Lawrence’s Constantine, the big screen version of the Hellblazer graphic novel (the title was changed to avoid confusion with the Hellraiser franchise). Supernatural detective Constantine (Keanu Reeves) has literally been to hell and back. This traumatic journey left him with special powers that he uses to hunt evil on Earth. He is approached by police officer Angela (Rachel Weisz), who wants to solve the mysterious suicide of her twin sister. Their investigation takes them to a world of demons and angels that exists just beneath our reality…
The task of putting Lawrence’s vision on screen was awarded to overall visual effects supervisor Mike Fink: “I had just finished X-Men 2 for producer Lauren Schuler-Donner when she asked me to supervise Constantine. Originally, the script called for 250 shots, but we ended up creating more than 500 shots. I had six or seven vendors on that project. The main facilities were Tippett Studio, ESC (in what would eventually be their last project), CIS Hollywood, Hydraulx and Hatch FX.”
Overall visual effects supervisor Mike Fink and Tippett Studio co-founder and visual effects supervisor Craig Hayes.
Designing A New Hell
From the beginning, Lawrence wanted to stay away from the traditional imagery of bonfires, horns and pointy tails. He had very specific ideas about what hell should look like. “Francis had been impressed by footage of nuclear blasts that he had seen,” explains Fink. “Right before the shockwave, there is a heat wave that melts everything away. You can actually see surfaces being superheated before the whole thing is blown away. Francis wanted this moment to form the basis for the look of hell in the movie. His idea was that hell is a parallel universe. It exists in another dimension as a complete replica of our world. You have the same buildings, the same streets, and the same rooms. The difference is that everything seems to be perpetually hit by a nuclear heat wave. This universe keeps decaying forever. It just never stops. We started to look at nuclear blasts footage and our main source of information was the material that Peter Kuran of Visual Concept Engineering had been able to declassify for the TV movie The Day After (1984). Another major source of inspiration was the disturbing work of Polish artist Zdzislaw Beksinski. His paintings of decaying corpses and corroded universes really echoed Francis’ vision.”
In one major sequence, Constantine goes back to hell and arrives on a freeway littered with hundreds of car wrecks, while a hellish downtown Los Angeles looms in the background. The sequence was executed by Tippett Studio, as were all the movie’s hell shots. “The freeway sequence was photographed on a 80-foot large set surrounded by a green screen,” notes Craig Hayes, co-founder and visual effects supervisor. “Our task was to extend this environment and create a hellish rendition of the real Los Angeles. The question was: what would the city look like if it were eternally hit by a nuclear heat wave? From a conceptual point of view, it was pretty challenging.”
A World Of Particles
Tippett Studio did a Lidar scan of the set and sent a crew to downtown Los Angeles to run a similar task on the main buildings. Reference photographs of the façades were also taken. Although the action is supposed to take place in Los Angeles, the freeway set matched no real location. “We took a very stylistic approach to L.A.,” confirms Hayes. “Some buildings are not where they should be. It is sort of a mythical view of the city. Using Maya, we modeled all the structures and street elements -- power lines, streetlights, trees -- in the computer. These models were then laid out in low resolution to create a CG version of the city. Once the position of each element was approved, we figured out which one had to be in high resolution. We then created a matte-painting of the city that was projected onto the CG geometry.” The skies were also matte-paintings that were designed to match the look and texture of a thermonuclear cloud. Rendering was handled in RenderMan while Shake was the compositing tool.
The next step was to create the billions of particles that flow through the scenery. “In the footage of an atomic blast, you can see the surfaces melting down and thousands of tiny elements being scattered by the nuclear wind,” adds Hayes. “We tried to match that by rigging our models to generate an endless flow of particles. Each shot contains up to 60 layers of particle elements. We wanted people to almost smell it! The action was photographed without any dust on the set, although there were huge wind machines generating the appropriate turbulences on the actors. It gave us clean plates onto which we could build particle layers in a very controlled way.”
