the digitalgypsy VFX Blog

Misc Ramblings!

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 21:30:00 -0800

Hello kind readers! The last couple weeks have been pretty hectic, finishing up that giant robot movie and other miscellaneous items! I'm taking a long break away from Digital Domain for the summer, and hope to jump back in early August. The downtime will allow me to finish up a bunch of projects, and then start on new ones.

I mentioned earlier that I'm cutting a HD demo reel, of all my stuff up to this date, except for the films of this year, unless I can get them on DVD. Click the image to the right to see the full frame screen capture from the film. The majority of my film work has appeared on BluRay, and viewing it at that high resolution does remind me of how much work it took to get those images up there! While I was reviewing the work on The Mummy, I found that I was not quite happy with the quality of the BluRay. It seemed visually more compressed, but still significantly better than a standard DVD. The BluRay version is 1080p, or so they say. Many of the motion artifacts are apparent in the motion blurred sequences, while matte paintings and full face character work was way more detailed. I will most likely downconvert all my stuff to 720p anyway. The difference to the general public is negligible. The next question you might have is, will I send the BluRay version to companies looking for work? Maybe.. I most likely will cut two, a standard DVD and a BluRay with behind the scenes and other items. Maybe a voice over or a how-to.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been receiving a plethora of Emmy Voting stuff, of which I have taken pictures! From Battlestar Galactica and HBO, to Showtime and A&E. History Channel has some good discs. This year the Academy is putting a lot of footage online for members to watch, and individual networks are doing the same. This year again, Showtime is putting all their series up for viewing by members. But what about my group, SVE (Special Visual Effects)? We vote for the nominees in about two weeks! Unfortunately I won't be able to vote this year, but check out my previous entries on how it all went down to get a feel for it.

In a couple weeks we'll be headed up to Vancouver, to see the city, friends, and generally, do some more hanging out. When we come back to Los Angeles, there'll be more hanging out, as well as more venture capital work. I'm still preparing a proposal for several VCs in the Bay area, and there is a local gathering of entrepreneurs and angel investors every month or so, and I hope to pitch the company to them. It's still a lot of work, but I'm up to it, and there's only glory at the end.

With all these free time, I've been hitting the gym more regularly, back to my routine four day split. Legs, chest, arms and shoulders, and then accessory work. It's been good so far, and back to squatting 295x5 again after a week off. And then there's that stupid X360 game, COD4: Modern Warfare, which I've been spending lots and lots and lots of time online in the multiplayer rooms playing Team Deathmatch with my brother and pals. I think a day last week we played for six hours and won 19 games straight. I think there was a preteen on there that said I needed to get a life.. Little does he know.

Three weeks ago

Wed, 27 May 2009 08:20:00 -0800

Three weeks ago was the last time I had posted anything up on this site! My oh my. Let's recap, shall we. I've caught up with a lot of movies over the past three weeks, Wolverine, Star Trek, and Terminator Salvation in the theaters, and Takashi Miike's Audition at home. I enjoyed Terminator Salvation, and while I felt that Christian Bale did a good job, I really enjoyed Sam Worthingtons portrayal of Marcus Wright, a fallen man. Some of the effects were top notch, some, not so much. But that's like any popular film these days, with the time crunch that we are given, it's so tough to sometimes pull off quality work. Wolverine was, meh. I enjoyed the actors portraying the characters, but the story as a whole was kinda, blah to me. I'm not familiar with the Wolverine Origins comic, and am not sure how that would have affected me. A couple of the VFX shots were meh as well, but like I mentioned above, that's what happens when you have a short time frame and complicated shots to pull off.

On the vfx front, we're wrapping up Transformers, with a release date of June 24th, about a month away. I'm sure you've seen the trailers for the film, which showcase some of our work. I've lost count of how many shots I completed, I think around 14 or so.. Up from the original 4 or 5 I was slated for. But these numbers always change, artists move on to other shows, contracts finish, and so forth.

Yesterday I met with my student over at OTIS, to go over some Nuke keying methodology, as well as some preliminary discussion on potential senior projects that she might tackle. Overall, it's a good match, she knows what she's doing, eager to learn, and is receiving opportunities at various facilities around Los Angeles to intern! We've got another couple of months together for the VES Mentoring Program, so I think we'll be able to hit her marks and deadlines.

