A Piece of the Pi

This shot took me DAYS to set up and render. I made it for my demo reel so I could get a job at Rhythm + Hues in 2006.

R+H created Babe, Richard Parker from Life of Pi, Aslan, the Geiko gecko and countless other memorable CG characters. They recently filed for bankruptcy (a disturbing trend amongst VFX houses lately). Pi won best VFX tonight and when the rep started thanking R+H, they not only played him off stage, but they muted his mic. R+H got no mention from the cinematographer (who, let's face it, owes many of his gorgeous "shots" to the VFX) to even the director, who only expressed that he wished VFX could be cheaper.

People are under the impression that CGI requires nothing more than a button press. Computers are a tool, just like a pen, but it still takes real artists to pull it all off. I spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours learning these skills and I consider myself to be nowhere near the caliber of the people who pulled off Life of Pi. I struggled to find work when I moved out here and was SHOCKED at what people were willing to pay. Luckily, I had other skills to fall back on, but I miss this work and would like to think that I could someday return to it AND support my family. And for my friends who are struggling to find that balance, I hope it gets better. Without the VFX artists, many of the most profitable movies would be nothing more than a couple of actors standing in front of a green screen. I hope to see a reverse in this trend and respect to the artist.

Since I couldn't show up in person to stand with the artists, I have to settle for making a point via the internets: https://www.facebook.com/VfxSolidarityIntl and @VFXSoldier on Twitter are two great sources of more information.

VFX Demo Reel

A sample of my VFX work. Made using Maya, After Effects, Boujou and several other tools (including Flash). My passion here is dynamics. I love organic movement.

Autodesk Educational VFX Package

I am one of those strange people who was able to teach themselves Maya and ZBrush.  It can be done, but it is not easy (admittedly, ZBrush was FAR easier to learn than Maya, but that's beside the point).  That being said, if you are a student (or an employee or affiliate of an educational institution) and would like to learn about 3D modeling, animation and/or video compositing Autodesk has a GREAT deal going on right now: For $200, you can get a 14-month educational license of Maya 2009.  But that's not all!  Act now (actually, I think this deal will be around for a while, so don't impulsively blow money) and you will also receive: Mudbox (a 3D digital sculpting program that is awesome), Toxik (a node-based compositing program that is awesome), Motion Builder (a 3D character animation program that is awesome) and Cleaner XL (which comes with Autodesk everything, whether you want it or not)!  If you weren't able to gather from this paragraph, this is awesome!  Several months ago, it would have cost me more than $300 just to upgrade to Maya 2008.  With the exception of Motion Builder, I have other software that will do much of what these other programs do.  This deal, however, might be too good to pass up.

My favorite place to get educational software is Torcomp.  You can find this deal on other sites such as Academic Superstore.  The license is a few dollars cheaper and a couple months longer at Torcomp/Studica...

http://www.torcomp.com/products/product_detail.cfm?productid=57961

If you're not a student, I'm not sure if there is a bundle like this.  I honestly haven't looked into it because I'm not yet really making money on any of this software so I have no need to have a full license.  Some day, though.  Some day...

Comic-Con: Saturday Morning Cartoons

Turns out that missing the "Lost" panel was a good thing. It was on youtube later (no surprises there). Of course, Matthew Fox was there (drool), but he probably would have been a mere speck on the stage, so faint that like a distant Messier object, one would only have been able to see him by not looking directly at the stage. I digress. This thing is about comics anyway, right? Sheesh. I decided to go see the "Tori Amos: Comic Book Tattoo" panel instead. I now had plenty of time to stand in line and Tori is one of my personal heroes. We share a birthday and a mutual long-term relationship with the piano.

I got there pretty early and there was no line, so I decided to sit in on the Ralph Bakshi panel. Sadly, it was pretty empty for being one of the more inspirational and interesting panels there. I probably enjoyed it much more than I would have enjoyed the "Heroes" panel, to be quite honest (and I haven't seen it on youtube yet). This guy is one of the big "oldschool" animators. He directed "Fritz the Cat" and the animation for "Cool World." He's a feisty New Yorker with a serious hatred for the current presidential regime administration. He seems optimistic about the medium of animation and offered advice on how to overcome financial limitations, even arguing that they essentially make you a better filmmaker! What a cool panel!