As if this end-of-the-world environment was not enough, hell happens to be the home of some terrifying creatures: the scavengers who walk the streets and the seplavites who fly. Both hunt down the hopeless humans and devour them. Worst of all, the victims never truly die. After each horrifying death at the creatures’ hands, they “come back” and the hunt starts all over again. “This is like Groundhog Day in hell,” observes Fink. “Everything keeps happening again and again. And each death makes the next one more painful as the victims remember what it was like and they also know that there is no end to it. They will be devoured again…”
The general look of the creatures was conceived by production designer Naomi Shohan with input from Lawrence and Fink. While doing research for Constantine, she came across photographs of corpses in an autopsy room. The bodies were all shrunken and the top of the head had been cut off at eye level to allow access to the brain area. The director deemed these images to be really compelling and approved the concept. Aaron Simms of Stan Winston Studios was then brought in to design the creatures. After a maquette had been approved, Tippett Studio scanned it and used the data as the basis for the CG model. “We ran animation tests and found that the character was too skinny,” reveals Hayes. “It looked fine as a static model, but when it moved, it tended to look like a stop motion armature. So, we added about 15 pounds of flesh to beef him up. In terms of animation, we found it difficult to convey emotion or personality without eyes. They really are the soul of a character. In order to compensate, we worked a lot with body language, overdoing at times the animation to make a point. We made some really graphic moves in the shoulder and hand areas. We also cheated a little bit by adding glitter in the eye area to suggest that there were, after all, eyes in there…”
Confronting Hell Minions
Simultaneous to the creation of hell itself, Tippett Studio was responsible for many manifestations of hell on Earth. One of them involved the fight of Constantine against the Vermin Man, a creature made of millions of bugs and maggots. As the character is able to appear and disappear at will, plate photography required Reeves and three stuntmen to perform a complex choreography. The stuntmen played the Vermin Man at different positions around Constantine and helped the actor to focus his eye line and adjust body language. They were later painted out by Tippett Studio and replaced by a computer-generated Vermin Man.
Originally, the sequence was awarded to ESC and the facility produced such spectacular results that 14 extra shots were commissioned. However, in the meantime, ESC had folded and could no longer contribute to the project. Fink then awarded the extra shots to Tippett Studio. “Interestingly enough, the concept was similar to the sequence that we had created for Matrix Revolutions in which Neo speaks to a ‘face’ made of thousands of flying machines,” observes Hayes. “We started by modeling different maggots and created about a dozen animation cycles. We then used a particle animation system to apply these cycles to the thousands of maggots that formed the shape of the character’s body. Officially, the Vermin Man is comprised of millions of bugs, but when we got to 50,000 individual models, render time became unmanageable. We ended up cheating a lot not to exceed 50,000 models while still creating the illusion of having millions of them on screen.”
Tippett Studio also tackled two exorcism sequences. In the first one, Constantine extracts a demon out of the body of a little girl and traps it into a large mirror. “This sequence was filled with challenges,” comments visual effects producer Jay Heapy. “How would the demon interact with the mirror? What would the mirror world look like when the demon entered it? What happens when the demon reaches back through into our world? The director knew what he wanted, but he also allowed us to run with his ideas and try new things. We did a lot of studies in how the demon would get from the possessed girl to the mirror’s surface, the smudges it left on the mirror, how the cracks and holes in the mirror formed and looked. The shots were photographed in an actual apartment with a practical mirror. A greenscreen set up behind the window made lighting a challenge since we had to establish what kind of highlights or lighting the director wanted based on an unknown source.”
In this exorcism scene, visual effects producer Jay Heapy said the crew had to come up with a practical approach to bring the scene to life. Images courtesy of Tippett Studio.
The second exorcism sequence involves Angela and Mammon, a powerful demon hiding inside her. Through out the shots, Mammon fights with Angela and, at times, stretches her stomach with his face. “Early on, it became obvious that any sort of physically based simulation would fall apart quickly,” explains Heapy. “The team started the simplest way possible: our CG Mammon pushes up through a simple cloth-like sheet modeled to match Angela’s stomach. We looked at the results and came up with ways to make it look better: we put some dampening geometry between Mammon and the sheet; we also had Mammon’s hands control how the sheet folded, stretched, and relaxed; finally, we made it so the veins and other internal layers could move differently from adjacent layers to help show that Mammon was pushing through lots of stuff.”
