meyemind.com - david schnee - vfxlog

'New Moon' Panel Unveils CGI Tricks

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:23:17 -0800

Many fans of the popular "Twilight" saga and its film franchise would like to maintain the illusion that the Cullens' sparkling diamond-like skin is merely an unfortunate sun-induced vampire affliction, or that Taylor Lautner's transformation into a werewolf in the film version of "New Moon" is a manifestation of a Quilete tribe member's coming-of-age in a troubled, vampire-ridden world.

However, the mystical, supernatural feats depicted in the grossly popular "Twilight" movies, based on Stephanie Meyer's novels, can be attributed to one equation that is applied each time a digital effect is added to a film:

O = A x M + B x (1 x M)

Or in other words, the over-composite image-the final cohesive shot one sees-is equal to a combination of two or more constituent images-digital and film stills-layered together.

On Wednesday, Eric Pascarelli, visual effects supervisor of Prime Focus VFX, and Matt Jacobs, visual effects supervisor of Tippet Studio, teamed up at the Museum of Science to deliver "Conjuring New Moon," an explanation of the CGI effects responsible for Edward's shimmering skin, Bella's lovesick hallucinations, and the Quilete tribe's werewolf transformations in the popular second film installment.

Pascarelli first explained the techno-genius behind "The Diamond Guy Effect," the studio's name for the glitter effect applied to Edward when he steps into sunlight. Pascarelli showed a video clip of Edward (Robert Pattinson), wracked with teenage angst, unbuttoned shirt framing his subtly painted abs. Over the sounds of screaming, excited fans mooning over Edward at the shooting, Pascarelli addressed the audience-a motley crew of middle-aged women and nerdy computer science high school students: "We based the glittering of his skin off of Thrassos marble," Pascarelli said, as he replayed the clip of Edward's shimmering, Greek-god like abs over, and over, and over again.

A complicated scheme of virtual manipulations creates the glittery CGI effect that simulates sunlight reflecting off Edward's body. In Pascarelli's video, Edward has black "tracking" dots applied all over his exposed skin, which the visual effects team later translated into a virtual mesh model of his body. The crew then used the mesh model to make a virtual wax model with a full-body cyber scan of Robert Pattinson as a guide. With a software program, they applied virtual miniature mirrors over the model, and introduced virtual suns-sources of light-into the frame. They recorded the reflections produced from the mirrors and super-imposed these reflections onto the real-time film of Edward, creating an over-composite image that matched the shape of his body.

"When we darkened his skin it looked like a skin disorder... this is more subtle," Pascarelli said.

The CGI sleight-of-hand is also responsible for Bella's visions of Edward-the apparitions emerge when Bella purposefully endangers her life, such as when she gets on the back of a biker-thug's Harley, or when she jumps off a cliff. When Bella rides her own motorcycle, she hallucinates that Edward is following her. This scene is testimony to Stewart's acting abilities: the motorcycle she was riding was nailed to a moving trailer, and when asked to "arbitrarily turn her head," she panted longingly as she whipped her hair around. The visual effects crew then shot Edward on a green screen and projected his image onto a cloud of computer particles in the shape of a blurred candle flame so that he would seem more transparent. This effect also facilitated the illusion of Edward's image blowing away into the wind, which was created with a nature-simulator that dispersed these "blurred candle" particles with a virtual breeze.

Matt Jacobs then described the process of creating horse-sized Quilete wolves: a combination of Timber wolves, Maned wolves, and elements of traditional werewolf lore. He wanted to stay true to "the special mythology of a wolf, [where] the wolf and the man spirits were combined, to protect his native lands, in this case from vampires." The visual effects crew spent a few days observing Timber wolves at the Wolf Mountain Sanctuary in California to better understand their expressions, fur texture, gait, and other wolfy habits.

Modelers created a base mesh, or virtual model of the wolf, and puppeteers imbued the wolves' nostrils, jaws, teeth, and ears with discreet, virtually-controlled commands so that animators could simulate wolf emotions (fear, submission, aggression, or the fervent yearning of unrequited love). The Tippett Studio invented a "proprietary fur tool" to generate the 4 million hairs on each wolf, and programmed each hair to randomly clump, rotate, vary in color, and simulate the effects of wind and movement.

