Diana Chinalieva – MA Visual Effects 20/21

Assistant TD

Assistant technical director (TD) is an entry level job, which concludes the tasks of helping to identify and fixing problems as well as ensuring of providing and supplying everyone in a VFX pipeline with the tools that are needed. They have a great understanding of how the pipeline within VFX works and the various job roles that are there, from stages of pre-production, through shoot, editorial, VFX to grading. They also need to have an understanding of the software used by the artists and be aware of the needs and limitations of various departments in a production. The assistant must gather information across all the departments to learn of their needs. They should be able to design the solution for arisen problems and have some coding skills to create small-scale tools using the established employer workflow requirements. ATDs will be utilising a variety of the industry standard graphical applications, scripting languages and operating systems.

Dealing with minor bug reports is part of their tasks, thus helping the TDs to focus on much bigger problems, for instance rendering errors. The responsibilities that fall on the assistant TDs also include data management, archiving, restoring and tracking data, converting and resizing files where needed; they keep the project on schedule. Other than the pipeline TDS, they work closely with the research and development teams, who design and test any new software.

While undertaking the job, the assistant must have good communication skills, as they should be able to interact well with the variety of staff at different levels and be able to understand their needs and assist accordingly; have a problem-solving mind, think analytically, be able to come up with creative and efficient solutions; have an eye for detail when designing tools and fixing technical issues; have strong knowledge of the pipeline; strong programming and coding skills in Python and C++.

Production Coordinator

The main role of a production coordinator is to aid with the management of the production of the film’s visual effects. They are responsible for the schedule of the production and tasks given to the team. In the project pipeline, the production coordinator start work during pre-production. Working in the production office, their tasks include overseeing what goes on with the phones, photocopier and paperwork when the line producer and production manager are on set, setting up the production office, organising equipment, supplies and staff, coordinating travel, accommodation, work permits and visas for cast and crew, distribution of the shooting schedules, crew and cast lists, scripts and script revisions. During the production stage they should be preparing, updating and distributing crew lists, daily progress reports and script changes, dealing with call sheets and transport requirements, organising couriers and shipping companies. Toward the end of the shoot, the production coordinate helps the production manager to wrap up the production, examples of their tasks include closing accounts with suppliers, returning surplus stock and tying up all loose ends.

The key skills of a production coordinator include knowledge of the filmmaking, as they have to understand the process and need of each department, be organised, as they would have to plan and multi-task a lot, be able to work under pressure, be innovative, be a good communicator, work effectively in a team and know how to budget. They report back to the line producer and production managers. They communicate with all the heads of department and rest of the production department. If the project is big and there is a such possibility, they could delegate tasks and jobs to assistant production coordinators and production runners.

Modelling Artist

A modelling artist creates the models for all the three-dimensional assets required within a project, be it characters, weapons, vehicles, furniture, trees, plant, rocks, animals and so on. Their workflow often starts with a brief drawing from a concept artist or collection of reference materials, such as photographs or line drawing sketches, followed by building a 3D model from that. Firstly, the create a ‘wireframe’, referred to as ‘mesh’ of an object. From that, they should be able to sculpt the object model to the close resemblance of what is intended. Using the digital tools, such as sculpting brushes, physical graphics pen and tablet, they complete their work. They could be specialising in a certain area, depending on the project requirements. Hence there are varieties of a modelling artist: environment, character or vehicles artist.

An environment artist focuses on building the CG world. Their role ca be divided into two parts: asset creation and layout. Both of which require the artist to have a good understanding of lighting and textures. A character artist is someone who makes characters and creatures. Starting with the figure sculpting, where aspects such as topology, UVs, shading are involved, the position of a character modeller is not an entry level position. A vehicle artist would usually work on assets such as cars, spaceships, weapons, robots.

Modelling artist would work at an early stage of the CG and 3D part of the VFX pipeline. After they produce the models, those are further passed on to be animated, given texture and lit. They could be working for a VFX company or be a freelancer. The key skills of a modeller involve the ability to draw, be able to interpret the 2D model and build a 3D model from that, be able to use required software, such as Blender, Maya and ZBrush, be organised and collaborative. They work with the concept artists and pass on their work to the texture artists, riggers or animators.