From Hell To Heaven
During the climax of the movie, one character is taken to heaven. The sequence was awarded to Hatch FX and executed by founder and lead matte-painter Deak Ferrand. Interestingly, the artist had already created (for Pacific Ocean Post) the famed sequence of the heavenly city in What Dreams May Come and also contributed to Hellboy. “I don’t know if heaven and hell are becoming Deak’s trademark, but I do know that, although the sequence comprised five shots only, it was extremely important to the movie,” observes Fink. “We had very little screen time for these shots, and yet, they had to carry a lot of weight. I think we did our job right, because the audience loves these shots.”
Alain Bielik is the founder and special effects editor of renowned effects magazine S.F.X., published in France since 1991. He also contributes to various French publications and occasionally to Cinefex. He just finished organizing a major special effects exhibition that will open Feb. 20 at the Musée International de la Miniature in Lyon, France. Displays include original models and creatures from 2010 Odyssey Two, Independence Day, Ghostbusters, Cliffhanger, Alien Vs. Predator, Alien 3, Pitch Black and many more. The exhibition will run through Aug. 31.
VFXWorld / Feature Article Going to Hell and Back is a Nuclear Blast in Constantine...
Posted by dschnee at 7:38 AM
February 17, 2005
Son of The Mask: Channeling Chuck Jones in CGI
VFXWorld's featured article on Son of the Mask
Alain Bielik speaks with ILM and Tippett Studio about raising the digital bar when it comes to cartoony CG antics in Son of the Mask.
Taming Of A ‘Terror’ Dog
While the baby was growing up nicely at ILM, another CG creature was born across the bay at Tippett Studio...
visit VFXWorld for the blow by blow accounts,
"Son of The Mask: Channeling Chuck Jones in CGI"
Posted by dschnee at 10:58 PM
Hell-LA virtual tour in Quicktime VR
One of my fellow compers at work showed this to me today, from constantine's official site you can take a quicktime virtual reality tour on the 405 hell freeway...
fan'tastic!
courtesy of (ripped off) constantinemovie.warnerbros.com =) - (and click on 'downloads')
Posted by dschnee at 12:01 AM
February 14, 2005
The Shaggy Dog
Starting today, how sweet, Valentine's Day. I've officially started compositing on "The Shaggy Dog" starring Tim Allen as Dave Douglas (The Shaggy Dog), Kristin Davis from Sex and the City, Danny Glover, Robert Downey Jr., and awe yeah! Craig Kilborn...
Plot Outline: A man tries to live a normal life despite the fact that he sometimes turns into a sheepdog.
Where have all the original stories gone I ask!?! ahh well, it's a remake of Disney's The Shaggy Dog from 1959.
We are doing some fun stuff, cute furry cg animals and some, well... interesting combinations of creatures... this along with some other interesting vfx work. So rollover, sit, but don't beg, this doggy treat comes barkin' at you toward the end of the year.
Posted by dschnee at 11:34 PM
February 10, 2005
Son of the Mask Screening & Clips
Enough with Constantine already!
Tonight we are getting a special screening of Son of the Mask here in Berkeley! Tippett Studio completed around 200+ shots for the film (can't recall the final shot count), and I think I composited around 8 of them...
I'm excited, it's going to be goofy, zaney, tom & jerry style antics, that could end up real fun, or real dumb... We'll find out soon enough!
Son of the Mask opens February 18th.
Until then, check out some Clips from Son of the Mask over at Yahoo! Movies that contain some of Tippett's visual effects work. One of the clips has a couple shots I completed... check out "Baby and Dog" and look for the shots after Otis is Charred from the exploding bone, there is one when baby Alvey crawls into frame and roars, and the next shot when Otis jumps up to the chandelier, exciting stuff!
• "Otis And The Mask" -- Otis the dog turns into a different creature when he unintentionally wears the mask of Loki.
(This was one of Tippett's 'Otis' sequences as Otis 'the dog' puts on the mask and transforms into 'smookin otis')
• "Baby And Dog" -- Alvey Avery (Liam Falconer) has fun playing a dangerous game with Otis the dog.