The lecture exposed the two most beloved elements of the "Twilight Saga": detailed full-body scans of Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, and manifestations of Stephanie Meyer's quixotic supernatural mysticism. A swoon-worthy cast and a genius visual effects crew are the reasons why "New Moon," with a budget of only $50 million and less-than stellar critical reviews, has already grossed $704 million worldwide.

(thecrimson.com)

New Moon Rises on March 20th

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:48:12 -0800

The two-disc special edition (DVD) and [Blu-ray]
, to be released on March 20, 2010, are slated to include the following bonus features…

* The Journey Continues: A 6-part making-of documentary
– Life after Twilight
– Chris Weitz takes the helm
– The subtle details
– A look at production
– It’s not magic
– Ready for the World

* Music Videos:
– Death Cab for Cutie: Meet me on the Equinox
– Anya Marina: Satellite Heart
– Muse: I Belong to You behind the scenes rehearsal footage
– Mutemath: Spotlight

* Fan Event Q&A with Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Chris Weitz – (Content Exclusive for the UK DVD!!!)
* Fandimonium: A look at the die-hard fans
* Team Jacob vs Team Edward: The ultimate love triangle
* Deleted scenes
* Edward goes to Italy
* Edward Fast Forward
* Jacob Fast Forward
* Interview with the Volturi
* Introducing the Wolfpack
* Becoming Jacob
* Edward goes to Italy
* Jacob fast forward
* Edward fast forward
* The Beat Goes On: The music of The Twilight Saga: New Moon
* Frame by Frame: Storyboards to screen

And Target has a bonus BONUS in their pre-order, with a third disc of “never before seen content” plus a collectible film cell...

Diablo Magazine Salutes Tippett

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 09:00:59 -0800

Diablo salutes the best pictures and actors—with an East Bay twist.

diablomag.com And the Winner is...

Head of the Pack with CG Wolves

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:10:43 -0800

CGSociety :: Production Focus

As the New Moon rises, so do the stars at Tippett Studio. Charged with creating the Quileute Wolf Pack for the Twilight sequel, some of the industries leading character artists sunk their teeth into just under 60 shots ranging from three to twelve seconds that were pivotal to the storyline. And those shots are getting noticed.

Wolf Mountain and Frankenwolf
The challenge wasn't just to build a believable wolf, but to build five unique wolves of extraordinary size and weight, to portray that mass often with little more than the surrounding trees as comparisons, create believable fur and humanesque eyes that weren't distracting. Nate Fredenburg, Art Director, helped to make sure those requirements were fulfilled, combining real-world attributes and CG magic.
"At Tippett Studio, we always look to real-life creatures for reference on how to design our characters, real or mythical. For New Moon, we had a special opportunity to travel down to wolf sanctuary in Southern California to observe wolves up close and personal. The key to looking at live reference is to form a knowledge base, study the creatures, their quirks and behaviors, the language between the pack. We looked for signs of what the creature was about and added those to the visual effects to make them believable."

In Lucerne Valley, there is a sanctuary called Wolf Mountain where a dedicated group is trying to save wolves from extinction. This is where the Tippett artists traveled to spend personal time with the wolves, many tame enough to be approached and touched by strangers. There the artist could observe behaviors, pack interactions, hierarchy behaviors, and movement, and "closely examine the fur and its different lengths over the body, the coloring variations and markings, as well as the structure of the face, eyes, teeth and so on."

The trip was extremely fruitful, but Phil Tippett, with his honed eye for perfection, added a second method to study fur under different controlled lighting and wind. "We had a bunch of photographs of wolves that we were studying but Phil was insisting that we take it to the next level and have something to touch, walk around, and actually do your own," explained Fredenburg. This resulted in the creation of what became affectionately known as the "Frankenwolf".
Tippett bought wolf pelts and cut them up with an Exacta knife and pasted it onto a taxidermy blank "so that we could do a lighting lab in two conditions? controlled lighting on our stage where we could shine very specific lights and look at how the fur responded, then we took it outside on an overcast day, which was perfect for New Moon. We came up with strategies for how to artistically make the wolves look better in flat lighting, which is what we were dealing with and is a very difficult lighting situation."