Also in the past three weeks, a topic came up about my extension into visual effects. Basically, it seems, anything I do outside of work at Digital Domain is visual effects related! VFXTalk, VFXWages, VES Mentoring, this blog, and so forth! Yes. It does seem so, doesn't it. I guess when I get into something, I really get into it. While VFXWages is vfx related, I don't spend the majority of my time managing it.

VFXWages is just a subsection of the larger parent company Industry Wages Inc (IWI), which is established as a California S Corp, and has actually nothing to to with VFX at all! VFXWages is just the start of something bigger, a way to get some good feedback and iron out the bugs for a larger database. Recently I've prepared a pitch for VCs that will hopefully give us feedback on the company as a whole, and possibly future financing, to extend our reach into the industries we want dominate. I've been doing a bunch of research on labor forces, foreign markets, and exactly how we can make money doing the site. WolframAlpha was an excellent way to figure out the labor forces of certain countries! Amazing, even better than Google, which I used for my first attempt. After doing some quick research, our market potential for IWI is approximately 1.8billion people, in the following countries; the US, the EU, India, China, Australia, and Japan. That's the number of people that can possibly be employed or are employed in those countries, which might benefit from the services we have to offer. The challenge now is to get them to use our services! I also have a pricing model in mind, but we must wait until the bugs are all worked out and we reach our milestones.

Thursday already!

Thu, 07 May 2009 14:50:09 -0800

Whoa! Time is really flying this week! A quick recap of the week... Monday we hit the cast and crew screening of Star Trek over on the Paramount lot. I've been following the Star Trek films since The Voyage Home, and while I don't consider myself a trekkie, I do enjoy most of the films set in that universe. This latest incarnation from JJ Abrams was abso-fricking-lutely excellent. It wasn't just a Trek film, but a very well done sci-fi film. It does cater towards general audiences, so you don't need to know the universe in order to enjoy it. From what I recall, there was no mention of dilithium crystals! Some wicked character work by all the main actors, and it was nice to see a Kirk that wasn't Shatner, but still embody Kirks character. I highly recommend seeing the film in a theatre with a good sound system and screen. The Paramount system was most likely THX approved and it was presented digitally. The work that DD did was a fraction of the work that was in most of the film, and I will probably talk about that once the film is seen by more people.

87 Million

Mon, 04 May 2009 14:10:00 -0800

That's the box office take of Wolverine over the weekend. We caught the late show on Saturday night, and it was pretty packed. The question I have for studios is... Did the leaked version a month ago have any effect on the box office take of this movie? Did it pique interest, or not? Will studios use this as a tool to further the agenda that piracy has an effect on movie viewing? 87 million is a hefty number, and it will of course drop next weekend with Star Trek coming out, so they won't be able to compare week after week numbers. I didn't see the pirated copy, but I'm curious if it contained, more of less, the main story.

Tonight we head off to see the cast and crew screening of Star Trek. It's over on the Paramount lot tonight. Should be fun, I'm looking forward to it!

Tidbits

Fri, 01 May 2009 11:55:00 -0800

Today Wolverine comes out. Theoretically attached to this film will be a trailer for Transformers 2. If you can't wait, do you want to see the trailer? Head on over to Yahoo to see it and the HD versions. I gotta say, it does look pretty badass. The saturation is turned up to 11, but.. meh, it's on the web. I'm curious as to see what it'll look like in the theatres. Most, but not all, of the work in the trailer was ILM. But back to Wolverine.. My old crewmates at Tippett worked on this film, and I can't wait to see it! I hope it's good! Most of my movie going happens on the weekend, specifically, Sunday morning. It's the cheapest then, and there are virtually no crowds, even on a popular movie weekend!

Late last week I was quickly interviewed by my alma mater up in Vancouver, VFS. It was not about my career, but more about the service we're providing the visual effects, gaming, and creative arts communities with VFXWages. Head on over to the VFS Blog and check it out! Speaking of VFXWages, we broke 3000 users earlier in the week and are slowly creeping upwards. I'm in discussion with AWN and CGSociety to get some advertising done. We've got a little more UI stuff to work on, and once the ads go up, we should be rocking.

