FXRant

The VFX Predictinator, 84th Academy Awards Edition

2012-01-27T21:40:00.000-08:00

It’s that time of year again. Time to feed The VFX Predictinator.

For the uninitiated, The VFX Predictinator is a formula my wife and I developed in 2010 that accurately predicted the winner of the visual effects Academy Award from 1989-2010 based on quantifiable data points. Last year, we expanded the formula to accommodate five nominees with success -- The Predictinator accurately predicted the winner ("Inception"), just as it did for the previous 21 years.

The 84th Academy Award nominations were released last week, which means it’s time to run the numbers! As a reminder, the nominees for the visual effects Oscar are “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II”, “Hugo”, “Real Steel”, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”, and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”.

And here’s The Predictinator in action:

And if you're not interested in squinting at the final scores, here they are:

8.39 Hugo
6.21 Rise of the Planet of the Apes
5.34 Harry Potter 7.2
2.91 Real Steel
1.04 Transformers 3

The Predictinator predicts “Hugo” will win the Academy Award for visual effects.

Before running the numbers, I was certain that “Hugo” would post some big numbers, especially because of those 11 (gasp!) total Academy Award nominations, but I was surprised at how gigantic its final score ultimately was. Its score was even slightly higher than 2009’s “Avatar”. "Hugo" had an extremely high Tomatometer score (although slightly below "Potter 7.2"), and combined with its late release date (November) and its additional Oscar nominations, it walks away a score of 8.39.

Since “Apes” was the only film among the nominees with organic character animation as well as facial animation, I was fairly certain that “Apes” would have ended up with the highest point tally. But there’s “Hugo” sitting on top with that huge score, a higher point value than any film since the first “Lord of the Rings” film in 2001.

Some notes: we didn’t classify “Apes” as a sequel, since the film is a reboot, creating a new franchise, personality and mythology from the ground up. “Transformers 3” ended up in a distant fifth place with only 1.04 points -- the lowest Predictinator score in the history of the Predictinator (1993-2011). The robot sequel was severely punished by its low Tomatometer score (the lowest since “Poseidon”), the earliest release date of all five nominees, and its existence as a sequel.

We’ll see what happens when the winners are announced on February 26, 2012.

84th Academy Award Nominees for Visual Effects

2012-01-24T06:57:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to all the nominees for Best Visual Effects in the 84th Academy Awards. The winner will be announced Sunday, February 26, 2012.

VISUAL EFFECTS

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2"

Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler and John Richardson

"Hugo"

Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman and Alex Henning

"Real Steel"

Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Dan Taylor and Swen Gillberg

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes"

Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White and Daniel Barrett

"Transformers: Dark of the Moon"

Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew Butler and John Frazier

James Bond: "Somebody's Gonna Die"

2011-12-17T14:11:00.000-08:00

Inspired by The Talk Show #71 hosted by Dan Benjamin and John Gruber, I just had to make a poster for the rhetorical film, James Bond: "Somebody's Gonna Die". Hear the context of the title around 1:31:31.

"Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol"

2011-12-15T11:04:00.000-08:00

I can't tell you how happy I am that the early reviews of Brad Bird's "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" are so positive. We worked very hard on this picture, and Bird was an ingenious and gracious collaborator.

Industrial Light and Magic provided the film's visual effects, supervised by John Knoll, with Lindy DeQuattro as our associate visual effects supervisor. I served as the film's compositing supervisor.

The project was an exhilarating creative experience for me, and I hope I'll be able to talk more about it in future posts.

Oh, and if you plan on seeing the film, try to make it to an IMAX screening. Several of the film's big action sequences were filmed with IMAX cameras, which includes lots of ILM effects work as well. It will be worth the extra effort.

The Visual Effects Supervisors of ILM

2011-10-20T15:26:00.001-07:00

The visual effects supervisors of Industrial Light & Magic, 2011. Standing in the back row from left to right, Roger Guyett, Grady Cofer, Russell Earl, Ben Snow, Craig Hammack, Lindy DeQuattro, Dennis Muren. Seated from left to right: Bill George, Tim Alexander, Jeff White, John Knoll, Pablo Helman, Scott Farrar and Kim Libreri.

