the digitalgypsy VFX Blog

Percy Behind the Scenes

2010-03-09T18:03:24Z

Check out this interview with some of the crew from Percy Jackson to see what we did on the show! Hydra, water works, and lightning!

Mini Lathe

2010-03-03T17:32:26Z

I received a nice addition to the Aruna Hobby Collection yesterday.

This is a Sherline 4000 Miniature Lathe. It has a 3.5" by 8" working area, and is convert-able to a mill setup. It's pretty solid construction, all the pieces are well made! I ended up getting a package deal, which comes with the lathe, and starter tools and bits. I've got a bunch of things to build on it, but of course I'm going to start small. The Sherline system has a decent upgrade path as well, so I am able to swap the handwheels out for stepper motors and upgrade to CNC in the future!

We March on.

2010-03-02T16:39:57Z

Can you believe it's March already? Wow. Two exciting months into 2010. I had a small number of donations for the month of February, and am sending out The Art and Science of Digital Compositing to Marc L., from PA! Thank you, and the three other donations for the month of February. I've decided to keep the donations open, but I won't be prize giving until the end of the year, I think.The month of February was an experiment!

Work is progressing slowly on my current show. This is a summer release, so I'll be working for a while up to its release in August (I think?). Slow and steady, for now! Did you all catch Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, in theatres now! It was a decent kids flick, a little more sunshine than a Harry Potter film, since that franchise has taken a turn towards the dark side. Percy is a little more sunny. Who knows if it will have a sequel, but that's the hope, I hear. VFX were good. Everything seemed to tie together well. The shots that I worked on include a couple of the Hydra breathing fire shots directed at Percy (but not the waterwall stuff), as well as a decent chunk of sky replacements while the crew is up on the Empire State Building. Trivia: NY is all CG projection for a majority of the shots. The big stuff that I worked on was the water exploding sequence on the rooftop with Luke and Percy. One was the initial water explosion and the subsequent helicopter pan of the water around its environs. Environments were, again, projection within Nuke.There's a lot of detail that I put in that you can't see on one viewing, which is a shame! Once the BluRay comes out, I'll be putting those shots up for your scrutiny. The interns that we had last year are credited in the final roll at the end, which was great to see!

Back in the Saddle

2010-02-23T19:48:15Z

Image via Wikipedia

It's that time again, back to work on another show! This time it's of another old Television show from the 80s. It's a small crew, about eight compositors, for a short run. I just got back from a nice vacation in Vancouver, where we got a chance to see how the city copes with a massive influx of people from around the world for the Winter Olympics. While most of the snow events took place in Whistler, there were a number of events in the city at Canada Hockey Place (formerly GM Place) and BC Place, where the opening ceremony and medals ceremonies are being held. The picture above is of Vancouver during the summer time, and is missing a large amount of the Yaletown high rises which have been built up over the past ten years!

The Olympic Flame downtown is really nice to see, but the crowds were another matter entirely! It was pretty insane. I'll hopefully have pictures up from the trip sometime this week. During our time in Vancouver we had a chance to see some figure skating practice and a womens US vs. Finland hockey game. Prices were pretty affordable, $30CAD for the figure skating and $68CAD for the hockey game. Both were bought the week of the events at the official Olympic ticket office! Of course, there were your typical scalpers out there trying to sell more tickets at outrageous prices, but we didn't buy those.

The month of February is slowly drawing to a close. It's an amazingly short month! In addition to being in Vancouver and seeing the sights and sounds of the Olympics, I've spent a large amount of time cutting a new 2009 reel. This reel will contain everything up to last year. I had a test reel with no sound that I showed to several VFS students when I was up there last week. I also noticed that one of the students had one of my scripts that I use as a background for my Twitter account up as his desktop background! Pretty cool. I saw several short clips from the latest term students doing their thing. The work has progressed so far in the last decade! I hope to have my 2009 Reel in its final glory up online before the end of the month. Stay tuned!

If you haven't checked it out in a while, head on over to VFXWages and take a look at some of our Wages. They've been pretty accurate over time. I've included a graph here that shows the overall compositing wages. The red line is the one you want, which stretches from around $20/hr USD for a starting wage, up to a median of about $63.50 for 14-16 years of experience, before heading down to $52/hr for 20+ years experience (this is most likely a drop because those rates could be salaried). Who says that wages couldn't be quantifiable?

This data is aggregated from 545 compositor wage points from around the world, and include freelance rates as well, as you can see from the blue high line. I'm going to be writing another article on rates on the VFXWages News section later tonight, so I hope that'll be up for your reading pleasure tomorrow!

Donations and Prizes!

2010-02-04T17:00:00Z

Recently I've changed a little about how content on this blog is displayed. I've removed links to reels and the bio and filmography, and while the content is still available if you bookmarked the specific page, there is better, more recent content located at the root structure, which is located here. I've also decided to add a Paypal donate button, which will help run the site (It costs about 300USD/yr to run this thing, with all the bandwidth that I use). I also have an idea to give back to you loyal readers and those who donate. My idea is to give an item away to a lucky person with the funds of the complete donation for the month. This item will be physical in nature, maybe a book if the funds donated are small, or a software package or larger electronic item if the funds are larger.

Don't be misled, all content on the site will remain freely accessible! From the Tips of the Weeks (which I need to get back to creating), to what professional artists are doing in the vfx industry.

So on this note, for the month of January which has just passed and I didn't have any donations (of course), I am giving away a new copy of The Art and Science of Digital Compositing: 2nd Edition! Eligible entrees are any donations to the digitalGypsy fund for the month of February. Donations can be of any amount. Funds received during the month of February will help decide what I give away to a lucky contributor at the end of this month! So you get two chances to win something this month! I'm going to try this for the month of February and see how it goes, and hopefully I can have small prizes given away during the year and at the same time, keep digitalGypsy up and running for you guys and girls.

The Oscars

2010-02-03T20:58:09Z

Image via Wikipedia

Like everyone in the entertainment industry now knows, the 2010 Oscars have been announced. I haven't commented yet on the list, as I'm going to let conjecture and speculation reign for a little while before I add my two cents (or more!). I'm also not going to discuss any other awards like best picture or best director, as they are out of my knowledge base.

However, I will comment on the top three visual effects nominees, Avatar, District 9, and Star Trek. Avatar of course was the blockbuster of the year. Currently raking in a total of $2.05 billion worldwide, with a domestic gross nearing $600 million, this is one huge film, budgeted at $240 million. Lots of my friends in the industry have seen this multiple times. It's definitely a 3D film not to be missed, and this is a film that did stereoscopic films correctly (shooting in stereo, rendering with two cameras). District 9 was an underdog, powered by a $30 million budget, a fledging director (whom I acquainted with at VFS), an interesting story, and top notch vfx. This film went on to earn $200 million worldwide with a $115 million domestic gross. Great job Neill! Star Trek was a franchise reboot done correctly by JJ Abrams and his team. This film went on to make $383 million worldwide with a $257 million domestic take home while costing $140 million.

All in all, these three films had wonderful visuals. But what about the other four that didn't make it? Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Terminator Salvation, Transformers: Revenge of the Fal len, and 2012. As any industry professional should, I saw all seven films in the theatre. These films were made for being seen on the big screen. What did I think of all seven? Here's my quick recap on the vfx.

Avatar: Spectacular CG environments and multiple completely CG creatures that the audience empathizes with.
District 9: Seamless character work with integrating CG characters and live action performers.
Star Trek: Lots and lots of CG FX work in bringing characters and locales to life. A couple CG face augmentation shots, lots of environments.
Harry Potter: A number of complete CG shots, well integrated FX.
Terminator: Big and new terminators, miniature and stunt work blended well with CG environments and characters. Many great matte paintings.
Transformers: Big metal robots fighting. Oh, and small metal robots too. Spectacular destruction sequences.
2012: Amazing FX destruction sequences, completely CG water sequences (both above and below).
Image via Wikipedia

Judging from the selections, I can only guess that the three finalists were chosen because they had a simple and decent story, and the characters (both CG and live) brought the film to life. In many of the non-nominated four, I didn't really care for the characters or how they would end in the movie, even while they were very FX heavy and some of the best work this decade, the characters fell flat, and I think the nomination committee chose their finalists not on the complexity of the work, but on the characters portrayed in the films and how they brought them to life. You empathized with Neytiri and crew in Avatar. You felt Chris Johnsons rage and sadness in District 9, and you were blown away by the reimagining of the traditional characters in Star Trek. You realized that the vfx was a part of the story, not that the story was written around the vfx (which is more evident in 2012 and Transformers 2). I'm glad that the three were chosen the way they were! I do have to give a shout out to Neill (congrats man!) and Bob (a vfx supervisor who I worked with up north on Outer Limits) representing Canada at the Oscars this year in VFX.