This May is going to be an action packed one! Every weekend is going to be busy, and I've got to catch up on my movie going. There's Wolverine this weekend, Star Trek next. Angels & Demons (I hope that doesn't suck) following that and then Terminator:Salvation. Not only those, but I've gotta catch up on movies from earlier in the year! Crank 2, Coraline, Fast and Furious, Knowing, Monsters vs Aliens, Gran Torino, man. There are a lot. This year three of the films I've worked on will be coming out summer! One in May (Star Trek), one in June (Transformers 2), and one in August (GI Joe). I think that might be it for this year. There might be another one in the fall or winter, but I'm fairly sure my next big show will be for next summer. That's sort of the rhyme and reason of post facilities. Work through the fall and winter for the big summer blockbusters.

Sunday, bloody Sunday

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:45:00 -0800

Well, we're getting down to the wire, and here I am, waiting for some renders to.....render, and doing some comp love on some giant robots. This is actually the first full seven day work week that I've done on this show. I'm trying to keep it regular and hit my deadlines when I can during the week, but things always change here and there.

My brother has been pretty quiet on his end, dealing with the running of a gaming company, managing his workers, and trying to get his game out there! Yes, he's been working an ungodly amount of hours. If you're interested, head on over to CoinApp to see what sort of progress he's been making on their inaugural game, Max Blastronaut. Doing me proud! It's all going to pay off in the end. Well, if he can ever get off that XBox when we play COD4 late at night. Your Stopping Power is no match to my UAV Jammer!

I'm in the process of revamping Digital Gypsy (yet again!). It's only been a year and change since my last update. What I will probably end up doing is to keep the blog up here, at /vfxlog/, but at /, it'll be a flash site, much similar to what Ari did with his. Of course, that will have to wait until the show is over, and I get all my other deadlines completed. It'll also allow me to quickly redo my gallery section here, since it hasn't been updated in about two years. I'm writing up a new Case Study for VFXTalk in my other free time, with HD pictures and video! It's been a while since my last one, and there's a lot of shows that I've done in the interim, but we'll be starting off with that one first.

It's hot, or it was

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 12:20:00 -0800

An unusually hot last couple of days here in the Los Angeles area. It's only April, but it feels like late summer. I've been fortunate enough to spend the days inside an air conditioned building. The commute via motorcycle feels like I'm trapped in a spacesuit on the sun. There's no cool breeze, just a warm flow of air that continually warms me in my leathers. Ick. Sitting at a traffic light melting is kinda not fun.

Work is going well. Not much else to say! We're hitting our deadlines and doing our shots. The film comes out in a couple months, so we're just working away. I am working on the weekends now, it seems to be a sort of regular occurrence in this business. Not sure why. When I was working in Canada, we rarely worked weekends. I'm not sure if that is because it was visual effects for television, Canada, or a combination of both.

Recently there was a post on CGtalk about VFXWages. Like the thread on FXGuide, it was mostly a discussion on whether it would be worth it. Of course, I have my rebuttals and assurances of anonymity. In the past three, almost four weeks, we've quadrupled in size. We're very close to hitting 3000 users (we may hit that this weekend), and while this is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of artists working, the numbers we are seeing within the graphs look very promising. There's more data to browse, more date to interpret, and more data to toss out and disregard (shame on you for adding your wage of 0!). We're in the progress of revamping the wage entry page to make it a little more...effective. During the next several weeks we'll be rolling out some new items, and I'm hoping that we'll be putting up our first set of job postings, which will be another very powerful part of our site! We're also starting to do advertising for our site, right now through Google Adwords, but will hopefully strike a deal with CGSociety, AWN, and a couple others. Of course, it's going to be expensive, so I'm in the process of evaluating our finances. I'm also in the midst of cleaning up a business proposal which will be shot out to, hopefully, some interested investors. This would allow us to grow much quicker and provide better tools for our users.

A look inside DD

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:30:00 -0800

A couple years ago, I had the opportunity to show you what the public areas of Tippett and Pixar looked like. You're in for a treat. Follow the extended to see where I currently work.

Coming Up

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:40:00 -0800

The summertime is slowly approaching, and with it, the summer blockbusters, and the summer lull. Most of the work that the industry does is from the late fall through the early spring.. It allows us to finish a blockbuster film just in time for summer. This year, there are a couple that I've had my hand in, from Star Trek, to GI JOE to Transformers 2. While we are finishing a show right now, the future looks not as bright for some folks, as they start looking for work on the next big project.