Photo is from the new book "Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Innovation" coming soon. Read a review of the book here on FXGuide.

Photo credit: Brent Bowers.

Then and Now

2011-10-19T13:41:00.001-07:00

Two very different techniques, two very different contexts. At the beginning and end a single epic narrative.

How Siri Could Work With AppleTV

2011-10-18T16:45:00.001-07:00

click here for a larger image

I was inspired by the discussion on 5by5's excellent podcast Hypercritical (episode 38), hosted by Dan Benjamin and John Siracusa, to create this extremely quick and extremely dirty mockup of how Siri, the amazing new feature on Apple's iPhone 4S, could be implemented on the AppleTV.

My idea is adding a dedicated Siri button on the AppleTV remote, as well as a microphone that sits at the top of the remote that transmits your voice commands to the AppleTV. This solution bypasses the problems Dan and John discussed, such as shouting at the AppleTV from a distance. Plus, with the remote control/microphone only about a foot from the user's mouth, ambient noise is a much smaller issue than with a microphone attached to the set top box. Plus, it eliminates the need for an expensive iOS device (like an iPod touch or an iPhone) to be the sole input for voice commands.

I suppose the entire remote would no longer be an IR remote, but a full-on Bluetooth remote. If I spent more than an hour on the mockup, I would have removed the little IR window at the top of the remote.

With complete ignorance of how much power consumption Bluetooth requires in a remote control-sized unit, or what technical requirements might be necessary for this kind of functionality (not to mention the additional cost required, in order to hit that $99 sweet spot), I hacked together this quick mockup of what it might look like. I admit I rushed the on-screen interface - it's not very polished and is almost a direct lift from the iPhone Siri interface. My idea is that the regular interface would blur in the background, and a custom AppleTV Siri interface would appear. Anyway, there ya go.

"LaGuerta!" is The "Dexter" Spinoff No One Asked For

2011-10-10T10:08:00.000-07:00

In the grand tradition of television spinoffs like AfterMASH, The Ropers, and Joey, we present Showtime's Dexter spinoff, LaGuerta!

Maria LaGuerta and Angel Batista from Dexter take their steamy romance and spectacular detective skills to the Windy City of Chicago, where the bad guys don't stand a chance.

Get ready, Chicago. Here comes LaGuerta!

Always Think Different

2011-10-05T19:08:00.000-07:00

From the 'Think Different' 1997 Apple Computer commercial:

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward.

And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs.

MI4 in IMAX

2011-10-05T14:35:00.000-07:00

As noted by this Hollywood Reporter article, a large chunk of Brad Bird's "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" was filmed with large-format IMAX cameras.

IMAX is also to include around 30 minutes of scenes shot with its proprietary cameras when it rolls out the fourth installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise. One featured IMAX sequence includes a stunt performed by Cruise as he scaled the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai.

I hope to talk more about this film in the future, especially in regards to the visual effects, produced by Industrial Light & Magic under the supervision of John Knoll.

Be sure to check out the film when it opens early in IMAX theaters on December 16, 2011. Unlike most films exhibited in IMAX theaters, this one will be worth seeing on the big-big screen.

2011-10-05T10:55:00.001-07:00

This video illustrates how far the fringe right wing has taken over the Republican party. Can you imagine any one of the GOP hopefuls for President saying something like this?

Doomed!!!

2011-10-05T10:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a wonderful comic from 2009 that sums it all up. Created by Barry Deutsch.

More Excuses

2011-07-26T21:19:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are again. Very few FXRant updates have occurred in the last few months. The time, we spoke, I had a pretty good excuse.

Well, before that excuse even finished, I moved on to some more excuses.

Now, almost changing the subject entirely, here are some random images from the teaser of "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol", directed by Brad Bird, and featuring visual effects by Industrial Light & Magic.

(In the meantime, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to follow me on Twitter @tvaziri.)

Images selected by Randomizer Lion Edition software.

An Excuse

2011-04-30T17:59:00.001-07:00

"So, Todd, why haven't you been posting much lately?" asked a theoretical FXRant reader.

