This is my first attempt. Would appreicate some feedback. Be gentle. Do you think this is good enough to get an entry level job such as a data operator or a render wrangler in a post-prod house? Obviously the reel isnt relatated to such a job but it shows intent to advacing in such a career.
THE PERKS: Foremost is an environment of great kids willing to learn! Then, there is the STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL, BRAND NEW FACILITY designed by famous architect Cesar Pelli. See it at: http://www.pcparch.com/#/projects/ed…ties-high-sch/. This facility cost over 57 million dollars and occupies an entire block in the center of the bustling downtown theatre district of New Haven CT… in the midst of Yale, the broadway Shubert Theatre, hundreds of amazing restaurants, the beautiful downtown green, nearby ocean beaches, and New York City is about an hour and a half by car or train. Also, it’s exciting that the school is looking to establish internships and a strong visiting artist series. In addition, Connecticut recently had a few years of busy major filmaking, which should return when the economy recovers. And the applicant could stay involved with ‘professional side-projects’ as their schedule allows. Possibly the best of all during this economy is that the school is well established so someone seeking a job could gain secure, long term employment and should be very happy here!
* Feel free to copy & email this post directly to qualified applicants you feel might be interested in this teaching job.
* For qualified applicants, please reply to nodiff9@yahoo.com with "COOP teacher" in the subject field and only basic contact info for me to pass on to the arts director of the school.
Thanks for your time
MahaNakhon will be the most ambitious complex of contemporary architecture designed in Thailand and the tallest building in Bangkok. Rem Koolhaas’ OMA will design MahaNakhon … “moving beyond the traditional formula of a seamless, inert, glossy totem, and instead actively engage the city: MahaNakhon’s pixelated and carved presence embraces and connects to the surrounding urban […]
thanks a lot!
[FONT=’Segoe UI’,’sans-serif’]http://www.amazon.com/Realistic-Architectural-Visualization-mental-Second/dp/0240812298/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247132239&sr=1-3[/font]
The challenge was to be able to render a relatively decent scene, straight from 3ds max design 2010 using mental ray. Without any post work.
I had used some of mental rays proprietary shaders to create surfaces with accurate energy reflectance .
To break up some of the surfaces, I had resorted to the utility bump combiner(adsk) to be able to load up multiple bump channels(IE tiles;noise;cellular;etc…)
Finally, I had created a proprietary defaultoutput shader (Glare) to create a customised glare effect
I hope it was worth the hassle…you will be the judge of that.
Any comments would be welcome
Cheers,
Jamie
According to McManus, the company philosophy is “rooted in the belief that a small, flexible highly-talented, multi-disciplined, and experienced staff can produce good work,” he says. “KILT is well suited to meet the changing needs of the production landscape as we experience it today.”
A service company to advertising, content originator and production companies in commercials, features, music video and television, KILT’s approach is unique. As MacDonald points out, the duo saw the “digital tsunami” coming a few years ago, but they were unable from within an already-existing visual effects/post company to change direction due to dedicated architecture and overhead. “The move away from traditional means of advertising and content, to that of Internet and mobile technologies has created a new way of collaborating with clients,” he explains. “Companies now more than ever have to be flexible to meet the ever-evolving media environment.”
KILT launches with a core team that includes founding partners: McManus and MacDonald, as well as CG Artists Andy Lesniak and Michael Johnson. Together, they have a multi-disciplined approach and the ability to adapt their working pipeline to any project (as opposed to forcing a project into an existing, and potentially damaging workflow) regardless of the delivery format: television, mobile, internet, etc. A key aspect of the studio’s flexibility is scalability. “We can easily expand and contract as the project requires, and we are portable as well. So we can set up and work wherever our client is or wants us to be,” adds MacDonald.
This new mode of collaboration served KILT well on its premiere project, a commercial project for Director Peter Berg and 2K Sports. Featuring the collision of two trains against a desert landscape, symbolizing the power of baseball, the KILT team was called on to create the train’s collision. The athletes had already been shot on-set, so creative problem solving was needed.
The KILT team recommended to Director Berg that they create an entirely computer-generated 3D environment, and then integrate the CG elements with the live-action footage. The director agreed, so a small team from KILT led by Producer Matthew McManus traveled to the high desert and shot reference plates with the Red Camera.