Several of my coworkers are searching, and as we chat, the topic of demo reels comes up. "When was your last reel?" "Who hired you?" "Where are you going?" "What contacts do you have at so and so company?". The networking among freelancers is quite prevalent, and is even more so this time around, given the number of studios which have dumped artists into the market, and the ongoing recession. That means there is just as many, if not more, artists looking for work THIS summer. Some may just take a couple months off to reflect and wait for the fall. So FYI for all you guys and girls out there.. If you're freelancing and looking for another gig, it might be time to start learning another piece of the puzzle. If you're a lighter, start to comp. If you comp, start to light. If you can do a number of different tasks well, then you're one step ahead of the game, and your worth to a company is that much more. This is one thing to keep in mind as there is more and more outsourcing. For me, personally, I manage multiple tasks and people very well. I'm a decent compositor on top of that too. We'll see how that affects me in the future.

Last Saturday I was at OTIS, and met with my student, the one I will be mentoring for the next several months. This time around it's a student focused on compositing, much like Alana, my first year student who is doing pretty well these days. I also actually got a chance to sit down and talk to other mentors and students. It was a pretty good gathering, and hopefully promising. I look forward to the next couple of months to see how she does.
VFXWages is off to a decent start, and I'll show you why, after the break.

Revenge of the Fallen

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:01:58 -0800

I'm slammed this week, with all sorts of things, so here's some PR for Transformers 2! Read it all over at Variety.

Or hit the extended to read it all here.

Updates Galore

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:50:00 -0800

A crazy amount of stuff has been going on the last couple of days. I've been slammed at work, working on this giant robot movie. Suffice to say, it's going to kick ass. I don't know much about the story, but it'll definitely be a popcorn fest. And that's what I expect. Over the weekend I picked up a PS3, simply for the BluRay. Yes, I bought a drive for my PC, but I need something for the significant other to enjoy. Sure, I can play games on it too, maybe the exclusives, like MGS4 or Resident Evil 5, but I will probably stick with my X360, since most of my gaming buddies are on there. And Microsoft did a wicked thing with having Achievements. Achievements are the new high scores of yore.

We watched Baraka on BluRay in 1080p over the weekend on the PS3, and it is amazing. Regular HDTV programming doesn't even come close. The cable compression makes everything crappy. Baraka was filmed on 70mm, and the picture quality is amazing. The next purchase on BluRay, BBC's Planet Earth. And then the classics. Robocop, Predator, and Terminator 2. As long as the quality is worth it, I'll pick those up. Here are some more screen captures from Baraka.

I've been tweeting (twitting?) quite frequently on Twitter, simply because it's a quick and convenient way to share what's on my mind at any given moment. Both this blog and Twitter have their places, for sure. I've been looking at new ways to disseminate information on this blog, and very shortly I may update the look once again! Here's what the Wayback machine has on DigitalGypsy. Right now, the Gallery and Images section of this site haven't been updated. I'm hoping that the next iteration will change that.

This weekend I'll be at OTIS to meet my new VES mentoring student! This year it'll be a junior who's studying compositing. This will be my third year doing it, and I've enjoyed it every time. It'll also be my third year in Los Angeles, and my three year anniversary of being at Digital Domain is this week! Wow. How time flies. I've never spent more than three years at companies, so if I stick around here, it'll be a record! For those keeping track, three years at GVFX, one year freelancing, three years at Tippett Studio, and three years here at Digital Domain. I don't foresee any plans to leave DD at this time. They've been good to me, and I've had a chance to work on great projects. I can't believe I've been doing this for 10 years.

Industry Wages Incorporated released its first press release yesterday, here's the Reuters link. If that expires, you can always search on Google News. I've also included the full text in the extended entry below. We are currently monitoring bugs and errors which may appear as we get more users, troubleshooting as we go and working on the next step in functionality. It will most likely include significant job listing improvements, which should make everyones life easier in searching for jobs.

Industry Wages PR Annoucement

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:30:00 -0800

The company Press Release will be coming out this week. Brandon and I are reviewing it today to make sure it meets our criteria, and then we'll publish it. If you're interested, check out these two links, here and here. This is where it's going! Excellent. Also this week we finalize our Statement of Information for California, and send it off to Sacramento. Slow and steady. I'll have the full PR up here, as well as on VFXWages as soon as it's public.

Another short weekend, mostly spent at work working on Transformers. Looks fancy so far, and I've got some decent, sexy shots. I bought a BluRay / HD-DVD combo drive for my PC at home, so I can start viewing and reviewing my previous work and can start to cut an HD reel. Ooo. That's going to be wicked. I can't wait to see what my old stuff looks like in 1080p.