I'll answer your question with a series of images from the new trailer for "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

The VFX Show, "Forrest Gump"

2011-03-23T20:50:00.000-07:00

Listen to the newest edition of The VFX Show, with Mike Seymour, Jason Wingrove and me, Todd Vaziri, talk about the visual effects of Robert Zemeckis' 1994 masterpiece, "Forrest Gump."

Download, listen and subscribe to the podcast here:
http://www.fxguide.com/thevfxshow/the-vfx-show-119-forrest-gump/

Oscar Tweets

2011-03-17T21:21:00.000-07:00

Here are some highlights from my Academy Awards-night Tweets.

(If you're not following me on The Twitter, then shame on you.*)

Just saw Ben Snow on The Television
Just saw David Hisanaga, John Walker and Aaron McBride from @ilmvfx on The Television.
Here is one reason why our work on "Iron Man 2" by @ILMVFX was nominated for an Oscar. http://tinyurl.com/4kuocpy
Warren Beatty looks like he'd rather be anywhere other than where he is right now.
Oh, dear, why would they put George Hamilton's corpse on TV? Oh, that's Valentino. Nevermind.
Oh, I remember when Nicole Kidman was human.
Hugh Jackman: Movie Star.
Hugh Jackman is cool even in crummy movies.
I'm two for two tonight. (In my predictions.)
Robert Stromberg, former vfx artist, now has two Academy Awards for Art Direction. Yeahhh!!!!
I'm six out of seven.
I'm still a bit amazed that there are TWO categories for sound.

James Franco: "Congratulations, nerds," on the Technical Academy Awards. I don't know how to feel about that one.
My instinct was, 'eff you, Franco.'
That's, **Academy Award Winning Film** "The Wolfman."
Just saw Florian Kainz from ILMVFX on The Television.
You played off Aaron Sorkin, but had time for Auto-Tune the movies?
Technical Oscars shot = too many white dudes. And this is coming from a mostly-white dude.

A standing ovation for Billy Crystal - if that's not a huge rebuke of tonight's show, nothing is.
Yeah, The Predictinator nails it.
I'm happy The Predictinator got it right. But I'm sad that our work on "Iron Man 2" didn't win.
http://tinyurl.com/48xvx9w
I'm sticking with "eff you Franco" on the "Congratulations, nerds," quip.
Darn - I screwed up Best Director. I guess I really really really wanted Fincher to get it.
Nailed it. Now I'm 17/23.
(For Best Actor) British + cripple + crying = guess who will win?
Hey, @jamesfranco. The five nominated visual effects films earned $3.5 billion dollars. So that's what nerds did.
Showing my work: Alice-$1.024B, HP71-$948M, Inception-$823M, IronMan2-$622M, Hereafter-$101M = $3.518B. Data from boxofficemojo.com.
Final tally - I predicted 18 out of 24 categories.

*Just kidding. It's just that I've been so busy lately, I haven't had time to post here on FXRant. So crummy Tweets will have to do for now.

22 Years in a Row

2011-03-17T21:17:00.000-07:00

As detailed in this post, we used The VFX Predictinator to predict the winner of the visual effects Oscar, "Inception." We were correct.

Our formula has now accurately predicted the winner of the visual effects Academy Award for its 22nd straight year.

Heh heh.

"Inception" Nabs The Oscar

2011-03-05T20:49:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to the entire "Inception" visual effects and physical effects teams for earning the Oscar for visual effects at the 83rd Academy Awards.

Inception
Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb

The Twitter Post

2011-02-27T16:10:00.000-08:00

I may or may not be live-Tweeting the Oscars. I'm @tvaziri.

Keep your expectations low.

The VFX Predictinator, 83rd Academy Awards Edition

2011-02-22T21:05:00.000-08:00

Last May, when the Academy finally expanded the number of nominees for the visual effects Oscar from three to five, I wrote this:

And what will this mean to The VFX Predictinator, our totally awesome formula that accurately predicted the visual effects Oscar winner across 21 years? It will require a serious overhaul, since many of the formulas are dependent on the assumption of three nominees. More likely than not, we'll have to come up with an all-new formula.

My lovely wife, who essentially initiated The VFX Predictinator project, re-examined the data and determined that it would be fairly easy to tweak the formula and treat the data in essentially the same way as did the original formula. Certain multipliers were adjusted for five nominees and other relative formulas were also updated so that the weighting of various criteria would match the original formula. Ultimately, the updated Predictinator behaves in essentially the same way as the old one.