Texturing Artist

The role of a texturing artist is based around painting surface textures on animated characters, environments and props. Examples of the textures that the artists work on include wrinkles, fur, scales, sweat, mud and sometimes even one that would not be found in real life. In this case the artist would have to invent new textures using their imagination and creativity. Their workflow starts of with a 3D model created by a modelling artist that is usually a plain grey shape, with which they will be further working by adding details onto the surfaces until the model will look like a photograph. Once they are happy with the result, they can ‘bake’ the texture from one surface so that it could be used elsewhere.

Texturing artist could work for VFX company or studio or be a freelancer. A set of skills that they should be good at include having an artistic eye and understanding of form, colour and texture, recognise what makes an image appear realistic in terms of light, colour, composition and perspective, be good at photography, have a knowledge of VFX programs they will be working in, be organised and collaborative. The software that a texturing artist will be using are Photoshop, 3D Paint, UV Layout/Editing, RenderMan, Mental Ray, Maya, Shaders and Houdini. There is a variety of tools involved in the job, such as software, platforms and rendering environments for textures to be created. Texturing artists also use digital matte painting techniques to create textures and they work with advanced surface types, subsurface scattering and global illumination.

Little Shop of Horrors (1986) is a horror black comedy musical film. The story is based around a man, Seymour Krelborn, who works in a plant store in New York. He finds a carnivorous plant, as is learned later, which helps him to gain fortune, love and fame, but feeling guilty for all the deaths, Seymour ends up having the plant be killed. The film was based on an off-Broadway musical, which had a much darker ending, where the main character and his lover were killed by the plant. The movie was shot on a film.

This film mostly used special effects (SFX), specifically puppets for the plant, Audrey II. Those were designed by Lyle Conway. Six different stages of growth were made for the plant. Specialists in mechanical effects, Neal Scanlan and Chis Ostwald, were hired to construct the mechanisms required for the operation of the plant. To operate the plant’s mouth a scissor-type lever was hidden within the table the plant was on. The vines were cable-controlled by people underneath the stage.

One of the toughest parts of the plant operation, was to make sure that it was lip synching well enough to the song, but it would often be found to be quite slow. The solution was to film the plant at a slower frame rate and then speed it up in the post-production. When it was in the scene of its largest form, it took about 60 puppeteers to operate it.

In the whole movie, no blue screens or opticals were involved in the scenes with Audrey II, except for the ending where the plant gets electrocuted. Those were designed by Visual Effects supervisor Bran Ferren. Some Visual Effects were also applied in the original ending of the movie, where the plant killed my main characters and took over the world.

Reference: https://monsterlegacy.net/2014/04/13/mean-green-mother-from-outer-space-audrey-ii-little-shop-horrors/

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Made in 1981, An American Werewolf in London is a horror comedy film which was written and directed by John Landis. The plot is resolving about two young Americans which are attacked by a werewolf. One dies, while the second, David, survives and turns into a werewolf. He later attacks civilians in London, but towards the end of the movie gets shot and dies. The movie was shot on a film. It received a first ever Academy Award for Best Make-up in 1981. The ideas and realisation of make-up was worked on by Rick Baker.

Only special effects were used in the movie. Puppets had to be produced for the first attack of the werewolf, where it was just a head and a bigger size body was made for the attacks in London. It was a werewolf suit built on a wheelbarrow structure, where the operator would lie on a plank and use their arms to propel the creature forward. But the most important part of the movie was the transformation scene which required months of work to get prepared for. For stretching a unique material was used which would later disintegrate. The growth of hair, which Baker said to be the easiest effect to produce, was filmed as the hair was pulled through a rubber-type of material and played in reverse.

The progression of make-up for Jack, the friend that died during the first attack, was also impressive, with every appearance he made his state would deteriorate. For his final appearance in the movie theatre in London, they made a puppet.

References: https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3609546/an-american-werewolf-in-london-iconic-transformation-came-80s/

http://anygoodfilms.com/the-story-behind-the-shot-an-american-werewolf-in-london/

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Total Recall (1990) is an American science fiction action movie, directed by Paul Verhoeven. It is based around a main character, Douglas Quaid, who gets involved in espionage on Mars and is trying to understand if what he experiences is real or a result of implanted memories. It was one of the last Hollywood films to employ large-scale use of miniature props and sets instead of CGI. It was also one of the first movies to attempt computer generated imagery.

The use of miniatures and motion control technology was implemented during the production of the movie.  Company called Stetson Visual Services was hired to create the miniatures, head of which was Mark Stetson. Originally built in the studio, the miniatures would get assembled on the stages at Dream Quest. Most of the miniatures were shot at very long exposure times for believable depth of field, so that a five second shot or each pass would take hours to shoot.

The X-ray sequence was captured using the motion capture, adapted from golf industry at the time. A choreography program, Power Animator, together with their own written renderer, modeler and compositing software was used. The movie was shot on film using ARRIFLEX Camera and Zeiss Lenses.

Reference: https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/recalling-total-recall/

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Gremlins is a 1984 movie, directed by Joe Dante, known as a comedy horror film. Written by Christ Columbus, the story is based around a young teenager, Billy Peltzer, who receives an unusual Christmas present from his dad, a Mogwai, which then spawns into other small, evil and destructive creatures, Gremlins. An attempt of trained monkeys to play the creatures was maid, but as the monkeys were scared by the make-up, the team had to create puppets of the little mogwai and gremlins, which were designed by Chris Walas.

As the puppets were small and fiddley, they would break a lot, so a few copies of them would have to be created. For the close-up’s larger versions of the mogwai had to be created, in order to portray more emotions and facial expressions. In the scene where a gremlin explodes inside the microwave a large balloon was used. To operate a puppet, it would take about 5 people. For the scene where new mogwai are created, it took about guys underneath the table to push out the rubberised fur balloons. The movie was shot on film.

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gremlins#Development

https://scriptophobic.ca/2018/12/18/dont-get-them-wet-birthing-adorable-monstrosities-in-gremlins-1984/

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Made in 1989, The Abyss is a science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron. The story tells of an U.S. search and recovery team working on an oil platform racing the Soviet to recover an American sunk submarine. As they decrease further in the ocean, they come across something unexpected. Around 40% of the scenes had to be shot in the water, specifically a retro fitted decommissioned nuclear reactor facility in South Carolina. 7.5 million gallons of water were pumped into large tanks. For the scene where the two main heroes, Virgil and Lindsey, collide with the main antagonist, Cofey, in the submarines miniatures of those, about quarter in size, were created, in order to eliminate the need in damaging the pre-build machines. In the shot where the dome appears to be cracking, sellotape backlighted from inside the dome was used.

Other than using physical effects, the movie also used some CGI. Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) worked six months for 75 seconds of computer graphics of the water tentacle. ILM had to take a lot of storyboard pictures, set reference photos and used, not released at the time, program called Photoshop. A 3D scanning of water tentacle maquette was produced with the Cyberware 3D scanner. To mimic facial expression, the character was animated using commercial 3D software. It required eight scans of Ed Harris’s facial expressions and twelve of Mastrantonio’s. ILM had to design a program to produce surface waves of various sizes and kinetic properties of the creature, such as reflection and refraction. The movie was shot on film, using ARRIFLEX 35 BL Camera and Panavision System 65 Camera.

References: https://www.midrangevancouver.com/posts/2019/6/5/how-the-abyss-became-a-microcosm-for-visual-effects-in-film

https://www.ilm.com/vfx/the-abyss/

https://computeranimationhistory-cgi.jimdofree.com/the-abyss-1989/

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Made in 1996, Independence Day is an American epic science fiction action film, directed by Ronald Emmerich. After a worldwide attack by an extra-terrestrial race of unknown origin, the story starts of groups of people converging in Nevada desert. With a counterattack, scheduled on 4^th of July, is planned around the world the film focuses on the events leading up to the final battle. The film had a mix of special and digital effects applied throughout. Scenes such as opening shot of the moon or explosion of the buildings included miniatures.

One of the challenges was to film the explosion as the fire tends to go up. In order to create the shot where the fire is going down the street, towards the camera, big maquettes were hanged vertically at a slight angle with the camera about 5 feet above. All the explosions were done practically. The production had access to one full-sized working fire jet, which resulted in being re-used for various shots. For all the other jets, they used models in background or FX composite shot.

Models and textures for F-18s and Alien Attackers were built by the in-house VFX unit in Alias. Those were later converted to Side Effects Software Prisms and re-built for the pipeline. For the missile trails smoke textured particle spheres rendered in Mantra were used. A so-called ‘Sparky’ toolset was used throughout the production, originally written by Bob Bredow and Pete Shinners. It has a node-based system and a rendering subsystem. The movie was shot on film.

Reference: https://vfxblog.com/2016/06/24/old-meets-new-the-vfx-of-independence-day-part-2/

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The most recent of movies listed, Blade Runner 2049 is of a 2017-year production an American science fiction fil directed by Denis Villeneuve. During the movie production both special and visual effects were used.

The miniatures were worked on by Weta Digital, whilst the work on visual effects was done by a few companies, such as Framestore, DNEG, BUF, MPC, Rodeo FX and UPP. One of the challenging scenes was a love scene between the main character of Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas and Mackenzie Davis. The DNEG was working on that shot. The love scene was shot with the two actresses, where notes were taken of the first one and her movements, dictated over to the second actress during her take. Four GoPro cameras set up around room helped to capture the movement, as each character had to be 3D-tracked. The movements of each actresses had to be analysed and adjusted accordingly, wherever their movement had to be in or out of sync.

The movie required a fully digital character to be created as it was represented by an aged beyond timeframe the movie calls for actress. Other than a current scan of the actress, a lot of research and reference photos had to be dug up and used from her years of that specific age. The hardest part was to make the acting correct, just as Sean Young did it in the original movie. The movie was shot on digital in 1.55:1 aspect ratio from a single Arri Alexa XT studio camera with Zeiss Master prime lenses, assisted with an attached crane arm or a dolly.

References: https://vfxblog.com/2018/01/04/blade-runner-2049-vfx-breakdown-joi-los-angeles/

https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/blade-runner-2049-visual-effects-john-nelson/

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Format differences:

Both film and digital cameras have their own advantages and disadvantages. However the choice between either for cinematography did not come until early 2000s, when Hollywood started to capture films digitally. Around the year 2013, digital shot films were more common than celluloid among the top 100 grossing films. The most used digital camera is made by Arri.

The advantages of the film camera include aspects such as a lower initial cost, the film delivers higher dynamic range meaning there will be more detail in both darker and lighter areas of the composition, it is not as sensitive to subtle focusing issues and exposure problems, it usually has a higher resolution. The disadvantages come with the size of the camera, storage of the film, purchasing and developing film. Whilst shooting, your decisions must be thought through and permanent, as less takes would be available, compared to the digital. With the digital footage is ready to be sent further down the pipeline, the editing or work on Visual Effects can start right away. However, with the film, there is a waiting time between the film being processed and scanned.

The advantages of a digital camera are the lighter weight, smaller physical requirements for the memory storage, immediate review of the shot footage, easier to edit the product, generally a more flexible usage of the camera on a set.

Reference: https://stephenfollows.com/film-business-became-digital/#:~:text=Digital%20cameras%20in%20Hollywood&text=Hollywood%20started%20to%20capture%20films,the%20top%20100%20grossing%20films.

Prep/paint artist

The job of a prep artist consists of cleaning up the live action footage background for further work on it by a compositor. Examples of their tasks range from removing unwanted dust and scratches, boom microphones, tracking markers, wires, cleaning up seams of blue/green screen to colour correcting the prepped area to match the plate. The plates could be both moving or still, usually would not contain any foreground action or players. The prep artist would use specialist VFX software, such as Nuke, Maya and Silhouette.