The Tori panel was even more inspirational! "Comic Book Tattoo" is an anthology of comics. Each comic is drawn by a different artist and makes up a story for songs that she has written. One needed to purchase said book in order to get an autograph from the artists and Tori later on, but it is about 490 pages and my back hurt. I've never been big on autographs and there was other stuff I wanted to see. Amazon.com it is (still waiting for it).

Several of the artists were there, Tori, of course, was there- and in an outrageous outfit, to boot (don't worry. I'm not going to offend your eyes with another blurry, bright and distant photo)! It was a very open panel, with each artist talking about their fears and struggles as an artist, even Tori. It made me want to tackle all of my projects and feel... not so insane (and not so guilty for the break I've taken from the heaviness lately). I can't wait to take a look at the book.

Dope Sheet

Also called an exposure sheet or x sheet. I prefer the term "dope sheet" because it kind of sounds dirty. This is a much simplified version of said sheet that I used for my "Obama in 30 Seconds" video (it's official title is "America Speaks"). All I was doing was lip sync, so I really only needed a way to chart the sounds for the mouth animation. I also added some visual cues for the eye elements. For film, this sheet would have a bold horizontal line every 8th frame (film plays at 24 frames per second, so each second gets split into three sections). I just animated this one for 30 frames per second, hence the bold line every 10th frame (though technically video plays at 29.97fps, but this piece wasn't long enough for that to throw me off).  Also, this animation only contained one level, but that's not where you would place the action.  Actually, now that I really look at it, I'm totally misusing this sheet, but since I was the only animator and the entirety of the art department, I think it's okay!  The point was the lip sync.

I recorded the audio and imported it into Adobe Premiere at 30(ish) frames per second. That way, I had auditory and visual cues at every frame to tell me where the speaking sounds were. First, I listened for the hard consonants. They make a distinctive click at whatever frame they start. I'd write the consonant into the dope sheet. After that, I kind of filled in the rest of the sounds, indicating their length in frames on the sheet and drawing a line through the silence.

This particular animation was done in Flash only because I didn't have the proper setup to get everything aligned properly on paper (though all of the original drawings were done with pencil on paper and scanned into the computer). Because of this, my dope sheet became my best friend. It would appear that Flash has a habit of playing the video and the audio at different frame rates, so I just had to trust that as long as I had the "m" mouth shape where I had heard the "m" sound on the video that everything would sync up later! Luckily, it did. There's probably a way to fix this, but I don't have enough interest in Flash to figure it out.

In the meantime, I'm saving my money for a 2D animation program called Toon Boom. Flash wasn't meant to be a real animation program and Adobe hasn't seemed to catch on the the fact that people want to use it in this way (though the rumor is that they will at least be including inverse kinematics* tools in the next release of Flash). *the short answer to what this is is that it makes legs move like proper legs rather than blocks of wood on hinges.

Obama in 30 seconds

It's a little late to be posting this- voting closed a long while ago. I felt it was appropriate, though, seeing as how it looks like Mr. Obama is going to be our Democratic nominee. It's also appropriate because, well, I actually have time to post it! It looks best if you click play and then the little "monitor" icon in the middle of the right hand side to play it full screen. It was drawn in pencil. At such a small size, it's pretty hard to see. I made this for moveon.org's contest called "Obama in 30 Seconds." Obama was my second favorite Democratic nominee (and no, Clinton was not my first, though I liked her too). I really do like the guy, though, and I'm happy to vote for him. Politics aside, there was a $20,000 prize (redeemable in video equipment) and it gave me a chance to play with character animation. I drew several pictures that I scanned and animated in Flash. The lip sync was a little tricky because Flash seemed to want to play the video and the audio at two different frame rates, so I just had to trust my dope sheet (I'll try to post a page from that tomorrow and explain what it is). The animation is a little... basic... but it was my first full-blown character animation with lip sync and it was supposed to look "grassroots" (which is now an adjective). It's really amazing to see a character that you drew come to life before your very eyes. Carl Fuermann was the voice of America.

(Note: heated/bigoted/negative political comments to this post will be deleted- sorry, but that's what every blog seems to become these days and no one ever said mine was a democracy! I alone hold the power of comment approval! Mwa ha ha ha!)

Slusho laptop and demo reel...