As we learned in January, the nominees for the visual effects Oscar for the 83rd Academy Awards are "Alice In Wonderland," "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1," "Hereafter," "Inception" and "Iron Man 2." And here is the data for these nominees:

And if you're not interested in squinting at the final scores, here they are:

7.54 Inception
4.68 Harry Potter 7.1
3.96 Alice in Wonderland
3.58 Iron Man 2
2.39 Hereafter

The formula that has accurately predicted the winner of the Oscar for 21 years straight is calling for an overwhelming victory for Christopher Nolan's "Inception." Its strengths were undoubtedly its critical acclaim, with the highest Tomatometer rating of all five films, and its eight staggering Academy Award nominations (scoring it two points), while the other four nominees earning zero points for Oscar nominations, since none of the films earned over three nominations.

"Potter," "Alice" and "Iron Man 2" all had similar numbers, with nearly identical box office earnings, but "Potter" and "Iron Man 2" lost points for being sequels. Both "Hereafter" and "Alice" suffered with poor critical acclaim, and "Hereafter's" box office, relative to the other blockbusters, gave the Clint Eastwood film no advantage. "Potter"'s second place score was earned with its late release date, coming to theaters in November (earning it a huge point).

Amazingly, this years' crop of nominees featured very little organic creature work. Only "Alice" qualified in the criteria of "Primary VFX Are Creatures," and also picked up more points with all of the facial animation featured in the film. With only 1/5 films heavily featuring character animation, the 2011 nominees are a bit of an anomaly, since regularly, most races include 2/3 or 3/3 films featuring character animation. Even with "Alice" earning these critical points for character animation, it still wasn't enough to topple "Inception"'s gargantuan point count. In fact, even if every other film earned those character animation points, it wouldn't have been enough to beat "Inception's" score.

So we shall see if The Predictinator can live again. If we're dead wrong, we'll have to determine how we screwed up, and perhaps, come up with a Predictinator 2.0 (for this new world order of five visual effects nominees), which will evolve over time. That would be unfortunate and, quite frankly, boring, since it feels quite gratifying to have a solid, mature algorithm to predict the winner of the visual effects Oscar. Starting over and patiently waiting year after year, nursing the formula back to health. Naah, we don't want to do that.

We'll know in just a few days, when the winners of the 83rd Academy Awards are announced February 27, 2011.

Oscar Pool Ballot

2011-02-20T19:27:00.000-08:00

It's time for the Awesomest Oscar Pool Ballot In The History Of Oscar Pool Ballots.

Each year I create a special ballot based on the oscar.com printable ballot -- but on my ballot, each category has a different point value. The highest valued category is "Best Picture," while the mainstream films' categories are valued at two points. The non-mainstream categories (like the documentary and short film categories) are valued at one point.

This way, in a tight race for the winner, the winner most likely would not be determined by the non-mainstream films (i.e., blind guesses).

Download the ballot here and use it at your Oscar party.

And if you're wondering why Tom Cruise is on my ballot... he's on every one of my Oscar ballots. Because he's soooo cool.

"Inception" Wins Big

2011-02-12T16:46:00.000-08:00

Christopher Nolan's "Inception" won big at the 9th Annual VES Awards on February 1, 2011. "Inception" won in every category for which it was nominated, with awards also going to "Hereafter" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I."

Here are the winners of the live-action feature film categories. For a full list of winners, click here to visit Visual Effects Society's website.

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual-Effects Driven Feature Motion Picture
 INCEPTION
 Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Mike Chambers, Matthew Plummer   

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature Motion Picture 
HEREAFTER 
Michael Owens, Joel Mendias, Bryan Grill, Danielle Plantec 

 Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture
 HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART I - Dobby
 Mathieu Vig, Ben Lambert, Laurie Brugger, Marine Poirson 

 Outstanding Created Environment in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture
 INCEPTION - Paris Dreamscape 
Bruno Baron, Dan Neal, Graham Page, Per Mork-Jensen    

Outstanding Models & Miniatures in a Feature Motion Picture 
INCEPTION - Hospital Fortress Destruction 
Ian Hunter, Scott Beverly, Forest Fischer, Robert Spurlock   

Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture
 INCEPTION 
Astrid Busser-Casas, Scott Pritchard, Jan Maroske, George Zwier 

And the Nominees Are...