Also over the weekend, I received my personal web code for Showtimes For Your Consideration shows. Like last year, ATAS members are receiving codes to view SHOs shows on the internet. It's an excellent idea. They've got the full seasons of Dexter, Bullshit!, The Tudors, Weeds, and lots more for viewing. This Emmy season looks to be interesting!

What's in your.. Fridge?

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 09:20:59 -0800

A quick conversation this morning with the significant other about what I was having for food at work today promptly had me reply, beer and Red Bull. Of course, there's more in there. A yogurt, maybe a donut. But the majority of what's in the fridge at work consists of beer and Red Bull. What's in your fridge?

A colleague of mine from the past sent me a new website, catering towards demo reels. Check it out at cgcritic.com. Basically you upload your demo reel for all to see. You can leave feedback and get professional feedback, if you're interested in tailoring your reel to certain industries. No longer will you have to wonder why you're not getting called back.

Ever wished there was a site that you could go to and just look at demo reels from all over the world that ranged from good to bad, rookie to pro and everything in-between? And then after you could rate and comment on those reels? So did we... So we made the site. Welcome to CG critic©. Why are you here? Whatever the reason may be, we've got you covered.

Crepuscular rays

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:25:26 -0800

Another name for light rays, god rays, environment rays, you name it. Ever wonder if the artists in film could get them to actually render in real time? Well, my brother over at Coin App has taken some initiative with his company, and following what Kenny Mitchell from EA demonstrated, applied it to his game in progress. Head on over to his site to see how it looks for his up and coming game. There's also some nice video of SSAO and a teaser for the game, coming out when it's done.

The game space is pushing the envelope of real-time atmospherics and effects.

Time and Space

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 10:25:00 -0800

I have this idea for a contraption that can move a person through time and space. It's revolutionary! Basically, you enter this cylindrical tube, sit down and strap in. After about 30 minutes, you fall asleep, and awake at your destination, where ever in the world in may be. I call it, an airplane. We've come a long way in a hundred years of flight. The quick flight from Guadalajara to Los Angeles was just under three hours long, of which I slept all of the way. Walking down the Third Street Promenade at 11am just after spending the morning sitting on the terrace of our friends hacienda in a third world country was surreal. The trip from a first world to a first world country is jarring as well, but not so much as this one! I've put several videos up on my youtube account of the place, be sure to check it out if you want. It's not visual effects related, but still kinda cool. The entirety of last week was spent at their place in Mexico, away from the bustle and commotion of visual effects, spending most of the week sitting by or in their pool, discussing topics from; why there isn't a good sci-fi show on TV, how the Watchmen might turn out, economics, housing troubles, management, Vancouver, Mexico, US, visual effects, special effects, weather, business, some politics, life, and almost every other subject under the sun! A good friend from Vancouver joined us, so it was the five of us, chilling for the full week. A very relaxing time was had, in preparation for the months ahead!

Yesterday we hit up the theatre to see Watchmen. It was a long movie, but what do you expect. It was a very intensive novel. I appreciated all the work that went into it, and the movie did show the backstories of some of the characters during the title sequence, as well as bits parts of characters throughout the movie. Overall, I really enjoyed it. Was it an identical retelling of the story in the book? No. Actually, I enjoyed the ending to this film almost more than the book ending, and I can see why they changed it. Both mediums have their pluses, and I am glad for the changes in the film. Jackie Earle Haley did an awesome job as Rorschach. The reveal of him when he gets arrested was just as powerful as in the novel, as well as the end of the movie and Nite Owl screaming no. A pretty powerful scene. The epilogue at the end was kinda hammy, I could have done without that guy from Eureka.

A disappointment for me was the stoic line by line retelling by the characters. At times it seems they have no emotion, no attachment to the characters they're playing. Just reading lines of dialog. That was a shame for a lot of the characters, as the action scenes were very well done. The opening scene of The Comedian battling the intruder in his home was excellent. This is how powerful characters should fight, with weight and substance. So many films don't contain it.

On the visual effects front, congratulations to the teams that worked on it. There were some great effects and some invisible effects that worked well. I can only imagine the discussions in dailies dictating how blue Dr. Manhattan should be! Cheers for dealing with it!