Now that I have some of this WordPress stuff figured out... I should follow up on my "Slusho Zoom" post from earlier. My video was chosen as one of the top five entries in the competition! That means:

Freakin' sweet laptop! It also means I need to find a home for my "old" one, which really isn't that old. They have comparable features, but the Alienware wins. When rendering side-by-side, the Slusho! laptop rendered every super complex 3D frame a full minute faster. That doesn't sound like a lot, but consider that one second is 24 of said frames and that a minute would be 1440... were talking a full day!

I should also post my new demo reel:

Which I made with my new laptop. It's my first official demo reel, so I'm excited. Makes me feel "professional" for once...I have more catching up to do, but this will do for now.

The Galilean Satellites: Europa

This is the first in a four-part series of films dedicated to legendary filmmaker and friend, Stan Brakhage. It is also dedicated to a group of filmmakers with whom I shared orbit around the massive scope of Brakhage's work.

This has been the "audience favorite" of my works so far- at least, it has traveled around the world to all sorts of festivals and gotten great feedback (though the New York Times called it both one of the "most ambitious" films in its program as well as "relentlessly abstract." I'm not quite sure how to take the latter, but every artist knows that "ambitious" feels like a blow-off. I digress...)

As such, I am a bit reluctant to post it online, where it will be seen at 1/100th of its intended size, with resampled sound and dropped frames. Still, I'm reaching out into the volgosphere! It will be traveling around the country soon, so perhaps it might inspire a few souls to go see it when it comes to town (more details as they become available).

It is a 16mm sound film that imagines the icy hatched-marked world of Jupiter's moon, Europa. The soundtrack consists of recordings from several probes that visited the moon (specifically, the "sounds" are coming from the atmosphere of Jupiter), as well as whale songs- an imagining of the possible life beneath the icy surface. The imagery combines hand-painted liquid crystals and Super-8mm footage from a local aquarium (hooray for (now extinct) Kodachrome).

Snow Flukes

Next up: "Snow Flukes" I'm going a little bit out of sequence, but this was the next video that I felt like publishing. This is "Snow Flukes." I happened upon this 16mm silhouette footage several years ago. I was told that the artist who drew the cartoons was Otto Messmer (Felix the Cat) and that the skater is Dorothy Hamill, but I'm not sure. All of my searching has turned up very little on this little film.

I'm glad I have breathed some new life into it (and I always credit Otto and have never made a cent off of it- I'm really not sure if this footage ever fell into the public domain). The "psychedelic" background is shrink wrap and the skater is made of the same liquid crystal paint that went into "The Light Touch Dust Nebula" (ah, that's probably why I felt like following it with this video). I really love the fact that a paint activated by heat can be made to look like snow (note: this film is also silent):

Brad Pitt's Secret Life

Oh boy! Juicy Hollywood gossip! There's been talk lately about tensions arising between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Much speculation exists over why this might be happening to this couple we know absolutely nothing about but who look cool and get their pictures taken wherever they go. Some of the theories are as follows: they fight over which democratic candidates they should support, which charity to donate money to, which horrific disease one of them has, who is cheating on whom, etc. (no, I didn't make any of those up.) I'd like to propose a new theory. I have discovered that Brad Pitt has secretly been directing my favorite films:

When I first read this and saw the photo, I thought, "wow, that Brad Pitt is a pretty smart guy when it comes to animation!" Of course, everything made sense when I saw that it was not Brad PITT who said this, but Brad BIRD (who looks like this):

(Also known as "the one who won the Oscar," no offense, Mr. Pitt.)

I also feel that I should point out that Brad Bird neither directed nor wrote "Finding Nemo." That honor goes to Andrew Stanton. I got to "meet" both of these heroes of mine in L.A. last year when I drove out for the Screenwriter's Expo.

"Ratatouille" is quite easily the best film of the year, so far. That's my humble opinion and that only includes films that I have seen, but I have seen a lot, so... take that! Incidentally, if you are wondering what the worst is, in my opinion, I would have to give that award to "The Number 23."

Brad Bird has a habit of directing films that I love (damn him). He directed "The Iron Giant," which I've seen about a million times, and "The Incredibles" (see previous comment). He also worked on "The Simpsons" and created "Family Dog." Does anyone remember seeing "Family Dog?" If you do (and have fond memories of doing so), we should get ice cream. I loved that show.