A prep artist must have good artistic skills, such as drawing and painting using a graphics tablet, a keen eye to see where they images are required to be cleaned, patient and organised. They should be able to handle the pressure and produce high-quality result to strict deadlines. They work with the compositors, as the prep artists’ work is handed down to the compositors. In a smaller company, the work of a prep and roto artist is combined.

Compositing Artist

In post-production, a compositor works at the final stage of shot creation. They take different digital elements, e.g. animations, graphics, special effects or background plates, which were received from various sources, and put them together to make a believable picture. It is important that they take care of the composition of images and shots, via the correct placement of digital art assets and elements. Compositor enhances the lighting, creates believable shadows, matches blacks and other colour levels and adds motion blur where required. They also need to make sure that the art from different sources and artists looks the same, i.e. to ensure continuity of the image. They must have a keen eye to spot the mistakes and choose to either correct them or send the work back through the pipeline to be fixed. It is their responsibility to ensure the overall style of film to be consistent and in line with the director’s vision.

A compositor must have a good eye and be attentive to details, they must be able to work to deadlines and have a knowledge of the production pipeline. Even though it is mostly a 2D role within the 3D world of CGI, they need to have a thorough understanding of the CG process combined with relevant artistic skills. Compositor works in a wide range of software, such as After Effects, Blackmagic Fusion, Nuke, Maya and Photoshop. They work alongside the artists they create all the different elements, the lighting artists and they would communicate with the director as well.

Concept Artist

A concept artist job consists of creating a visual work for an idea to be used in film, game, tv-show, advert or a comic book. Being an essential part of creative and production process, they would draw or paint characters, creatures, environment, weapons, vehicles, mood or anything that is required for the project. In the game industry, their sketches are of great help for 3D artists, producers, programmers and publishes to understand of how the game will look. The expected quality of work could be both quick and ruff to detailed and refined. Very often a reference will be asked from the concept artist, to see what information they gathered for the ideas illustrated. They work with other art departments to make sure that a correct visual style is reflected in each part of the project.

Concept artists must have good skills of illustration, communication, understanding of design and perspective, knowledge of colour theory, excellent time management skills. They need to be able interpret briefs efficiently, explain and pitch their ideas to the client and design team, respond positively to the client feedback, adapt and refine the work based on client response. They would need to be able to work under pressure, as they would have to produce work in tight frames at the beginning of a project. Their workflow is commonly based both live as well as in creative programmes, such as Photoshop, Maya, Painter and SketchUp.

Matte painter/artist

The job of a Matte Painter is to create a painted picture of landscape, set, background for scenes that are hard to find and film. They must create realistic elements that could replace the live-action elements and/or improve the existing live action footage. They often work with live-action footage, digital still photography, CG elements, and digital paint. Despite being able to use both traditional and digital painting, most artists choose the latter.

Historically, matte painting dates to the 19^th century, as a photography technique. Old movies, such as The Wizard of Oz or Indiana Jones franchise would use actual painting on sheets of glass to create an illusion of a non-existent background. The techniques applied were based around the use of careful double exposure of the film to create the illusion of the live action happening in the scene. Firstly, a black covering would go over the “holes” of where the live action would go, and the painting would be filmed with a stationary camera for the length of the shot. Then, the initial shot would be rewound, the coverings removed and a projector behind the painting would project the live action onto those spaces on the painting. Thus, the live action would fill in those previously non-exposed areas. However, nowadays, most matte paintings are created digitally and are later composited with the live action footage.

To become a Matte Painter, one would be expected to have a degree in fine arts or design. It is a position one can be expected to be moving up to from a Concept Artist. Matte Painters must have good communication skills as they will work with a variety of people. They must be able to follow the direction of Production Designer so that they could produce complex matte paintings at a high standard. The work is often based in a fast paced, dynamic and deadline driven environment, so they need to be able to handle the pressure and keep up with the pace. They must have a strong knowledge of composition, colour, perspective, depth and lighting; knowledge of software such as Zbrush, Apple Shake and Maya; be motivated to constantly perfect their craft; be able to work both in a team of people as well as individually; be patient and flexible.