(Another of Tippett's 'Otis' sequences)
see also: ILM's baby Alvey in,
• "Dancing Alvey" -- Tim Avery (Jamie Kennedy) realizes there is something wrong with his son Alvey (Liam Falconer).
(ILM was responsible for 'baby Alvey' the Computer Generated version of baby Alvey, creepy stuff!)
see these and more on Yahoo! Movies - Son of the Mask Trailers & Clips
P.S. I'm not directly linking these movies, just click on them via Yahoo! Movies, and be cautions, they are crashing my Firefox, :(
Posted by dschnee at 4:18 AM
February 8, 2005
Constantine Production Information
Below is an interesting read on:
Designing, Creating and Photographing Hell on Earth
"Heaven and hell are riht here, behind every wall, every window, the world behind the world. And we're smack in the middle." -John Constantine
It was an ongoing collaboration between production design, cinematography, visual and computer effects and Stan Winston's creature artists to achieve the filmmakers' vision for Constantine's rich landscape, all of it coordinated and inspired by Francis Lawrence who watched as many of is original sketches expanded to fill whole soundstages.
John Constantine's world is a dark and moody place. Visually, it's the very definition of classioc noir, with its urban night scenes, deep shadows, slivers of street lamps on wet asphalt, and gently swirling smoke - all interpreted by skewed camera angles and expressionistic lighting. "The overall look," comments Shuler Donner, "is saturated and beautiful, but gritty. It evokes a sense of period, in a way, but its totally contemporary."
Lawrence met with renowned production designer Naomi Shohan, whose recent work on American Beauty earned her a BAFTA Award nomination. Seeking to realistically depict specific regions of Los Angeles, "not Beverly Hills, not Malibu, but downtown," the director explains, he was particularly impressed with Shohan's natural-looking work on the urban drama Training Day, remaking that, "she really understood Los Angeles, the ethnicity and textures I liked, and we bonded instantly over the approach." Together with location manage Molly Allen, Lawrence and Shohan prowled the city for the architecture and vistas of their story.
Among the sites selected were the Hacienda Real Nightclub, housed in the basement of the historic 1930s Eastern Columbia Building in downtown's commercial and theatre district, which provided an appropriate eclectic and underground flavor as Midnite's bar with its red-hued decor and ornately carved wood and brass detailing; the 5th Street Market, whose interiors and exteriors became the liquor store in which Father Hennessey and Balthazar have their final confrontatio; St. Mary's hospital, Long Beach, which doubled as Ravenscar; and the Angeles Abbey Memorial Park in Compton, as Midnite's office and cavernous reliquary. Built in 1923, the Abbey interior features elaborate ironwork and carved limestone, which Shohan's team augmented with statures, tapestries, artwork, religious relics, and an assortment of antique weapons and armor to represent Midnite's imposing collection.
Constantine's apartment, unusually long and narrow, was designed in a place Lawrence was already familiar with, the Giant Penny Building on Broadway, downtown, whose upstairs interior office walls had been broken out to form an extended space lined with windows. Thinking it had great potential as Constantine's home base, he showed the space to Shohan, who then added metal shutters to the windoes and bottles of holy water that Constantine has lining the walls for protection.
>>> HELL FREEWAY...
Additionally, the production used six Warner Bros. Studios soundstages for such comprehensively constructed sets as the hospital's hydrotherapy room, in which several climatic battles rage between the forces of good and evil, and a representative section of the 101 Freeway, which occupied nearly 22,000 feet and took eight weeks to complete.
Based upon the director's premise that heaven and hell exist as a parallel dimensions occupying the same space and that there is a heavenly and hellish version of every spot on earth, Shohan explains, "I imagined that hellish transformation to any landscape would be a state of constant cataclysmic shifting - exploding, imploding, blowing, burning, decaying. Hapily, Francis and I agreed that if you were in Los Angeles the quintessential hell version of the city would be a section of its infamous freeway."