I should start writing about films again. Ratatouille deserves more than just a blanket "it's awesome" review. Plus, I like coercing people into seeing movies that I love without resorting to "go rent 'The Iron Giant' or the bunny gets it!"

The Galilean Satellites- Callisto!

Finally! I feel so neglectful of poor little Callisto. I got my firewire cable in the mail on Monday and re-rendered Callisto last night. Callisto is the final film in The Galilean Satellites series. She is silent. This film was complete magic toward the end. I had not quite expected the results that I got, but I was awed by them.

Callisto is also one of the most heavily cratered bodies in the solar system. Jupiter's gravity attracts comets, meteoroids, and other objects and Callisto, being far away and tectonically inactive, bears thousands of years worth of battle scars. She also has the lowest density of the Galilean Satellites and it is thought that there might be an ocean beneath her rocky crust.

The imagery consists of liquid crystal paints and rubbing alcohol (like I said, magic). Enjoy:

The Galilean Satellites- Ganymede

If Europa could be considered the "audience favorite" of my films, Ganymede would have to be her cute little brother. This is the third film in The Galilean Satellites series. It is quite a bit shorter than the previous two, but was easily the hardest of the series to make (easily the hardest- bad English, I know, but funny enough for me to leave it there).

The imagery is both digital and film in origin. The opening sequence of photographs consists of digital images taken by the Galileo probe that visited Jupiter recently. The film imagery is clear 16mm film leader that has been scratched, pitted, twisted and bent to refract the polarized light.

The soundtrack consists of radio signals received from the moon's ionosphere. Unlike the previous two films, however, I have not manipulated this sound in any way. In fact, you can hear Ganymede's voice on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's page.

This film tries to capture the essence of Ganymede, who, like his sisters, is pulled and pushed by the tidal forces of Jupiter and the other moons (sibling rivalry...even the planets and Greek deities suffer from it).

The Galilean Satellites- Io

This is the second film in The Galilean Satellites series. It is an artistic study of the wrenching and twisting of Jupiter's volcanic moon, Io. This film is quite a bit longer than the others. It is also what I feel to be the "scariest" film I've ever made. The soundtrack consists of stretched and manipulated radio emissions from Io's ionosphere, while the image consists of various objects that I'm twisting and pulling in polarized light.

Io is constantly pulled and pushed upon by her sister moons and the immense gravity of Jupiter. This film probes into the beauty of turmoil. Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system, and is actually the hottest body in the solar system, outside of the sun (which reminds me of that Groucho Marx quote: "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read").

Again, imagine this quite a bit bigger than it actually is. Much of my work is meant to be seen on a very large scale. I have wanted to project this particular film around an entire room as an installation.

It was originally shot on 16mm film and is a sound piece:

Ether Twist

Back on track! Now, for the next film in my one-woman show: "Ether Twist." This film has sound! It's strange and quiet, but it's there...

Sounds from very low frequency (VLF) radio emissions make up the soundtrack to this film. These sounds include aurorae, solar flares, lightning and other electromagnetic phenomena that affect the Earth's ionosphere. The imagery is composed of various pieces of transparent plastics (try to guess what some of them are- you might be surprised) whose colors are revealed through polarized light. Neither the sound nor the image would be detectable if it weren't for careful manipulation of electromagnetic waves.

Many thanks to Stephen P. McGreevy for recording the incredible VLF sounds and allowing me to use them. This is a rather large file- the film is about 10 minutes long.

Footnotes: Ether (or Aether) was once considered to be quintessence, or the "fifth element." It was thought the be the medium through which light waves (indeed, all energy) traveled. It has since been dropped from the world of scientific thought and is considered to be, well, more...ethereal (not sure if that can qualify as a pun, but it was intended). It is considered to be the unifying energy for all living spirits in Wicca and some other religions.

The film title owes its existence to lyrics in the Tori Amos song, "Suede:"

i'm sure that you've been briefed my absorption lines they are frayed and i fear my fear is greater than my faith but i walk the missionary way you always felt like suede there are days i am your twin peekaboo hiding underneath your skin jets are revving yes revving from an ether twist call me 'evil' call me 'tide is on your side' anything you want

I connected with these lyrics instantly, but really keyed in on the phrase "ether twist." The liquid crystal materials I use do a sort of "ether twist." By twisting (refracting) the direction of the light waves at different wavelengths (colors), the bland, transparent plastics become vibrant, colored light sources.