For the full article visit CGSociety: Tippett Studio Jumps to the Head of the Pack with CG Wolves a Howling Success

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Teaser Poster

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:08:56 -0800

New Moon Box Office Update

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:52:40 -0800

The Twilight Saga: New Moon collapsed in its second weekend, as expected after the fan frenzy of its first weekend, but still narrowly led Thanksgiving weekend with $42.9 million for a whopping $230.9 million total in ten days.

Running on the sheer momentum of its massive opening, New Moon soared past the $200 million mark on its eighth day of release and, in the process, eclipsed predecessor Twilight, which had a final haul of $192.8 million. That, of course, also made it the biggest vampire movie on record, but it did fall 70 percent, the steepest second weekend Thanksgiving drop ever surpassing Twilight's 62 percent, and, by shedding nearly $100 million from one weekend to the next, it had the largest decline ever in terms of gross. The first Twilight, though, regained its bearings later in its run, ultimately holding up well for its genre.

(boxofficemojo.com)

Modern Mages: Phil Tippett Interview

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:39:31 -0800

New Moon' shines on special effects innovator

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:21:28 -0800

Special effects innovator Phil Tippett worked with some of the biggest blockbusters of the 1980s and 1990s - including "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Jurassic Park."

But even those enormous hits didn't come close to last weekend's $142.8 million opening for the "Twilight" sequel "New Moon," with its snarling visual-effect wolves that were animated at the Berkeley-based Tippett Studio.

Tippett, whose creations include the AT-AT snow walkers from "The Empire Strikes Back" and the ED-209 robot from "RoboCop," took a break from working on the movie version of "Eclipse" (next in the "Twilight" series) for an interview in his conference room - surrounded by models, memorabilia and movie posters associated with the films he's worked on over the past three decades.

Why cloudy days are no good for the werewolves of 'New Moon'

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:31:42 -0800

Patrick Kevin Day spoke with effects legend Phil Tippett about creating the werewolf effects for "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," (and no, we're not talking about Taylor Lautner's supernatural 16 pack). You can read his previous Scene Stealer interviews and Liesl Bradner's Wizards of Hollywood series right here.

Darkness may be a visual effects artist's best friend, but his biggest enemy isn't bright sunlight -- it's the overcast day. So adding all those CG werewolves to scenes shot in cloudy Vancouver, Canada, was a particular challenge for "New Moon" visual effects supervisor Phil Tippett and his team. "On a sunny day, you get really nice contrasts, but with flat lighting and a furry thing -- the fur really soaks up the light and everything appears flat," Tippett said. "So to make it appear three-dimensional, we had to goose reality. We emphasized their shadows and used rim lights" to make the wolves stand out from the background. But that's not the only way Tippett and company played with reality. When that wolf checks out Bella, it's not a wolf's eyes, it's Jacob's. "We brought Taylor [Lautner] in and had him haul his eyelids back as far as possible and shot close-ups." They then added those eyes to the giant animated timber wolf used in the scene.

(latimesblogs.latimes.com)

A New Moon for Twilight

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:45:45 -0800

(from a larger awn.com article) Meanwhile, Tippett Studio did 60 wolf shots, with five different characters, broken up into four sequences (under the supervision of Phil Tippett with Matt Jacobs serving as co-supervisor).

"The werewolves are kind of the sentinel protectors of the area," Tippett explains. "And there's nothing from the werewolf mythology of the past: it's a curse of responsibility as the indigenous people of this country. But this gave us a chance to continue doing the dance with the talking, furry animals. So getting these wolves to behave and be lit and act in a convincing manner was our task here. These things are not the classic beasty werewolves, either. They're Timberwolves that are scaled up to be the size of the horse. One of the biggest tricks was to logistically turn a 6-foot tall guy into an 8-foot-long, 1,200-pound wolf. And there are three of these transitions in the movie. Surprisingly, we figured it out early enough.

"We engineered the performances of the actors and their pantomime leading up to the explosive moment because it's anger that motivates these people to actually shape shift into werewolves -- and it has to happen quick and everyone was on the same page with that. The only design adjustment was Chris wanted to have the eyes of the actors in the wolves' heads instead of the very distinctive, golden, wolf eyes."

