The Muppet Movie - hairy compositing!

What a stroke of luck to be asked to come on as part of the Look FX compositing team for The Muppets!

There are a few awesome articles describing the work we did. And There is a video montage http://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-muppets-its-time-to-raise-the-curtain/ right here which shows some of my final composites. Look for Scooter at Google, Harry blowing up Mt. Rushmore, and the driving sequence.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/244984/qanda_how_digital_effects_gave_the_muppets_new_freedom.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1204342/

Mercedes - Escape the map!

Mercedes - Escape the map! A lot to be thankful for! Like working on this cool commercial/film.

A 4 minute film/contest to win a new Mercedes. Digital Domain teamed up with director Carl Rinsch, RSA and AMV BBDO for “Escape the Map,” a surreal POV journey into a world inspired by Google Street View. With characters ravaged by digital artifacts, blurred visages and time echoes, this piece incorporated a ton of 3D Nuke Compositing and breaking all the rules!


http://motionographer.com/2011/11/21/mercedes-escape-the-map/

http://www.escapethemap.co.uk/

http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2011/mercedes-escape-the-map/

From the release:

Digital Domain Visual Effects Supervisor Jay Barton, who is currently working with Rinsch on his upcoming feature for Universal Pictures, “47 Ronin,” led the team. His idea was to use photogrammetry — a technique in which measurements are taken from photographs to create real-world objects — to create the world. All of the live action was shot in Hong Kong, with Barton scouting and shooting iconic locations which were later used in the world-building. Additional green-screen shoots were staged in Hong Kong and Los Angeles.

“We first had to develop the visual language of the world,” Barton said. “We took inspiration from Google Street view and replicated that, but in moving video. As photos are stitched together, they sometimes seam strangely. They might not line up, or two buildings might occupy the same space, or people get cut in half. We played a lot with how images would load or resolve, or react when a whole new set of photos came in to reset the world. Here, when you explore you have more options and more viewpoints. You can decide where to look, walk, or drive and your perspective and resolution update accordingly.”

CLIENT: Mercedes Benz
PRODUCT: C63 AMG
TITLE: “The Escape”

ADVERTISING AGENCY: Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO Ltd UK
Creative Team: Paul Knott & Tim Vance
Creative Director: Tim Riley
Agency Producer: Emmalou Johnson
Board Account Director: Ben King
Account Director: Rob Tauscher
Account Manager: Nick Andrew

PRODUCTION COMPANY: RSA Films, Ltd. UK
Director: Carl Erik Rinsch
Producer: Margo Mars

FACILITY COMPANY HONG KONG: RSA Asia
Hong Kong Facility Producer: Marco Leung

FACILITY COMPANY Los Angeles: RSA LA
LA Facility Producer: Christy Lindgren
DOP: Eric Steelberg

FACILITY COMPANY Los Angeles: RSA LA
LA Facility Producer: Christy Lindgren
DOP: Eric Steelberg

CASTING DIRECTOR: Denise Chamain
TALENT: Mariah Bonner

VISUAL EFFECTS: Digital Domain, Inc.
300 Rose Avenue, Venice CA 90291
Chief Creative Officer, EP: Ed Ulbrich
Executive Producer: Tanya Cohen
Head of Production: Scott Gemmell
Visual Effects Supervisor: Jay Barton
CG Supervisor: Ronald D. Herbst
VFX Producer: Chris Fieldhouse
VFX Coordinator: David Ziek
Avid Edit: Todd Miller
Avid Edit: Brian Miller
Avid Edit: David Hsin
Digital Standards Consultant: Jeff Heusser
Previs: Roy Sato
Flame Artist: Paul Kirsch
PHOTOGRAMMETRY: Scott Edelestein
PHOTOGRAMMETRY: Gil Hacco
GENERALIST: Daisuke Nagae
GENERALIST: Brian Creasey
GENERALIST: Casey Benn
GENERALIST: Rick Thomas
MAYA/HD FX: Adrian Graham
Maya FX: Lee Carlton
MATTE PAINT: Zach Christian
MATTE PAINT: Ting Lo
TRACK: Michael Lori
TRACK: Montu Jariwarla
TRACK: Roxanne Zuckerman
Roto Artist: Edgar Diaz
Roto Artist: Nathalie Gonthier
Rigging: Derek Crosby
Compositor Supervisor: Rafael Colon
Nuke Compositor: Chia-chi Hu
Nuke Compositor: Sven Dreesbach
Nuke Compositor: Aruna Inversin
Nuke Compositor: Scott Hale
Motion Graphics Artist: Cody Williams
Digital Studio Engineer: David Bryan
Digital Studio Engineer: Fernando Pantoja

