The Oscars: ILM Talks Star Trek
RG: We used a tool that they developed called Scripted Millions because we were dealing with bigger and bigger sets of data, which we needed to manage. We knew we were going to be in the same kind of zone as The Maelstrom, so wanted to have a better way of handling that information and also look at using different rendering techniques to develop streaks of light. But another big aspect was the shot design and previs.
Paul Kavanagh: J.J. asked if we could have a go at doing some of the shot design as well as the previs, which is really cool when that kind of thing happens at the studio and we can get in there and put our stamp on it. So Roger, Paul and I would get together and talk about the shots and what we could do to make them interesting and tell the story more clearly. And toward the end, we got a group of 17 animators together when we were doing the third act and we would start prevising this stuff in Maya.
RG: We were also using some camera tools to give an interactive feel to the way the cameras would operate.
You know, we could previs stuff pretty fast because we were using our own assets that we developed for the movie, then once the shot was bought off on, there was just a little cleanup on it and then it was right through our pipeline into rendering, so it wasn't a normal process where you do previs and it's just a visual thing, where another company takes that previs and just copies it again. We would actually do the previs as if we were doing the shot and so the shots came together pretty quickly.
RG: It's just a more efficient way of working.
PK: And we built a team that just weren't animators but we took layout people who had a lot of experience with camera work; we brought them into this one group and one person would be responsible for one shot or a sequence of shots and they would do everything. And there was a lot of cross-over there and they really got a kick out of that. They really felt like they were contributing to the creative aspect of the moviemaking process.
RE: Paul and his guys also spent a lot of time setting up the lighting for the shots because the dramatic lighting played such a large component.
PK: Roger came in after talking to J.J. about doing a strong single source look.
Printer-friendly version
I forgot to state those points in the above comment are from a Viewers point of view. I have never been in the production part of Video or FX effects. The closest I've come is helping fix the Display Machines, a few film projectors and TV's so about all I know about making the stuff is from reading articles. But for 99% of the people that is all the closer they get also, so please enjoy what little visual displays you watch before opening your eyes each morning costs you money.
I remember how the FX visual effects were back in the time of Star Trek when it was first on TV. At the time it was mostly jump to a new film clip. Then it was overlaying one piece of film on to another. Then they started painting on the film strips. Then video came, and they could add text but it was still a film era in the 70's. With the 80's they at first could ad half screens and the size kept growing smaller as the electronics got better.
2001 A Space Odyssey was the first biggy in film, video started with cartoons and animations, because kids were not as pixel crazy as adults. In time during the 80's it got to be the animated station logos that seemed to start with local news broadcasts.
I began calling this stuff Video Pollution in the mid 80's. Now days to view a TV show with out these advertising pieces of Video Pollution it is getting to be you have a better chance of winning the State Lotto.
And for about half the viewers this info is not needed with EPG's (Electronic Program Guides) that have the next 3 days, a week or more of whats comming up. Even some HDTV's hold this information. I gave up my TCI cable for a Dish in April 2005. This removed my need for this self promoting banner garbage or polution so I did not even have to read the weekly TV Guide to see whats worth watching.
And this FX created Video pollution is now polluting a fifth of the viewing screen. And today you go to buy a DVD of what ever show you like and they do not even remove some of this pollution.
FX effects ad much to the visual content, but advertising money has slipped in and is polluting these special effects. It is now in 2010 eating up around 24 to 32 minutes of show time, that counts the show logo time fillers as each segment starts or ends even more as hour long episodes become two or three episodes.
What ever happened to true real produced content with the beautiful non advertising content Special effects added and enhanced. I know it costs money to ad the FX but now it is so cheap they use it's gifts to make self promoting Video Pollution garbage that is destroying the medium that it was invented to enhance.
In the early 90's I projected the pollution of TV/video will reach the 50/50 level in 2040. In 2009 it has arrived on a few shows, and at the current rate by 2015 making money off the visual content will have reached 100% of all content, and begin killing the medium that it was created for a death blow.
FX at first was benign but now it is a viral infection that will kill it's host. Video may live forever but will the FX factor and it's children kill the TV aspect of the medium?
Post new comment