Tippett additionally worked on what MacLeod calls the "vampire speed" effect, which involves the vamps running at superhuman speeds. "What we decided to do, based on some tests that we did," McLeod explains, "was to shoot any vampire in motion, as light would allow, up to 90 frames-per-second. And then we would take that into the Avid and manipulate that, come up with a speed ramp and then potentially enhance that with some post processing.

"That's where Tippett's effects came in for about a dozen shots we decided to do as a post effect. We did a little bakeoff and had a couple of companies do a test and Tippett had a good-looking test and we went with them. It was based on a happy accident that happened when they did a varied speed for the trailer shot, actually. They ran a Shake script that had a bug in it and the render came back and had an interesting liquid, transparent effect that happened to Taylor's body that resonated with Phil and Matt and they sent it to me. It was the visual equivalent of the sonic boom, in mind, where the person is moving faster than the camera can pick up.

"Then we had a recipe of stuff that did with vampire speed: we shot them stacked because we found that foreground trees were helpful, so with the wolves, we added some foreground CG trees passing by; and, for the actress running through the woods, we shot her long lens with real trees in the foreground; and a few whip pan effects. The challenge was the wolves, so we tried not having wolves and vampires running in the same shot because that would necessitate either seeing the wolves running in slow-motion or speed up the vampires so that they're running at least as fast or faster than the wolves, but that looks silly, so when we ended up having wolves and vamps in the same shot, we used that Tippett post effect."

(awn.com)

How Animators Tackled Werewolf Transformations in New Moon

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:35:03 -0800

To create an all-new form of werewolf transformation for The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which hit theaters on Friday, VFX house Tippett Studios turned to R&D, 3D scans—and real-life wolves.
By Erin McCarthy

In most werewolf movies, men endure a bone-cracking, skin-splitting transformation from human into wolf. But in The Twilight Saga: New Moon, male members of the Native American Quileute tribe—descended, according to legend, from wolves—phase into horse-size wolves by popping out of their skin. And that posed a unique challenge for Phil Tippett, founder of Tippett Studios, which created the werewolves. "We characterized it as the ‘5 pounds of crap in the 2-pound bag' problem," he says. "How to get a 160-ish-pound guy to turn into a 1200-pound wolf is a trick."

To pull off this bit of movie magic, VFX artists first took 3D scans of the lead werewolf actors, including Taylor Lautner, who plays Jacob, and Alex Meraz, who plays Paul. "I was expecting to be in a green suit, with little pins everywhere," Meraz says. "They just had me stand on an apple box, and this big machine came up, down and over. I could watch on the monitor and my whole body was right there onscreen, a perfect scan of it."

The phasing that turned men into 1200-pound wolves was, naturally, one of the first things on the VFX artists' agenda. "The conceit for the transformation, for making the trick work, was that it had to happen quickly," Tippett says. "Our technical supervisor, Erin Boreland, came up with a system for this phasing, which she banged out in a couple of weeks. Everybody was surprised—we thought that would take months to hammer out."

Next, animators had to create the wolves. After determining what the wolves weren't—"beasty werewolf/wolfman-type things," Tippett says, "but timber wolves the size of horses"—animators had to think about conquering the uncanny valley, which occurs when something looks close to its real-life counterpart but not exactly alike, causing a feeling of uneasiness among viewers. "A lot of times, we're dealing with fantastic creatures, like the Cloverfield monster," Tippett says. "When you're doing something like that, you can get away with murder because nobody's ever seen it. But if you're doing a wolf … the audience has seen enough canine behavior to know if you make a false move. It stands out. So we immediately said, ‘We had better understand what timber wolf behavior is.' "

They started with research, analyzing documentary footage of timber wolves and reading books on wolf anatomy. But they didn't stop there. "Animators and guys from the art department went to a wolf preserve outside of Los Angeles," Tippett says. "Our guys got into a big cage with a bunch of wolves and spent the afternoon with them!" The animators filmed video of the wolves jumping, running, playing and fighting. The research helped them build computer models of the wolves from the inside out, starting with rigged skeletal systems that could move, then overlaying them with flexing muscles and, finally, layers of skin and fur.