As the most basic set of skills is required for this role, quite often it is a route into VFX artist roles. The ability to be in various departments allows the runner to learn about all the positions and key responsibilities from different professionals. This way they could find out which route is the most attractive and interesting to them. A runner could get a mentor from a field of their interest assigned to them, who will provide a list of training tasks and track the progress of the trainee.

Someone who is interested in starting out their VFX career as a runner would have to be quite passionate in the field, be keen to learn the key technical skills and constantly expand their knowledge. They must be hard-working, reliable, take the initiative, easily adaptable, enthusiastic and have good communication skills.

Matchmover

A matchmover artist has to literally match the move of the footage, such that it is possible to place something into the scene that moves along with the scene. In the old days it would be done entirely by hand. The job is to track the camera movements to be able to create a virtual camera on a computer, which will mirror the physical one on set in every way, including lens distortion. The main physical aspects to be taking a note of are the changes in position, rotation and scale.

They can go on the set as sometimes they would have to take measurements and physically place the tracking markers on the set as well as body and objects to be able to recreate the movement of the people, objects or other elements in CG. Those markers are then used in software such as Mocha, Maya or 3DEqualizer to track the camera movement and find the sequence of coordinate transformation in 3D scene. Whilst Mocha is a software created specifically for tracking purposes, there are instruments within the other programs, such as Nuke or After Effects. A mixture of tools and software could save time, hence a combination of those would often be implemented.

There are two types of matchmoving: 2D and 3D. In the two-dimensional version the matchmoving will only track features in 2D space and will not take a note of camera movement or distortion. It is often used for simple adjustments such as replacing an image on a screen, changing the advertisement on a billboard or simply inserting a plain image that will cover some aspect in the live action footage. However, it is the three-dimensional matchmoving that is more commonly used in the filming industry as interpolates 3D information from the 2D footage, thus allowing accurate placement of CGI elements into the shot. The motion files are further on passed onto the other departments, so that they can be used by compositor to seamlessly combine the footage.

The result must look realistic, so it is important that the footage was tracked correctly. It is always easy to spot a mistake, especially with a badly tracked footage. That is why a matchmover must be highly accurate and meticulous in their work. Having an understanding of maths and physics, camera principles, an eye for detail and problem-solving skills are essential.

Roto Artist

Rotoscope is the name of the contraption that would project the film on to a transparent easel on which an artist would physically trace over the film, frame at a time. Rotoscoping is one of the oldest animation techniques.

The role of roto artist resolves around tracing over live-action movements of the film, such that specific parts of the images could be used. They manually draw around and cut out objects from the movie frames. The resulted images, known as mattes, are wanted for the further adjustments. Roto artist works around areas where the CGI would overlap or interact with the live-action image. Additionally, they will assist with the preparation of material for compositing.

If the camera is stationary and does not have any movement in the shot, rotoscoping could involve just one frame. When there is change in camera’s position, relevant areas in every frame would be traced such that an accurate combination of CGI with the footage can be implemented. An object is traced with a set of tools inside the compositing software, such as Nuke, in order to create a new alpha channel for specified part of the footage. It must be created artificially as the footage taken directly from a camera has no alpha data.

A rotoscoping artist is advised to use the minimal amount of points in order to trace the subject. It is done such that if the outline of the matte changes a lot, the playback will not be as jittery and shacky. It is also harder to keep the track of too many points. A good technique involves finding the most complex shape the subject is in and outlining that first, in order to note how many points one would need to keep a track of. For a complicated shape, such as a hand, person, animal, it is better to separate different parts, limbs, fingers, etc. into different sub-shapes.

Roto artist must have drawing skills, keen eye for details and a lot of patience for the completion of the work. They would use graphics and painting software such as After Effects, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Photoshop or Silhouette. There are also build-in tools in Nuke for rotoscoping.