They then integrated the cg trains and environments into the commercial’s live-action footage of the athletes. KILT artists were able to create fully CG trains using Maya and Mental Ray, and rendering using Lightwave. They had to custom-write some software for the integration of the three programs, but all this was accomplished on deadline and to budget.
KILT is now hard at work on a DirecTV campaign, which includes a series of 14 spots for NFL Prime Ticket, also scheduled to break in July.
KILT Studios
Managing Director/Producer/Partner:
Matthew McManus Matthew McManus is a leading executive in the postproduction community. In 2005, he was hired by Ascent Media to reinvent the RIOT VFX brand. Through a rebranding effort and increasing RIOT’s visibility, he generated over $6 million per year in revenue, a goal which had previously alluded RIOT. During his tenure at RIOT, Matthew led local and national seminars for both HD production workflows and digital acquisition workflows such as RED. Prior to joining RIOT, Matthew served as Executive Producer at Radium for three years, generating revenues of $4.5 million per year. His credits at Radium include the Pass That Dutch video by Missy Elliot, the 2004 VES Awards winner for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Effects in a Music Video. Previous to venturing into the postproduction world, he served has Head of Production at commercial production companies, Fahrenheit Films, M-80 and Bedford Falls.
Creative Director/Flame Artist/Partner:
Andrew MacDonald MacDonald served as creative director at METHOD/RIOT and previously at CreoCollective. He has built his reputation and staff around the idea of artistic excellence and innovation. His background also includes service at Digital Domain as a senior visual effects supervisor. Collaborating with the top filmmakers in advertising, MacDonald was instrumental in the creation of classic spots for Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Isuzu, MCI and many other advertisers. His work was recognized by numerous awards including four Clios, a Bronze Lion at Cannes and several AICP Awards for excellence. Born in England, MacDonald earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Coventry Polytechnic. He began his career as a postproduction artist, working through such London postproduction companies as Rushes, The Mill and Moving Picture Company. He went on to found several companies of his own, spanning a diverse range of creative and technical services. One of them, Hughes MacDonald, was the first independent visual effects firm in London.
CG Artist: Andy Lesniak
Andy Lesniak has applied his considerable skills as a CG supervisor and artist to feature films, television, commercials, music videos and interactive games. Among his recent credits are spots for NetZero, Lincoln and Canon. Lesniak was an original staff member of CreoCollective and a co-founder of Station X Studios. At Creo, his work included the film The Core and commercials for Volvo, Nextel and New Balance, among many others. At Station X, he contributed to the film Dogma and My Favorite Martian, and to commercials for Chevy, Toyota and Sony Wega.
CG Artist: Michael Johnson
Michael Johnson joined RIOT in 2005 and has applied his broad-based animation skills to projects for Subaru, Honda and Scion. Johnson previously spent three years at CreoCollective where his work included the films Hostage and The Core, and commercials for Ford, Microsoft, Nintendo, Olympus and Sprint. He also held a staff post at Tippett Studio in Berkeley where he was part of a team that created a series of thrilling action sequences for the film “The Matrix: Revolutions.” His background also includes freelance work for Rhythm & Hues, Eden FX and Gray Matter on projects ranging from commercials for Burger King, Ford and Nintendo to the television series “Star Trek: Voyager.” Johnson began his work with Digital Domain. He contributed to numerous commercial projects, as well as the ride film “StormRider” for Disneyland Tokyo and the film “X-Men.”
www.kiltstudios.com
Marco Iozzi updates his portfolio with some major goodies. Marco is an awesome CG artist and look development specialist that has worked with many top studios, such as Psyop, The Moving Picture Company, and The Mill.
Marco Iozzi has a great passion for his craft and it shows through his dramatic visuals. He has a nice combination of film and commercial projects in his portfolio, yet despite the variety of projects on Marco’s site, the final product of each piece looks amazing. To top it off, his photography and cg breakdowns are nice contributions to his heavy arsenal of work.
Just looking at his online material left a thirst to find out more about the man behind the portfolio. I tracked down Marco, who was cool enough to share some of his career experiences in a Q & A session with Motionographer:
How did you get your start in this industry?
I come from Italy and to be honest it has not been easy. The quality of work is pretty low, as is the demand for creative content. But of course this would have not stopped me. My passion for movie-making started when I was a teenager. I fell in love with movies and special effects, and I became curious about how things were done on screen. I remember when I first had the chance to put my hands, at the University, on a copy of 3d Studio. I’ll remember that moment, because its when I had a vague feeling of what could be possible. I was stuck, and I knew that no matter what, I wanted to do that for a living. I decided to study Visual Communication Design at the University, hoping to learn as much as possible about CGI, but actually it was not the case. Only years later I realized how all the other courses I was taking were so important to where I am now.