2011-01-25T07:49:00.000-08:00

For the first time ever, the visual effects category of the Academy Awards is filled with five nominees (rather than the traditional three).

Here are the nominees for Achievement in Visual Effects, for the 83rd Academy Awards:

Alice in Wonderland
Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi

Hereafter
Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell

Inception
Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb

Iron Man 2
Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick

The Awards will be broadcast on Sunday, February 27, 2011 on ABC.

The Predictinator 2.0?

2011-01-23T13:57:00.000-08:00

Spotted on The Twitter:

Will five nominees screw up our formulas? Of course it will, but this could lead to The VFX Predictinator 2.0: The Next Generation. We're crunching the numbers here at the FXRant worldwide headquarters to see if The VFX Predicinator 2.0 can even exist. Stay tuned.

VES Announces Nominations for 9th VES Awards

2011-01-10T08:57:00.000-08:00

From Variety:

"Boardwalk Empire" and "Inception" received the most nominations for the Visual Effects Society's ninth VES awards.

Warner's "Inception," with vfx by Double Negative in London, received four noms, including outstanding vfx in a vfx driven motion picture -- top honor from the VES. Double Negative was also nommed in the category for Warner's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1."

Also in the race for the top prize are "Iron Man 2" (Paramount/Industrial Light & Magic); "Tron: Legacy" (Disney/Digital Domain), and "Alice in Wonderland" (Disney/Digital Domain). "Inception's" other noms are for created environment, models & miniatures, and compositing.

The VES Awards will presented Tuesday, Feb. 1, at the Beverly Hilton. They will air on Reelz Channel on Sat., Feb. 19.

Live-action feature film categories and nominees are listed below. For a full list of nominees, click here. For more information on the Visual Effects Society, click here.

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual-Effects Driven Feature Motion Picture

Inception
Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Mike Chambers, Matthew Plummer

Iron Man 2
Ben Snow, Ged Wright, Janek Sirrs, Susan Pickett

TRON: Legacy
Eric Barba, Lisa Beroud, Steve Preeg, Karl Denham

Alice In Wonderland
Ken Ralston, Tom Peitzman, David Schaub, Carey Villegas

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Tim Burke, Emma Norton, John Richardson

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature Motion Picture

Green Zone
Peter Chiang, Charlie Noble, Joss Williams, Matthew Plummer

SALT
Robert Grasmere, Camille Cellucci, Mark Breakspear, Ivan Moran

Hereafter
Michael Owens, Joel Mendias, Bryan Grill, Danielle Plantec

Black Swan
Dan Schrecker, Colleen Bachman, Michael Capton, Brad Kalinoski

Robin Hood
Richard Stammers, Allen Maris, Jessica Norman, Max Wood - CG Supervisor

Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture

Chronicles Of Narnia: Voyage Of The Dawn Treader – Reepicheep
Gabriele Zucchelli, Catherine Mullan, Benoit Dubuc, Peta Bayley

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 – Dobby
Mathieu Vig, Ben Lambert, Laurie Brugger, Marine Poirson

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore - Kitty Galore
William Groebe, Brian Mendenhall, Aharon Bourland, Steve Reding

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 - Kreacher
Laurent Laban, Will Brand, Matthieu Goutte, Jason Baker

Outstanding Created Environment in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture

Iron Man 2 - Stark Expo
Giles Hancock, Richard Bluff, Todd Vaziri, Aaron McBride

TRON: Legacy – Disc Game
Jonathan Litt, Juan S. Gomez, Kevin Sears, Sonja Burchard

Inception - Paris Dreamscape
Bruno Baron, Dan Neal, Graham Page, Per Mork-Jensen

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - Sand Room
Alex Rothwell, Chris Zeh, Laurent Hugueniot, Kevin Jenkins

Outstanding Models & Miniatures in a Feature Motion Picture

Shutter Island – Ward-C Int./Ext. Lighthouse Int./Ext.
Matthew Gratzner, Scott Schneider, Adam Gelbart, Richard A.F. Ewan

