As it's a new year, I thought I'm mention a bunch of cool new things that I'm doing. I'm currently working on another commercial, this time for the Super Bowl, but it's not with the commercial team this time, it's a trailer for an upcoming movie! I can't mention anything more than that, of course, but be sure and watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. Why else? I don't even know when the game is supposed to be played, but I think it is in a couple of weeks.
My skeleton cube is still going strong, this is the year I finish it! Be sure and follow the Tumblr if you have and account. The website is skeletoncube.com, which is just a fancy redirect to skeletoncube.tumblr.com. I've already decided on my next project, but some people want to see a different one, particularly something like this! I'm deciding on a puzzle box that will encompass the skeleton cube, which is also skeletal. I'm hoping to take the design of a Japanese puzzle box mixed with a Hellraiser box, and create something unique, which will fit the cube. So you need to solve the puzzle box to open it to solve the cube. Am I insane? Time will tell on that front, as I still have a miniature steam engine to complete.
After working long hours the last couple of weeks on a commercial, a question came up about the rate of divorce in this industry. I've been hitting about 60-65 hours in a five day space, roughly 12 hours a day. This isn't the norm for me, but for some people in the industry, it's just the beginning, which I can't seem to fathom. So I'm taking an informal poll, out of the sample of readers here. Feel free to direct more people to the poll, just to see where it takes us. I'm trying out this polling service, so also let me know if it's any good for you, or if there's a different one you can recommend!
Holy.. No sooner than FXGuide does some cool features on Real Steel, but the first commercial I helped out with at DD is online and there's a making of. I was only on the show for the last two or three weeks helping the team out on this stereo commercial (is this the first stereo commercial out there?). Here's the commercial from Vimeo:
And here's the six minute making of.
http://www.fxguide.com/fxpodcasts/fxpodcast-real-steel/
A highlight from the bottom.
Stage 7: Have great compositors
DD used a similar multi-pass compositing approach as it had done with its Makebot Nuke plug-in for I, Robot. But as the Real Steelcharacters had no real translucency, the process was easier, although artists still did a multi-pass approach as a multi-channel OpenEXR.
Compositing has certain key tasks, such as:
• match the black levels
•match the highlights
• balance the mid tones match the softness, motion blur and atmospheric conditions that integrate a shot
• allow light wrap
• match lens curvature and properties.
But, as you can imagine from the company that gave birth to Nuke, the DD compositors did a lot more than just standard multi-pass compositing. For example, in the end stadium shots there was a need for massively large stadium crowds. DD's composite team delivered live action real stadium crowds, yet they never had more than 500 extras on set. One location in Detroit was used as two locations in the film.