As Constantine attempts to confirm the afterlife fate of Angela's sister, Isabel, he must visit hell to look for her, a treacherous journey on which he embarks from Angela's apartment. The instant he crosses over he appears in a scorched and gutted version of Angela's room, and from there climbs out onto the street and up to the highway, buffeted by fierce winds swirling with ash, with fire, and chaos all around. "You can't beat the image of Constantine walking down the center of a decomposed 101 Freeway in hell," says Lawrence, and, going for the irresistible joke, "most people who live in Los Angeles think the 101 Freeway is hell already."
Meticulously designed to look like the real thing, the section of road was built to nearly standard specs, with the exception of narrowing the lane width from 10 to eight feet and layering three lanes instead of four. "Rails, dividers, lamp posts and signage were all built to highway department standards," Shohan confirms. "The surface is concrete poured over wooden scaffold and dividers are concrete over carved foam."
Among the set's most striking details are the approximatley 40 vehicles, racked up in various states of disitegration. As Shohan explains, "The cars are wrecks purchased from collectors. We wanted certain models for their paticular shapes. These were then cut-up, re-configured and embellished with foam carving to make them appear mutated. We added wire and foam-formed stalactites to look like melted metal and evereything was covered in latex-and-hemp pieces we made to have the appearnce of skin with roots or veins growing in it. Finally, the whole set was age-painted in rust and brown to complete the look of waste, decay and constant diabolical transformation."
Coordinating with Shohan to use this detailed practical set as a foundation and starting point, Visual Effects Supervisor Michael Fink replicated and extended it digitally. Wrecked cars were remodeled in the computer so that each one could be further eroeded or blown away by acrid winds and so that digitally created demons and lost souls in hell could be moved around and through them. Fink describes the look he was striving for, as "an incredibly harsh environment like the aftermath of a nuclear blast except that instead of lasting nanoseconds it lasts forever." A visual effects supervisor since the early 1980s on a range of high-profile feature films, Fink counts among his credits an Oscar nomination for his work on 1992's Batman Returns and more recently oversaw effects on the blockbuster hits X-Men and X 2, where he collaborated with Constantine producer Lauren Shuler Donner.
Craig Hayes, visual effects supervisor at Northern California-based Tippett Studio (The Matrix Revolutions, Hollow Man), led a team of artists who replaced the set's green screens, incorporation photographic elements with digital design for what he calls "a fluidly dynamic effect," grafting objects onto existing images and generally "adding debris, airborne particles and detritus, burning palm trees and the entire hell-L.A. environment." In addition to extending and enhancing the focal point of the ruined roadway, the film required realistically scaled hell-scape vistats of Los Angeles extending out in all directions, "starting in Hollywood and going past the Capitol Records building to the right, all the way to downtown, "Fink outlines, "all of it pretty much seen as it really is, with some allowances for the scale to enhance the drama."
...HELL FREEWAY <<<
Working closely with both Fink and Shohan as well as with Francis Lawrence, was Oscar-winning director of photography Phillippe Rousselot (A River Runs Through It), a master at capturing mood. With more than 30 years in the film industry in both his native France and the U.S. and credits including 1994's atmospheric Interview with the Vampire and more recently looking for something different, and when something like this comes along, that I had never seen or even thought of before, it's very motivating," he says.
Basing much of his compositions and stylistic choices for Constantine on the graphic novel orgins of the story, Rousselot explains that he incorporated "a lot of wide angles, both hight and low, and the kinds of extreme points of view that you often see in comic books, which I thought was very important to maintain. In terms of light, we played a lot with contrast and colors, going with some very deep greens and oranges." At the same time, the cinematographer was careful not to copy the comic book style, preferring a more subliminal effect and drawing inspiration from many sources, including a folio of photographs from Cuba, that Lawrence shared with him. "You can't transfer pages into moving images; it's more the general idea of graphic novels that we were touching upon." Equally subtle were his nuanced depictions of heaven and hell, avoiding "the cliches of light and dark."