Iron Man 2 – Hammer Military Drones
Bruce Holcomb, Ron Woodall, John Goodson, John Walker

The Expendables - The Palace Explodes
Gene Warren Jr., Christopher Lee Warren, Gene Warren III

Inception - Hospital Fortress Destruction
Ian Hunter, Scott Beverly, Forest Fischer, Robert Spurlock

Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture

TRON: Legacy
Kym Olsen, Paul Lambert, Sarahjane Javelo Chase, Sonja Burchard

Alice In Wonderland - Stolen Tarts
Lisa Deaner, Orde Stevanoski, Aaron Kupferman, Ruben Flores

Inception
Astrid Busser-Casas, Scott Pritchard, Jan Maroske, George Zwier

Hereafter - Tsunami Sequence
Joseph Farrell, Nick Crew, Jamie Hallett, Christine Lo

A New Metaphor for 3D Stereo

2010-11-05T10:41:00.000-07:00

I have a new metaphor to describe the studio-driven push for 3D stereo films.

I've said, and many agree, that 3D is not part of the natural evolution of cinema, like sound and color were. 3D is a paintbrush in an artist's toolbox to help tell a story - and not all filmmakers require this tool to tell their stories.

3D stereo is like Cinemascope in the '50s. Widescreen film was introduced as a cinema-only alternative to television. The beautiful wide canvas was born as a new tool for storytellers, but not every film requires it. And some films are simply wrong for it.

Today, six decades after widescreen was introduced, some filmmakers are still using it. But it's not appropriate for all films.

So, what's the difference between 3D and widescreen? Studios can charge more for 3D, while widescreen movie ticket prices were never surcharged a premium. That's why it's being shoved down our throats by studio executives and producers.

"Back to the Future" and Eric Stoltz

2010-10-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

This is another follow-up post to our "Back To The Future" podcast on The VFX Show.

On the podcast, we discussed the early production troubles on the set of "Back to the Future," when the film's leading man, Eric Stoltz, was fired from the movie after five weeks of shooting. No film footage of Stoltz as Marty McFly has been seen by the public, until now. As part of the new 'making-of' documentary accompanying the upcoming Blu-Ray release of the film, we can finally get a glimpse of what the movie could have looked like with Stoltz in the lead role.

via The Hollywood Reporter: Eric Stoltz as the original Marty McFly

Sneak Peek

2010-08-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

Oh, my. What on earth am I doing? And why am I doing it?

"Back to the Future," Einstein Jump

2010-08-05T08:03:00.000-07:00

This is the first of several follow-up posts to our "Back To The Future" podcast on The VFX Show.

Here's an objective breakdown of "Back to the Future"'s first big effects sequence, the first time slice of the movie that sends Einstein the dog forwards in time.

Real photographic background plate of Delorean, with glows and time slice animation created by the animation department at Industrial Light & Magic.

The fire and sparks (and their reflections) were created on the set with special effects rigs attached to the Delorean.

A large strobe light on location provided bright interactive light. Full frame flashing was also achieved in the optical composite.

Hey, look in the upper left corner of the screen. Say hi to the crew!

Panning left with Delorean. The car is actually on the set, with animation and effects added optically.

The pan reveals bluescreen-photographed Marty and Doc. The actors were tracked and matted into the shot.

Pan abruptly stops, explosions and flares optically composited to represent time slice effect.

First visible frame of explosion element. The main explosion element has a faked reflection in the wet ground, achieved in the optical composite.

Explosion element runs backwards, giving the impression of an implosion. On-location, live-action ignition of fire trails appear, and are skip printed to appear to ignite much faster than reality would allow, approximating the feeling of 88mph.

Marty's foreground foot is rotoscoped to allow the fire trail to appear behind his leg.

The last frame of the shot.

In-camera effect, featuring on-set fire trails, using stunt performers.

This shot was skip printed in post production to give the ignition the feeling of greater velocity, giving the impression of the Delorean continuing its 88mph journey in a parallel dimension of time. As a result, the fire's motion is somewhat strobey.