OFFLINE EDIT: Stitch Editing
Editor: Frank Effron

DIGITAL PRODUCTION COMPANY: Unit9
Interactive Director: Rob Corradi

SOUND DESIGN: Factory Studios
Sound Engineers: Tom Joyce and Anthony Moore

COMPOSER: 11:59
Track: ‘Trepanation’

The secret is out! Star Trek The Next Generation Digitally Remastered!

The secret is out! This is one of the exciting projects I worked on this summer! http://www.startrek.com/article/the-next-generation-blu-rays-launch-in-2012

I had the honor of compositing visual effects for the digital remastering of Star Trek The Next Generation at CBS Digital. For the upcoming release, we did the pilot episode and several others. Eventually CBS will release all the episodes on Blu-Ray.

Thank you to CBSD for including me on such a historic venture. It was a great project with a top notch team!

Silver Lion @ 'Cannes International Festival of Creativity for Mini Flow Spot!

I just found out that the commercial,
“Mini Countryman Flow” that I did Compositing on at Sway Studios won a Silver Lion at 'The Cannes International Festival of Creativity' for Film Craft.

Festival Details here

Type of Entry:	Film Craft
Category:	Special Effects & Computer Graphics
Title:	MINI COUNTRYMAN FLOW
Advertiser/Client:	MINI WORLDWIDE
Product/Service:	MINI COUNTRYMAN
Entrant Company:	BSUR Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Advertising Agency:	BSUR Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS

Post Production:	Sway Studio
Special Effects/Computer Graphics:	SWAY Studios

X-Men: First Class, Visual Effects @ Digital Domain: First Rate

Digital Domain delivers infinity in the mirror room sequence and headquarters destruction scene. The collaboration was a once in a lifetime opportunity to work on a truly great movie. I grew up with the X-Men, reading the comics, learning to draw the characters and watching them come to life with amazement in cartoons and movies my whole life. I have also wanted to work at DD since I was at SCAD. Here's a movie review and links of interest.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/x_men_first_class/

Kevin Bacon, Shaw, destroys an atrium, an environment augmented by DD with fully CG explosions, debris and fire. “Our atrium explosions were led by effects animation supervisor Brian Gazdik,” says Kalaitzidis. “We used Houdini to break things and add fire on top of that. It included desks, and ceilings and windows and even typewriters on the desks. In the past we’d use real pyro elements but I felt like this was one of the shows where we didn’t need to do that for CG fire. And not only did we have CG fire but all the characters shooting at Shaw from the top of the atrium were all CG and mo-capped.”

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/making-mutants-for-x-men-first-class/

After attempting to draw the nuclear power of the submarine, Shaw is confronted by Lensherr in a ‘mirror room’, an environment shot completely against greenscreen. Once filmed, DD assembled some rough post-viz to help establish the key beats and rudimentary, but multiple, reflections. “That was approved by John Dykstra and then we came up with a look-dev for the mirror room,” says Kalaitzidis. “We used reference from Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee, in the mirror maze. That showed the imperfections and the hues and mutual density that we needed to add in.”

Witness-cam footage of Shaw and Lensherr, again, was used to copy their performances via roto-mation. “Using this animation,” explains Kalaitzidis, “we reflected CG doubles into the mirrors themselves. They’re fighting each other and there’s breaking glass which was done with Maya and Houdini, and then composited in Nuke.”

Visual Effects for Pandemic

2011 Sundance Film Festival, Official Selection: "Pandemic"

Lance Weiler, Co-Director of "The Last Broadcast" and Director of "Head Trauma" has his latest short film in this years Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. I was asked to create visual effects for the film and worked on around 30 shots for "Pandemic"

An article on Wired.com goes into more detail here.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/01/sundance-film-festival-is-ground-zero-for-lance-weilers-pandemic-1-0/

Watch the Short Film right here: