Spy Films is at it again, this time they worked with Digital Domain for Sony to create a beautiful spot called, “Two Worlds”.
It might also remind you though of their previous short film called, “Nuit Blanche”. I only say this because it’s basically copied shot for shot. Just in color.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it I guess!
Nuit Blanche
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Making of “Two Worlds”
This 3-D Typography experiment that the interface designers at BERG in London came up with is absolutely beautiful. I particularly like the pixelated style of the text, even though it’s getting a little over used. It just makes it feel like the sci-fi flicks I loved watching growing up in the 1980′s. Adding to it’s appeal is the simple technique that’s used to create the, as I’ll refer to it from now on, “magic transparent floaty text”.
The formula goes a little something like this. iPad + 3D to 2D image slices + persistance of vision = magic transparent floaty text. A simple movie, slice by slice frame by frame, is played on the screen of the iPad in front of a camera with it’s shutter open. And the result is a brand new take on the whole light writing phenomenon of the past year. But that’s only the first part of the process. They then repeat those steps over and over again until they get close to 3,000 frames which then makes up a shot in the video you’ll see below.
It’s total manual work too. Just a guy, holding an iPad, and moving it in front of the camera. But I wonder what type of effects could be achieved if you combine this with a high tech motion control rig. Or dare I say it…stereo cameras. Gasp!
Think about that as you watch the video below. Some really cool stuff.
P.S. On a site centric note, if anyone of my readers are in fact STILL reading this blog that is, I’m currently in the long stop and go process of redesigning this site. Once I finally sit down and just bang it out, this blog shall live again in a shiny new form. So if you are still reading this, one…thank you. And two, your patience will be rewarded.
Stay tuned!
Wanna see what my wife Jess and I have been working on for the past 4 months? And also the reason I haven’t posted diddly on this blog either? Well then check out this shot of Wile E. that Jess lit / comp’d that was featured in the New York freakin’ Times!
LINK: New York Times – What’s Up, Doc? New Looneys
Meanwhile, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote are going back to work in movie theaters in a series of 3-D shorts. The first of these shorts — Warner has approved three, and three more are in development — will play ahead of the movie “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” which arrives in theaters July 30.
And the fan response over at Cartoon Brew is pretty awesome too. Fans really seem to be getting excited for the CG shorts! Here are some of my favorite comments…
Rafa says:
The road runner shot looks amazing!
the bugs & daffy, not so much…_______________________________________
lampshade says:
auuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh
hey, the CGI shot doesn’t look so bad though
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Fooksie says:
I agree, Rafa. Wile E Coyote looks fantastic.
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erlab says:
I was seriously SCARED of Daffy’s welcoming expression! Now that I know Bugs WILL look like that, I will just have to live with it or ignore the show.
CN is still running the original cartoons in the morning right?
That CG Road Runner series has potential to be really good.
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A.J. says:
The cgi coyote looks pretty nifty!
But Bugs is having a serious tude problem…and his feet and face..wtf?_______________________________________
Taber Dunipace says:
Why is Daffey made of thistles? I hope that Coyote shot is going to be as good as it looks now!
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coyote says:
“The short will be in theatres? That’s great! The shorts were made in India? That’s really unfortunate.”
Don’t worry, the shorts aren’t being made in India. They’re being done by Reel FX in Dallas.
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tgentry says:
I guess I’m just restating what many others have already said, but the genericized, Flash-happy Bugs and Daffy make me incredibly sad. It’s odd that the 3D coyote looks much more organic and cartoon-like than the more trendy and souless look of Bugs and Daffy. Looking forward to the updated Roadrunners.
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mrscriblam says:
i like the coyote cgi shot
looks almost like stop-motion, which is a style i think would work very well for that sketch
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vfx says:
The real fun will be when everyone gets to frame-by-frame through the CG animation to see just how spot on it is to the classic stuff.
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The comments just go on and on. So I’ll let you thumb through them at your own pace.
But I will end with this. To all the fans who love the original Wile E Coyote and Road Runner shorts, the CG shorts will not disappoint. I dare say, you’re going to love them! I’m so proud to be a part of this project, as is every other single person on the team. And we’re putting in the hard work and long hours to do justice to what Chuck Jones brought to life all those years ago.
This is most certainly not all folks 
Just you wait.
You’ve probably never heard of Houston native Steve Johnson, but I know you’ve heard of his work. Predator, The Abyss, Ghostbusters, Spider-Man 2, Where the Wild Things Are, and so on and so on. The point is that he’s had a very long and successful career in practical make-up fx. Now he’s nearing retirement but instead of writing his memoirs or shopping for a comfy rocking chair, he’s decided to start up a new channel on YouTube to share with the world a ton of never before seen behind the scenes footage of the films he worked the last 30+ years on. The coolest thing though is that he’s also bringing back the artists responsible for the work his shop did on those films to talk about it themselves!
I’m so glad to see such a seasoned and talented artist pulling back the curtain, and I want all of you who read this blog to go to his channel and subscribe to his videos. Let’s keep this ball of transparency rolling and hopefully encourage more of the greats to follow in Steve’s footsteps!
LINK: Steve Johnson FX (YouTube)
Take a behind the scenes look at some of your favorite movies with the people who actually MADE them! Hosted by Hollywood special effects legend Steve Johnson, the effects artist behind Ghostbusters, Big Trouble in Little China, The Abyss, Blade II, Species, Spiderman II, Where the Wild Things Are, and hundreds more!
All the footage you see here was shot in Steve’s own studio, with his cameras, his crew and on his dime.
OMG…never before seen Ghostbusters II Behind the Scenes footage!
Zoic Studios, one of my favorite VFX studios in the bizzzzzz, has recently launched a new blog called “I Design Your Eyes“! Where a couple days ago they profiled their work on ABC’s newest series “V”. And as always, the work Andrew Kramer and Co., have done on the show is absolutely amazing. Read more about it below! And support the show and the good people who work on it by tuning in when it airs Tuesday night on ABC! Check your local listings…I’ve always wanted to say that
LINK: Zoic Brings Visitors to Earth
Zoic is handling all of the visual effects for V, under the oversight of creative director and VFX supervisor Andrew Orloff (FlashForward, Fringe, CSI) and visual effects producer Karen Czukerberg (Eleventh Hour). Work on the pilot was split between Zoic’s Vancouver studio, which handled greenscreen and virtual sets, and the Los Angeles studio, where the motherships and other effects were created.
I Design Your Eyes is a web log and Internet community that provides a place for professional digital storytellers to interact with the fan community and with each other, and to share their mutual love of the art and science of visual effects and digital filmmaking.
IDYE is produced out of Zoic Studios, an award-winning digital studio producing innovative content for episodic television, feature films, commercial media and the video gaming industry. But this is not a Zoic marketing site – we already have one of those, and it works fine. Instead, IDYE is a centralized news, education and inspirational Internet community, both for the entertainment industry and for fans of film, television and video games. Our goal is not to promote Zoic itself, but the industry as a whole.
Motherboard.tv went to London to sit down with director, Spike Jonze, and talk about how they brought the monster-beings of “Where the Wild Things Are” to life. There’s also some great studio footage they took at MPC where they spoke to some of their artists. My favorite part though is when the host asks, in a very dead pan voice, “What’s Compositing?”. I guess that’s a good sign he didn’t know what compositing was though, because we’re supposed to stay hidden. Kinda like a Milford Man.
“No matter what era you are in, technology will only be as good as the idea supporting it.” – Spike Jonze
Let me start with saying that I’m going to withhold judgement on the actual movie until it comes out on November 13th. Which yes, that is Friday the 13th, and yes it’s ok to roll your eyes now. But no matter how good or bad the film ends up being, I think we can safely say now that the VFX work done on the new Roland Emmerich film, “2012” is EXTREMELY impressive. So because of that fact, and the fact that this is a Visual Effects blog, I wanted to post a few videos released by the production that briefly talks about the effects created for the destruction of LA (earthquake) and Washington D.C (tidal wave). First up though, my impressions…
The videos that were put on YouTube give you that classic ankle deep explanation of how everything was done. And are the type that I grew up watching and loving. Full of quick clips, sound bites, and the usual talking head interviews with the Producers, Supervisors, and Director talking about how great the film is. Pretty typical honestly when you get down to it. But what I was very surprised with was when I heard Mr. Emmerich say, and I quote, “I was really nervous about that (the visual effects), because there you hand your destiny pretty much over to some visual effect people.”
Think about that for a second. Let it sink in. The man who directed “The Day After Tomorrow”, “Independence Day”, and “Stargate” was worried that the overall quality of visual effects being done for his film might not be good enough. Which if so, would be the sole factor on whether or not his film was going to be any good. Not the Writing, not the Acting. Not even the Directing! But the Visual Effects. Says a lot doesn’t it? I think so. That’s his freakin’ bread and butter!
Anyways, marinate on those words while you watch the videos below. And try to decide if they spark the urge to shell out $10 at your local cineplex when “2012” debuts on Friday (*sigh*) the 13th.
Tidal Waves
Destruction of LA
Practical Effects
You know what I learned today? That Jim Henson’s amazing creatures from “Where The Wild Things Are” got a little help from CG. Now don’t worry, they didn’t go all Jar Jar and just use these incredible suits for eye line and then replace everything else. Actually they used computer graphics for what it’s really good for. Digital augmentation. Which is a fancy way of saying 3D warping. This was done to match the lip sync of the voice actors, and get a wider range of expression than what could be achieved with just animatronics. A great lesson for future filmmakers on how to use the tried and true old analogue techniques and marry them with the new fangled digital world.
I hope you’re surprised by this too, because honestly I had no idea that Framestore had done this work! If you read this blog often you’ll know that this is the types of VFX I love. That ones where you’re completely unaware of the computer’s presence because A. the artist used the tool intelligently, and B. it was expertly done.
Read more by following the link below. And if you’ve seen this film already, let me know what you thought in the comments below! I’m hopefully going to check it out this weekend and would love to hear what you all thought of it.
LINK: Getting Wild About Facial Animation
They tried a lot of techniques before realizing that the best approach would be limited facial animation enhancement whenever they needed lip-synch. In other words, strictly for the movement of the face, they only animated the eyes, lips, teeth and tongue.
And the faces in Wild Things were brought to life at London-based Framestore primarily using a new twist on an old technique known as “sequence projection” or “projection mapping,” often used to create talking animals. For Wild Things, however, it had to be taken to a new technical and artistic level. Character suit performances were filmed with static faces. The faces or heads were tracked in 3D and a CG articulated head was animated on top to achieve the appropriate performance to match suit and dialogue.
LINK: Paul Debevec animates a photo-real digital face
At TEDxUSC, computer graphics trailblazer Paul Debevec explains the scene-stealing technology behind Digital Emily, a digitally constructed human face so realistic it stands up to multiple takes.