Nuke X and Foreign Competition

2010-02-03T18:48:17Z

Image via Wikipedia

Over the past couple of weeks I've been using NukeX, which is just Nuke6 with some fancy additions like lens distortion tools, 3D camera tracking, and the new rotopaint additions. They are all pretty powerful! I've also started using the integrated stereoscopic system, which makes it pretty simple to create impressive 3D comps! It's most likely that I won't be using Nuke 6 on the next show, it's just too soon and all of our productions are currently underway with other versions.

NukeX will work wonderfully with smaller studios and independent operators, as the combination of both lens distortion tools and integrated camera tracker will really help a compositor output more. Like I mentioned before, the realm of 2D and 3D is slowly blurring, and the responsibilities of a compositor have been increasing.

I posted an article over on VFXWages about foreign competition last week, I'm eager to hear your throughts. I've tried to make it relevant to all foreigners, so it should be applicable whether you reside in the EU, USA, AU, or Asia.

I'm nearing 500 readers for the blog, and I thank you all for your patronage! I'll keep writing and hope that you keep reading. I'm always open for topics and suggestions on what you'd like to hear about the vfx industry, so drop me a line in the comments below!

A new front

2010-01-21T06:02:54Z

Well readers, I've decided to revamp the website.. I did it a couple of weeks ago, but just finishing up some tweaks. I'm not doing so much the blog, which will remain unchanged, but the actual index page. You know, the one that just goes to / instead of /vfxlog/. I've never really had something there, that promoted myself, it's always been the blog. Now, there is a unified front for people that just google me to see my work. No longer will they have to read my vfx ramblings here if they don't want to! (Though I urge you to!)

The site will be the repository of all my reels and images, and it's still very much a work in progress. It is, however, much easier to update now, so the work that I've done will most likely be available to view as soon as the DVD of the movie is out. I will be removing the reels, filmography, galleries, and bio section from the blog part, all that will be on the main index page here. So get your download fix from those sections before I remove the link completely!

The Discrepancy between Salaries and Wages

2010-01-03T21:26:19Z

In an effort to send more relevant traffic to the VFXWages site, I will be posting more content on it concerning wages and salaries within the creative industries. Here is the latest newsNews post. I will be updating VFXWages much more often this year. Please feel free to comment and critique on that post here at DigitalGypsy in the below comments section.

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-26T23:15:56Z

Oh. My. Goodness. It's been a month since my last post! That's just crazy. Well, there's a reason for it. The deadline for the show is quickly approaching, I've got a huge shot to complete, and lots of work on both Industry Wages and at Digital Domain. Like my previous hugely long post, I'll start with the most recent! Christmas and last week.

On Wednesday morning, I finishing preparing a package for Jason Calacanis and members of the Open Angel Forum. This event will take place in the middle of January, and will give five start up entrepreneurs a chance to "hawk their wares" towards angel investors and VCs. Apart from being published in print and having a press release, I only hope that we'll be selected for the short list, and given a chance to present in front of technologically savvy investors that can see the potential of Industry Wages. I'm also still preparing several smaller packages to send out to local VCs in the new year. My days have been long and tiring, from a 7am wakeup to a midnight crash, the days are numbering at almost 16+ hours a day, of solid work, split up between my time at Digital Domain and my hours writing and rewriting proposals. After a certain amount of time, I should stop and be happy with the proposals I've written, and send them out already!

On the 20th (last Sunday), I took some time off from work and saw Avatar in IMAX 3D. It was excellent. If you have not seen it yet, I highly recommend seeing it in IMAX. I will most likely see it again in 2D just to view the environments and character work in detail. I would caution that those that think this is groundbreaking refrain from thinking that once in the theater. While there is some EXCELLENT work, it shows what a real stereo movie should be like, not hack 3D (multiplane, faked geo) like we've been subjected to in the past. The character work that WETA did was amazing with all the Na'vi, as well the environments and locations of Pandora. Top notch work. I can already see them getting an Oscar. There is nothing else out there this year that competes for visual effects. My only concern is the amount of 3D that is present in the film. Does it become an animated film? Regardless, I think it's place is warranted on the short VFX list.

Two Fridays ago, December 18th, was the last day that my intern, Tom, would be helping out on the show. His internship, as well as the rest of the interns, was over. He's spent the last three months or so learning the inside of Digital Domain's compositing department, and how to effectively start off as junior comp where ever he goes. He will most likely be back in LA in the near future, but unlikely at this time for DD, simply because most of our compositors start fresh elsewhere and become tenured, or are brought up from within as roto/paint.

During the latter portion of November, Thanksgiving weekend, to be exact, we travelled out to Phoenix once again to see my brother. Those several days were spent relaxing with family, playing a bunch of video games, and also taking a quick peek at Max Blastronaut! His game is progressing at an increase rate, and there are some nifty new items in there, which I share with this quick video we shot. Make sure you check it out in HD! And as always, for more information and lots of screenshots and video, head on over to Coin App.