Overall, Rousselot opted for natural lighting, guided by Lawrence's desire "to keep the light organic and simple." But simple doesn't necessarily mean small, as evidenced by the sheer number of lights used, in on instance, for Constantine's sequence in hell. A total of 60 space lights hung from the ceiling of Stage 21, designed to move freely with the winde created by seven immense industrial fans positioned along one side of the freeway set. Their irregular movement provided an intensely dramatic quality. Additionally, Roousselot ran alongside his camera crew during many close-ups holding an exttended pole with a paper-covered China light on Keanu Reeves - a personal touch that allowed the cinematographer to capture precisely the right effect.
Rousselot's most precarious task by far was the bathtub scene, in which Rachel Weisz, as Angela, is fully submerged and held down by Constantine to facilitate her brief passage into the next world. "We wanted to have Rachel's point of view while she's underwater, when she opens her eyes and looks up. But of course there's no room in the tub so we shot it through a mirror," he says. Adding a mirror to the mix increased the potential of the unintended reflections, already complicated by the water, which, Rousselot explains, "reflects not only images but all the practical light."
DEMONS HALF-BREEDS AND SEPLAVITES:
-John Constantine
To continue reading this and much more, please download the complete PDF of the:
Constantine Production Information Here - courtesy of movieweb.com
Posted by dschnee at 2:06 AM
February 6, 2005
Constantine Superbowl TV Spot!
Constantine Superbowl XXXIX TV Spot (4.7mb QT)
Posted by dschnee at 9:44 PM
February 5, 2005
Constantine TV Spots
Here are a couple of Constatine Television Spots floating around on your local boob tube...
exciting!
Posted by dschnee at 11:33 AM
February 4, 2005
A Perfect Circle video "Passive" takes the Hell Freeway
((( Quicktime Version of "Passive" )))
In A Perfect Circle's latest video, "Passive" were taken on teaser ride through Constantine's Hell Freeway sequence! They intercut hellish treated footage of the band and actors mimicing shots from the film, with real final hell freeway shots from the film, its pretty damn great to see some work I did in A Perfect Circle video, heck 3 of my shots are in it... not too shabby!
I saw them in Bakersfield a little over a year ago, they're pretty mindblowing to hear live... ok so check out the "Passive" video now! (widows media)
see also: aperfectcircle.com
video link courtesy of: fanscape.com
Download the "Passive" MP3 Track >>> HERE
- courtesy of Straight to Hell: A Hellblazer Site
See Also: my posting Some of my work from Constantine that includes 3 of my shots found in APC's "Passive" video!
Posted by dschnee at 8:04 PM
February 3, 2005
Magazine Watch - Constantine
I've stumbled upon a few other magazines covering Constantine thus far, including Sci Fi Magazine, Relevant, Wizard, CFQ, and Fangoria! - If anyone comes across any more eMail me!
enjoy~
See Also: the latest issues of Cinescape, Starlog, and dreamwatch.
Posted by dschnee at 2:27 AM
February 1, 2005
Cinefantastique! Constantine
"Constantine takes us to Hell and back,"
as covered in an article in the latest issue of CFQ/Cinefantastique Magazine
Kudos once again to Aruna over @ digitalgypsy.com for his publicity shot!
CFQ / Cinefantastique -- February/March 2005 issue, Volume 37, #1, (pp. 48-53) -- info at http://www.cfq.com/
see also: exactly one year ago...
Starship Troopers 2 article in CFQ - February/March 2004 issue, Volume 36, #1, (pp. 28-33)
Posted by dschnee at 2:12 PM
January 31, 2005
Keanu Reeves on a Possible Constantine Sequel?
...from The Movie Reporter
At war with the powers of Heaven, Hell, and all the realms inbetween, Constantine is out to find a way to redemption, even after he has committed an Unforgivable Sin.
Reeves, who gives a surprising and well-constructed performance despite major changes to the settings of the books, wants to come back as Constantine, as long as the audience likes what he's done so far:"My contract didn't have a second film in it. But myself and some of the producers and Francis Lawrence fell in love with the guy. I fell in love with the guy. I had one of the best times I've ever had working on this project. So we would talk about 'What could we do? What happens to Constantine?' You know, we'd think, 'He's a heroin addict in Morocco, and he's got this spell, and he's killing people, but he's trying not to kill people, so he keeps knocking himself out. Then [producer] Akiva Goldsman was like, 'No! He wants to stop Revelations'. We'd do these kinds of things. Ultimately, it's up to the audience. That would mean that the studio would have the resources to go forward with it. I would love to play Constantine again as long as I worked with the same people, definitely Francis Barnes and Akiva Goldsman, and everyone involved in this project because I could not imagine doing this without them."
