Hasta La Motion!

Gaspar Noé’s new film, Enter The Void, “will kick you in the balls”, as a colleague of mine put it. It’s a psychedelic visual ride that borders on inducing seizures; take the title sequence as a brief example of what I’m talking about. Most of the film’s effects came from the work of French visual effects studio, BUF, who also produced the film. Taking on almost 350 of the films shots over the course of 2 years, BUF added to and even rebuilt many shots to complete the spiritual and hallucinogenic vision of Gaspar Noé.

Check it

Posted on Motionographer

Another response to the issues that the VFX Townhall have brought up, Scott Squires writes a long post on what he sees as the big picture of the visual effects industry. This is required reading, folks, there will be a test.

When I think of a service I think of a dentist, a car shop where they work on your car or a plumber that comes to your house. In these cases they do work but don’t tend to produce anything. The costs are based on time and materials.

Custom manufacturing?
Should vfx be considered as custom manufacturing? We actually create something when we finish our work, whether it’s from scratch or a montage of material provided. That’s what the studios want, not the actual service part.

Here is where things get crazier. Each shot is unique like a snowflake. It’s own little world of issues, handwork and tweaks. You try like anything to make shots as consistent as possible and to be able to run them through the exact same process but it’s never full automated. For all the talk about computers in our business it’s still a very labor-intensive process. The number of people and the time required to do a shot from start to finish would astound most outsiders.

If you go to most manufactures and request custom work you will be required to make specific requirements in writing. (I.e. you want cabinet style 32 but in this specific color of blue. You want a custom cake that says Happy Birthday. It will be yellow cake with vanilla ice cream and chocolate frosting.) And that is what you will get. They seldom show you the work in progress or have your input at every single stage. The other thing is a custom manufacture will tell you when it will be done. They dictate the schedule. In the film business it’s the opposite of all of this. The studio specifies when the delivery will be. It’s almost always less than the time that would have been arrived at by a normal scheduling process for the facility.

Scott wrote another article tonight which is equally worth your attention: Unions

I know some people are concerned a union will cause studios to leave the area and go elsewhere. Hey, it’s already happening without being a union and if you’re working under poor conditions or getting substandard pay it does it really matter if they leave?

Posted on Motionographer

Smashing Magazine has posted a list of Best Tutorials For Cinematic Visual Effects. The post links to 62 techniques ranging from the 007 Intro to Meteor Crashes. So this one post contains all the knowledge you would need to make a tent-pole VFX feature or start your own effects boutique. Right? Seriously, if all this information was available to me when I got started, it would have been much harder to impress people by showing them a chrome sphere on a checkerboard.

(LINK) to the full post

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Ever get sick of being referred to as a “3d Guy”? Well if you have you may enjoy an open letter rant posted on cgpov.com. It’s got some gems including.

Please do not ever again refer to us as “3D guys, THE 3D guy” or the particularly nauseating “3D Guru”. It’s dismissive, degrading, and just sounds f**king dumb.

The fun continues from there.

LINK to the whole rant

(via Eric Alba)

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Hot off the heels of Benjamin Button’s Oscar success, Digital Domain’s commercial division shows us what they’ve been up to with a three-spot campaign for the 2010 Lexus RX. They’ve been getting plenty of airtime on TV, but in case you’ve missed them, take a look:

• Assembled
• City
• Intersection

The spots were directed by Carl Erik Rinsch and had some top notch talent on board with DP Claudio Miranda (nominated for an Oscar for cinematography) and production designer Donald Graham Burt (won the Oscar for set design).

The first two spots are filled with a beautiful blend of visual effects and live action, while the third spot is mostly live action with a sparse graphic touch. Some of my favorite moments from “Assembled” are the conveyor belt moving almost snake-like over the black leather couch and the pull-out shot of the car being assembled by robotic arms on the street.

“City” has its own share of visually rich shots and easily convinces you that a whole city of cars and buildings were literally hoisted up for your traffic-free pleasure.

If you haven’t already had your fill of car commercials, take some time to browse Digital Domain’s ever-growing library of 45+ automotive spots in the Advertising / Automotive section of their website.

If you’re a fan of Digital Domain’s work, remember that Ed Ulbrich, Executive Vice President and President of Commercials Division, will be speaking at F5.

Credits

PRODUCTION CREDITS:

CLIENT: Lexus
PRODUCT: 2010 Lexus RX

AIR DATE for “Assembled”: 02/16/09
AIR DATE for “City”: 02/16/09
AIR DATE for “Intersection”: 02/16/09

ADVERTISING AGENCY: Team One / El Segundo, CA

Chief Creative Officer: Chris Graves
Group Creative Director: Jon Pearce
Group Creative Director: Gavin Lester
Executive Producer: Jennifer Weinberg
Account Supervisor: Kristie Weston

PRODUCTION COMPANY: RSA Films, Inc. / Los Angeles, CA

Director: Carl Erik Rinsch
Executive Producer: Marjie Abrahams
Director or Photography: Claudio Miranda
Line Producer: Annie Johnson
1st Assistant Director: Howell Caldwell
Production Supervisor: Bryan Mitchell

ANIMATION & VISUAL EFFECTS: Digital Domain, Inc. / Venice, CA

President of Commercials, Exec. Producer: Ed Ulbrich
Executive Producer / Head of Production:  Karen Anderson
Visual Effects Supervisor: Jonah Hall
CG Supervisor – “Assembled”: Ron Herbst
CG Supervisor – “City”: Greg Teegarden
VFX Producer: Chris Fieldhouse
VFX Coordinator: Stephanie Escobar
Previsualization: Simon Dunsdon
Flame Artist: Jonny Hicks
Flame Artist: Brian Boungiorno
Flame Artist: Dave Stern
Flame Artist: Chris DeCristo
Flame Artist Assistant: Matt Bramante
Nuke Compositor: Rafael Colon
Nuke Compositor: Sven Dreesbach
Nuke Compositor: Brian Smallwood
Nuke Compositor: Michael Morehouse
Digital Artist: Marc Perrera
Digital Artist: Tim Nassauer
Digital Artist: Jon Gourley
Digital Artist: Chris Norpchen
Digital Artist: Terry Naas
Digital Artist: Justin Lloyd
Digital Artist: Jeff Dierstein
Digital Artist: Adrian Dimond
Digital Artist: Ruel Smith
Houdini Artist: James Atkinson
Matte Paint: Wei Zheng
Roto Artist: Marianne Magne
Roto Artist: Mattaniah Yip
Roto Artist: Tom Piedmont
Roto Artist: Mike Boden
Roto Artist: David Wu
Roto Artist: Kanae Morton
Roto Artist: Keith Weilmuenster
On Set Tracker: Scott Edelstein
Integration Tracker: Som Shankar
Integration Tracker: Shelley Larocca Courte

EDITORIAL HOUSE: The Whitehouse / Santa Monica, CA

Editor:  Rick Lawley
Producer:  Joni Wright

MUSIC, SOUND DESIGN & AUDIO POST/MIX HOUSE
Location:  HUM

Posted on Motionographer

Digital Domain Campaigns for Lexus