Notice the relative exposure difference between this shot and the shots preceeding and following it. In this shot, the cinematographer exposed the film to feature the fire (or was underexposed in the colortiming or visual effects process), which reveals the internal structure of the fire. In the shots before and after, the actors and environment were the target exposure values; consequently, in those shots, the fire is blown out and overexposed, leaving only hot white fire shapes.

The first frame of the iconic Einstein time slice effect, featuring actors Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox. The actors were shot against a bluescreen, standing on a mirror. The mirror gave the effects artists pristine reflections of the actors; the reflections were matted to separate them from the actors, and treated in the composite to appear as wet, pavement reflections by adding displacement and tweaking the brightness.

Michael J. Fox's screen right foot was placed behind fire licks via frame-by-frame rotoscoping. Areas of fire were articulated to bury Fox's foot within the fire. Like the previous two shots, the background plate was skip printed to give the fire trails more energy and speed.

"What did I tell you?!?"

"Eighty eight miles per hour!!" This shot is entirely in-camera. The fire trails are a practical effect, just like all of the previous shots. In the sequence, the trails have been fully formed, and are no longer being generated; as a result, there was no need to skip print the trails for this shot.

In a future post, I hope to dissect the shots more thoroughly from a subjective point of view, and expand upon ideas Mark, Mike and I discussed on the podcast.

"Inception" Music Analysis

2010-07-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

Even those who didn't think "Inception" was a masterpiece must admit the film is rich, interesting, and worth talking about. Or, in the case of YouTube user "camiam321," meticulously analyzing the film's soundtrack.

Inception Music Comparison by "caiam321"

Spotted at The AVClub, "Great Job, Internet!: The secret of the Inception soundtrack."

update: Composer Hans Zimmer talks to The New York Times about his score.

The Clip Show, 2007

2010-07-28T08:10:00.000-07:00

There are a few new eyeballs visiting FXRant recently (hi!), and since I'm buried in work, and would like to show off some of the original articles I've written over the years, I think it's a good time to run a clip show!

Here are some highlights of original articles from 2007, excluding any self-promotional-esque filler material (like, wow, those effects in "Transfomers" were really aweseome, eh?). 2008 and 2009 will follow soon.

May 2007, "Appearing As Himself: Sam Elliott"
This is silly, but funny.

June 2007, "The 'Shouldabeen' Lois Lane"
Instead of Kate Bosworth, Bryan Singer should have cast Rashida Jones as Lois Lane.

June 2007, "'Ratatouille' and the Moving Camera"
Brad Bird is the best live-action director of animated features in the business.

July 2007, "Awful Movie Poster: 'Rumor Has It...'"
Bad movie, bad poster.

August 2007, "Fearmongering"
Do you have a fantasy of shooting children in the back? So do these guys.

October 2007, "Good, Thankless Effects: 'Stealth'" [and the introductory article]
Digital Domain makes pretty imagery for a bankrupt film.

November 2007, "Camera Shake Citation: 'The Sentinel'" [and the introductory article ]
Our very first ticket handed out for poor use of digital camera shake. Many more to come.

November 2007, "Movie Marketing is Hard! 'Beowulf' and '300'"
FXRant's most popular article, comparing the marketing of "Beowulf" and "300."

December 2007, "The Polluting Sky: 'Die Hard with a Vengeance'"
Analyzing an in-camera shot from "Die Hard 3," and how an overexposed sky affects the foreground.

"Back To The Future" and The VFX Show

2010-07-27T12:47:00.000-07:00

Recently, I had the pleasure of discussing the visual effects of the Robert Zemeckis classic, “Back to the Future” on The VFX Show podcast. Mike Seymour and Mark Christiansen and I spent nearly an hour discussing and dissecting not only the film itself, but the impressive visual effects, special effects and makeup work on the film.

The VFX Show - Mike Seymour, Todd Vaziri & Mark Christiansen
revisit “Back To The Future"
show #105, July 20, 2010
Tunes link \ The VFX Show on FXGuide (click download to listen to the mp3)

“Back to the Future” was an extremely influential movie for me. It’s the movie that inspired my passion of filmmaking, while the films of James Cameron opened my eyes to the possibilities and opportunities of visual effects. It was my privilege to appear on the show, and I want to thank Mike and Mark for inviting me.