I'm trying to remember what else has happened more than two weeks ago, and for the life of me, I can't recall. It's a true shame, as this blog is both a record of what I've been doing in visual effects, as well as how the rest of my life is going. This is the drawback of working 16 hour days, you really don't want to start writing stuff at the end of each day, but you should, lest you forget! As it currently stands, I've completed around 24 shots for the film, fairly low, but a couple are pretty massive. You'll have to wait until President's Day to see them! If I don't write next week, have a wonderful New Years, and see you in 2010!

Percy Jackson & The Olympians

2009-11-20T17:01:56Z

A new trailer for the show is out! You'll have to click the title of this entry to view this at it's optimal width of 600pixels.

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&from=sp&fg=MsnEntertainment_MoviesTrailersGP2_a&vid=fd483e49-a19c-4e2a-b23d-03fc7ffe67e1" target="_new" title="'Percy Jackson & the Olympians' trailer">Video: 'Percy Jackson & the Olympians' trailer</a>

A couple of my shots are in here, they include the first Hydra breathing fire shot, and the first water explosion shot. They're still in progress.

Critique

2009-11-18T17:15:00Z

Alcoholics!

2009-11-18T03:10:00Z

The Week in Review.

2009-11-17T05:00:00Z

Yes, it is only Monday night, but things are just flying along! Let's start in reverse, shall we? On Sunday I got a chance to catch 2012: Disaster Porn. It ran a long two hours and 45 minutes! We were in the theater from 9:30am, to 12:30pm. Luckily, the tickets were only six dollars. Sunday morning matinees are the best. :) I thoroughly enjoyed 2012 for what it was, a spectacle of a film. There was some amazing work in there by all the digital houses. Some stuff looked unfinished, but that's par for the course on a show that big! I really enjoyed all the water stuff, and the destruction of LA and DC. I was disappointed that we only saw a small part of Rio fall apart, as well as Italy. :( You can't have it all, I guess.

On Saturday I worked a half day on a shot that is most likely going to go for a while longer. It's pretty big shot, but it is slowly coming together. When the movie comes out, I'm sure to have a least a screen cap of it or something! It might be in the new trailer too, but I don't know when that's coming. On Saturday afternoon, I ran over to Imageworks to take part in a VES Panel discussion on how to get started in the industry.

Here is the group that was up there. From left to right; Nick from New Deal Studios, myself from Digital Domain, Mark the moderator, Tad from Imageworks, and Susan from Furious FX. It was a pretty long and in depth panel that started probably around 2:15pm and went to 4pm! I'm sure we could have talked for much much longer! Unfortunately, I can't say exactly how the day was organized, I couldn't find it mentioned anywhere. Hopefully there will be more, and hopefully I'll be a part of them as well! Here's another quick camera photo from the audience of the panel set up. It's a little blurry, but it shows how we sat and the size of the audience. Tad had an old demo reel (he has 25+ years in this industry) of some of the first visual effects and animation that he had accomplished using multi-plane setups. His first show was The Great Mouse Detective in 1986!

Friday was an interesting day, as my shot count for the show was reduced by three. That was the number of finals that I was able to finish and pass through to the client. Every week we have a meeting with the client who sits down and looks at all our work. Since we're getting close to the finish line, we're having a bunch of shots finalled, which is a good thing! Also, Friday afternoon, I received the Astro A40 Audio System. I've been meaning to get a good quality headset for gaming, as I often play late into the night and don't want to disturb the wife. This headset was ideal! Good build quality, excellent documentation and service, and lots of extras. Don't take my word for it. Check out my very first unboxing photos!

It has all the necessary equipment to listen to voice and game chat on the Xbox 360, and of course, all the right connections for PC and PS3 gaming as well. So far it's been serving me well!

Also last week I received notice that our interns have been so successful and are doing such a good job, that they have decided to extend the internship for the rest of the year! It's a very good deal. Unfortunately, the rest of the year does equate to only about another six or so weeks, two of which are the holiday break.

Modern Warfare 2.

2009-11-10T20:45:00Z

It's been nine days since my last post, and it's been crazy. We've a trailer delivery running around now, so expect a new trailer of the show in the next couple of weeks!

Today is the day that COD:MW2 comes out. After spending countless hours in COD4:MW in MP, leveling up, and enjoying the hell out of that game, I can't wait for my copy to come! I'll most likely be spending a lot of late evenings playing it.