I left the University and attended a Softimage course. I knew that if I wanted to break in the industry I needed to learn a high end package like Softimage. After a few months of attending the course I received my first job offer, in the commercial industry. That’s where it all started, almost 10 years ago.
No matter which University or course, I’m like a lot of people out there, mainly self taught, because I spent hours and hours trying to learn these tools. It was like a drug.
After 2 years, Italy disappointed me and I knew inside I wanted to take the big step and move abroad. I was scared, but I knew that it was a due step to do if I really wanted to improve. If I had not put so much hours into creating personal stuff or improving my portfolio, I would have never gone far. And you know what? It’s not so different even now, after 10 years. What has changed is my role in this industry and what I study.
It’s not anymore about HOW things are made, it’s more about WHY…It’s more about why something works on screen and give you emotions. Why a story is well told and you as the audience embrace it and feel it…I could go on forever.
So it’s less and less about the tools and more and more about the content. All the amazing arts and crafts that could use CGI as a tool, to express an idea.
This is something that’s often forgotten.
What is your role in working with studios? Do you interact with directors to help realize their vision?
It depends on where you work and the size of the studio. I worked in places where you have to deliver a “well” defined product, and the creativity relies in creating something beautiful, important and effective story-wise. Enhancing the concept art you start from… Moreover another big challenge is understanding how to create something in a reasonable amount of time (never the case) for a reasonable amount of money (never the case).
Then there are places, more in the commercials field in my opinion, which work much more in contact with the agencies or deal with creativity inside. This is the case I prefer, cause based on the often rough concept, that comes from the agency, everything else has to be built from the ground up. And in this scenario you have the chance to work directly with the director and designers, with people from different fields, with different inputs and visions.
My role is to be in between this phase of pre-production and the actual production, shot-by-shot, phase. During look development we try to bring the powerful CG tools to the creativity phase, producing frames and animated sequences which won’t be final because they were created in a short amount of time. Instead they are utilized in the following ways:
– An effective conceptualization of the main idea.
– A powerful communication tool in the team, to develop the project further
– A very important first attempt to a work-flow, which, in an ideal world, will be the base for production.
A look is never established JUST in 3D or 2D, but most of the time in between, and during look dev we use all the tools we’re gonna eventually use.This is a powerful way to bridge creativity and production, plus, is a good way to bring on one side 3d tools closer to designers which could make an amazing use of them, and designers rules and vision to the 3D artists on the other side.
Do you have any formal art training and is it important to your skill set?
I took drawing and photography classes in University. Photography is a big interest of mine, and I think learning to shoot with a camera will be more and more visible in your matte / styleframes / renders . Things like composition and color are something absolutely important — even if its a sketch. I hope one day to know the best way of composing a shot, so that it will become second nature and more based on instinct.
What are you working on next?
Currently I’m working in my studio in Italy, mainly doing art direction for clients in Paris, New York and LA. At the same time I’m working on pitches for commercials and independent short films and personal photography work.
Do you have some advice for aspiring CG Artists?
Well there would be many things I’d love to say. Seriously, I’ll just say that you need passion, determination and stamina. This can be an amazing job. It will allow you to travel, see the world and meet amazing people. Compared to other jobs it will give you a much stronger feeling of freedom.
However, this does not come without a cost. It involves long hours, stress, constant challenges and hard hard work. This is only possible if your passion is really strong and if it’s “honest”.
Just another thing, don’t study the tools too much. They’re powerful and challenging, constantly improving, but they’re just tools. Study WHY and HOW to use them, to create and to express something.
Thank you for your time Marco, and as an important side note I’d like to mention some of Marco’s many accomplishments. Notably, he’s won a Visual Effect Society Award in 2008 for his role as lead artist with Jellyfish Pictures in the BBC Series, “Fight for Life”.
Applicants must be able to demonstrate a good working knowledge of Lightwave and Lightwave methodologies (such as the use of mdds). Previous experience of this type of process would be advantageous and basic compositing ability is also required. Modeling and texturing skills are not strictly necessary but will prove useful.
http://www.smoothdevil.com/index.php?page=job&job_id=958
closes: 14 Aug 2009
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