Posted by dschnee at 11:00 PM
January 25, 2005
VFX Nominations Announced for 77th Academy Awards
Beverly Hills, CA - Nominations for the 77th Annual Academy Awards were
announced today (Tuesday, January 25) by Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences President Frank Pierson and Oscar®-winning actor Adrien
Brody.
Achievement in visual effects :
-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Warner Bros.)
Roger Guyett, Tim Burke, John Richardson and Bill George
-I, Robot (20th Century Fox)
John Nelson, Andrew R. Jones, Erik Nash and Joe Letteri
-Spider-Man 2 (Sony Pictures Releasing)
John Dykstra, Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara and John Frazier
Cut from the VFX short list:
-The Aviator
-Lemony Snicket
-Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
-The Day After Tomorrow
See Also: the Entire Nomination List for the 77th Academy Awards
Posted by dschnee at 9:45 AM
More images from Hell L.A.
(click for larger image)
Posted by dschnee at 8:36 AM
January 19, 2005
Original Sins.net - Constantine Fan Art Exchange
If you go to OriginalSins.net you can download a Constantine Fan Art Kit to be used for creating wallpapers, posters, concept art, or any other hellish artwork you'd like. You'll be able to post your creations and have them rated, downloaded, and even show up on the official Constantine site... pretty cool, check it out.
Posted by dschnee at 12:53 PM
January 13, 2005
US Constantine Official Site - Updated!
(click for larger image)
-congrats Aruna for his hell shot up there! (the one with demons about to grab Constantine)
See for yourself here: constantinemovie.warnerbros.com
Posted by dschnee at 11:50 PM
Interview with Kent Matheson
from vfxblog+,
- 'Above the clouds' matte painting for The Matrix Revolutions. Image copyright © 2003 Warner Brothers. All rights reserved.
Kent Matheson is a matte painter and art director currently employed at Tippett Studio. He has worked on films such as Men In Black II, The Mummy Returns, Attack of the Clones, The Matrix Revolutions, The Stepford Wives and the upcoming Son of the Mask. Matheson talks to vfxblog about his craft and about some of the projects he has contributed to.
Interview by Ian Failes
Can you tell me a little about yourself and your background in matte painting and design?
For the full interview go to vfxblog+
Posted by dschnee at 10:18 PM
January 7, 2005
Hellbound Constantine FanSite...
dubbed "Straight To Hell" A Hellblazer Site covering the comic books now has a section devoted to the movie Constatine...
Go to Hell for the latest cnNews, reviews, media, interviews, and more.
Other notalbe websites are the foreign official Constantine sites which have a ton more goodies to look and play with, where as the official site for us in the states is void of any such goods.
United States (Last Update : Ages ago!)
Germany (Last Update : January 7th, 2004)
Spain (Last Update : December 14th, 2004)
France (Last Update : December 14th, 2004)
Posted by dschnee at 1:46 AM
January 6, 2005
meyemind.com v3.666 is born!
Welcome to version 3.666 of meyemind.com - my professional and personal website showcasing some of the work and artistry I've created.
v3.666 because its not a complete overhaul of v3, .666 for 2 reasons, one seeing as I've spent the last 6 months working in hell for Constantine, and secondly this new vfxlog was hell to get working correctly...
I hope you enjoy the new blog layout with a similar feel from v3, I shall be making numerous additions from here on out as I learn and build up more of meyemind.
I must thank my old quake clansmen James via stormerHosting.net for all his help over the years, and of course his help on this damn site!
Also thanks must go to Aruna Inversin for helping me with this as well, and not getting upset that I took the un-original path in using the same vfxlog application for my site.
Visit his inspirational site @ www.digitalgypsy.com
Posted by dschnee at 10:24 PM