Director Chris Weitz also wanted the wolves to have the eyes of their human counterparts. "There are a couple of extreme closeups of Jacob's wolf's eyes with Bella (Kristen Stewart) reflected in them," Tippett says. Eyes, which have to emote, are notoriously difficult to realistically pull off, so VFX artists got reference directly from the source. "When we were on the set, we got a closeup-lens camera and we asked Taylor to pull back his eyelids as far as he could stand to do and went in for a couple of closeups. That's what we used as a model for Jacob's eyes."

Another New Look for Tippett Studio

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:46:38 -0800

Tippett Studio has performed another overhaul from their previous website, and also showcases our 25 Years Logo.

Check it out @ www.tippett.com

New Moon currently takes center stage on the main page, lots of clips and content to browse through, and the quotes from the "Phil Says" section is sweet!

New Moon is Released!

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:31:28 -0800

in the USA 1 November 2009

visit Twilight Saga: New Moon @ imdb.com

Box Office Results November 20-22, 2009
Number: 1
Opening Weekend Gross: $142,839,137
Theatres: 4,024
Theatre Average: $35,497
Weeks in Release: 2
Total Gross: $233,334,668 Million
Budget: $50 Million
Running Time: 2 hrs. 10 min.
Distributor: Summit Entertainmnt
MPAA Rating: PG-13

New Moon dawned with a hot-blooded estimated $140.7 million on approximately 8,500 screens at 4,024 sites over the weekend, charting as the third highest-grossing opening behind only The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 3 and the biggest of 2009. With the advent of New Moon, not to mention an excellent showing by The Blind Side, overall business surged 56 percent over the same weekend last year when Twilight and Bolt debuted and was the second-highest seen in history, behind the weekend that The Dark Knight opened.

$26 Million on the Thursday night Midnight showing alone...New Moon shattered the midnight opening record, raking in an estimated $26.27 million at 3,514 sites showing the movie starting at 12:01 a.m. Friday.

It sold a mind-boggling $80 million worth of tickets on Friday, according to preliminary estimates. That way surpasses the one-day record of $67 million set by "The Dark Knight'' last year.

Shamless New Moon Plug

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:26:37 -0800

Meet the Creator of Taylor Lautner’s Hirsute Alter Ego

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:18:36 -0800

Animation pioneer Phil Tippett knows a thing or two about creating movie monsters. His Berkeley, Calif.-based company, Tippett Studio, has conjured up creatures that run the gamut from the destruction-bent monsters in “Cloverfield” to the gluttonous rat Templeton in “Charlotte’s Web.” So when “New Moon” visual effects supervisor Susan MacLeod needed an fx house to step in and create the hulking werewolves in “New Moon,” the second installment of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” saga, which opens in theaters tomorrow, she knew whom to turn to.

Marching orders for Tippett’s crew consisted of creating wolves that looked realistic — well, as realistic as horse-sized timberwolves can be — but also stayed true to Meyer’s book, with each wolf’s distinguishing characteristics intact. (Alpha male Sam is the largest and has black fur, while others sport different colored coats.) “We approach all of these characters from cradle to grave,” said Tippett, who said his team researched wolves’ physicality before starting, with some animators crawling around with the fanged beasts at an animal preserve.

The company is responsible for making suggestions during the storyboarding process, being on set to monitor production and making sure everything’s shot properly — and then overseeing post-production, to make sure the color is being corrected. Given the frenzy surrounding the “Twilight” franchise, has Tippett heard from any extreme fans, either to praise to lash out?

“To be honest, the fans haven’t been on my radar,” he said. “We went directly from shooting “New Moon” to [third installment] ‘Eclipse.’ The studio is making these thing so fast, with such a quick turnaround.” In fact, Tippett said “New Moon” is the first film he’s ever worked on that was done start to finish in one year. “When we were halfway through the visual effects on “New Moon,” we started pre-production on “Eclipse.” Our heads are still spinning.”

And speaking of “Eclipse,” does new director David Slade differ in his approach to wolves than “New Moon” director Chris Weitz?

“Having a new director makes a huge difference,” said Tippett. “Chris was a more classically-oriented flimmaker. David comes from rock videos, so his temperament is more visceral and fast-paced.”

(blogs.wallstreetjournal.com)