Film: February 2007 Archives

Have you ever had a dream where you weren't sure if you were awake or asleep? Ya. It's called Mescaline. That's what I felt like this morning when I woke up to get ready to work.. 5, 6:30, 7:30am.. I couldn't decide at what point to arise, and when I did, it felt like a dream. Another ten hour day came and went yesterday, and now it's back again. Another thirty more hours of work, maybe more, until the next free day.

've been tossed another four or five shots, making my total count, eleven. Believe it or not, I'm on the high count for shots for this show! Several of the other artists have max of three or four. Unfortunately or fortunately, which ever way you look at it, none of my shots are what you'd call blockbuster, just difficult. We've got about 30 or 40 compers on the show. We swallowed a couple when Meet The Robinsons wrapped earlier this week. There are still a number of unassigned shots, and I'm hoping for a fairly big one, but we'll see. I'm apparently the 'toss those to him, he'll get them done quick' guy.

Last night I had a chance to sit down again with my pet project, my G36c A5. It's coming along fairly well, but haven't had a chance to solidify everything. I'm currently rigging up an electronic trigger system which be toggled via the Safe>Single>Auto selector switch which exists on the current gun. There's a significant amount of hacking required to mate the A5 e-grip internals to the Marui G36c grip. Hopefully by the summer it'll be completely done. The good news is that I can still play with it without the electronic trigger, resorting to the mechanical system instead.

A great thing here at Digital Domain that I haven't mentioned yet are the training programs for employees. From someone wanting learn Nuke, to Houdini, there's something for everyone. Aside from my initial Nuke training, I haven't done any more, simply because my work schedule doesn't allow for it. Every Wednesday there's a small gathering of like minded folk (math geeks) who listen and learn about the latest techniques that are propagating our industry. Today it's A Practical Dynamics System. Other items in the past have included: Super-Helical Hair, The Complex-Step Derivative Approximation, Transformation Matrices, and Elastica Inpainting solved with Texture Synthesis Techniques. All really fun stuff. Most have been presented at places like SIGGraph, and usually it's a presentation of the paper and discussion.

In addition (holy crap, there's more?!) to all this visual effects news, I've got even fancier news. Aside from the various vfx memberships, VES, ATAS, I am also part of UIA. What does this mean? Well, I'll tell you. Those that know me well know that I've got a side business in product development. I haven't mentioned it here since it's not related to visual effects, but it's just some me news. Over the past year I've been developing a product for the general populace, unrelated to visual effects. A couple weeks ago I finally sent my disclosure to my patent agent, who will be formatting it for the USPTO and submitting the PPA for approval. In a couple weeks (or however long it takes for the USPTO to approve), I'll have patent pending on this product (one of several that I have in the pipeline), and I'm one step closer to world domination! In actuality, once it is approved, I've got the difficult task of finding manufacturing, marketing, and distribution. Lots of work, but it'll be so sweet in the end.

Did you know that Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, comes out on May 25th? That gives all the companies involved about two months to get cracking, and finish the show. Suffice to say, I'm here at Work, on President's Day, to help finish the shots that I've been assigned. It's only going to get busier and busier. The shots are very ambitious, and while I'm doing a number of difficult shots, they are not overly complex. They're not as cool as the ones I did for Constantine or Hellboy, ones that were signature to the film. However, these composites are difficult in their own right. If I do everything correctly, you'll never know that it's an effects shot.

Over the weekend I met with my VES intern, Alana, who I'll be mentoring for the next three months. We met previously at other VES events at Image Metrics and Fotokem. We sat down together at Otis and went over my reel, describing some aspects of visual effects that I had encountered, as well as explain some of the terms and tips on what we accomplished in the shots shown. I also went through her thesis, and what she hopes to accomplish for her final projects, which are ambitious, but doable. I also had a chance to explain float space vs 8bit and 16bit space using Shake, as well as touch upon color channels, which many students won't get a chance to use until they hit actual production. Overall, it was a very productive meeting. We'll be meeting again to discuss her progress in the shots she's decided to do.

This is short month, and already a week has gone by without a post! What is this madness? As many of you know, I've moved on to Pirates 3. There's some really great stuff behind the scenes here, which I unfortunately (or fortunately, since I might spoil the movie for you!) can't share. I've been handed another shot, so that makes my total for the week up to five. They're not finalled, as I'm still just prepping bluescreens and elements, in anticipation for the cool backgrounds to come. They are pretty intricate, but not overly complicated. Definitely tougher than a simple A over B composite! I'm going to try and document what I do, so when you finally see the film, you'll be able to see how I composite from beginning to end. There are a couple more comments in the Open Call post that I'll be getting to early this year. It has been close to four months since you've posted your suggestions, and rest assured, I will get to more of what you want to read! Feel free to add more suggestions to that post if you'd like. While Pirates is just heating up in comp land, Meet the Robinsons 3D is wrapping up quickly. I may be doing double duty on both shows fairly soon, but that decision hasn't been finalized.

A week, maybe two weeks ago I picked up a Rubiks Cube. I've never had one, so I missed the craze when they first came out. It's a fancy little toy, and is pretty appropriate for me, as I like challenges and tinkering with my hands, as you can see from previous posts like this one and this one. After playing with it for several days, I solved it, and have slowly increased the rate at which I can solve it. I think I've got it under four or five minutes now. I don't think I'll be a quick solver that can do it in under a minute, but solving a Rubiks Cube is another party trick I can put under my belt.