I plan on posting some follow-up articles here on FXRant that expand upon some of the comments we made about the movie. Stay tuned.

More Genius from The Onion

2010-07-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

Here's some more on-the-nose satire from The Onion:

New Google Phone Service Whispers Targeted Ads Directly Into Users' Ears

I particularly love the jab at Yahoo! at the end of the piece.

Inception

2010-07-21T23:13:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Paul Franklin the entire team at Double Negative and New Deal Studios for their incredible visual effects work on Christopher Nolan's "Inception."

Additional kudos should be heaped upon the masterful cinematographer Wally Pfister, as well as the extraordinary work of Chris Corbould and his team of on-set special effects for creating several 'how-did-they-do-that' moments in the film.

Do Not Be Alarmed

2010-07-21T11:07:00.001-07:00

This photo combines three things I love: my hometown of Chicago, Michael Bay (the auteur behind 'splosions!!!), and The A.V. Club, possibly the finest website for film and television articles, discussion and criticism. Chicagoan Keith Phipps was driving around the city on July 20, and spotted this sign, indicating that "Transfomers 3" was shooting around the corner. Read The A.V. Club article for the logical meme-worthy cinematic equivalents of the phrase, "Do Not Be Alarmed." And make sure to read the article's comments-- there are some great ones in there.

photo by Keith Phipps

Tumbleweeds

2010-07-16T14:49:00.000-07:00

As the sad, demented souls who actually follow this blog have noticed (and God bless you demented souls), I haven’t been posting a lot lately. The easy way to describe this situation is with the old, tired, cliched excuse: “I’ve been really busy lately.” So I’m going to take the easy route and say exactly that.

At my day job at ILM, I spent the first half of the year working on “Iron Man 2,” where I was a sequence supervisor. Most of my time was spent working on the Stark Expo environment, which was well documented in Cinefex 122 (article by Jody Duncan). I’m really proud of the aerial shots of the Expo; a before-and-after photograph in the Cinefex article gives a good impression as to the extent of the work. Mr. Favreau seemed quite happy with the quality of the shots, which makes me and the team very happy. After “Iron Man 2” wrapped, I worked on a super-top-secret project that I can’t discuss. After that wrapped, I worked on another super-top-secret project that I can’t discuss. So, there’s that. And now I’ve just started on a film where the pace is incredibly intense.

In the meantime, I bought a house, moved to the new house, and sold the old house. So there’s that, too.

All this whining doesn’t mean that my enthusiasm for writing has waned, it’s just that it’s getting harder to carve out those magic moments to indulge in my obsessions of film and visual effects. I have about thirty half-written articles sitting in the ole’ Google Docs about everything from diopter lens shots, to continuity editing, Kubrick and Wells, deep focus vs. shallow focus, the debacle of the “Pirates”/”Matrix” sequels and what they can teach us about blockbuster filmmaking, reality versus cinematic reality, narrative setups and payoffs, and about a hundred half-written Camera Shake Police citations. And I want to get to all of it. It will just take time.

Speaking of time, I actually have spent some time cleaning up my personal website. There were an inordinate number of broken links to interviews and articles that I’ve since restored. (Thank you, Wayback Machine!)

So this was a long way of apologizing for the lack of ‘stuff,’ and a promise that more will eventually come.

And, as always, feel free to send me any questions you might have about the visual effects world, and if the question is something that the entire class might enjoy, I’ll answer it here on the blog. My email address is tvaziri@gmail.com.

Thanks, all, for your patience. You internet folks have been a great source of inspiration to me. You’ve all been really supportive of my writing, including way back to the early days of Visual Effects Headquarters. Thanks so much.

-todd

This Makes Me Happy

2010-05-24T15:22:00.000-07:00

As you may know, the amazing animated series "Futurama" is returning with new episodes on Comedy Central later this year, and they've been teasing the return with glimpses of the upcoming season. Here's one that turned up on the Comedy Central website:

Do I see a visual homage to one of 2009's biggest sci-fi hits?

I believe I do, and it makes me grin.

Hell Has Frozen Over

2010-05-19T10:00:00.001-07:00

After years of relentless begging and pleading from people who know what they're talking about, the visual effects branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has finally, finally approved the expansion of the number of nominees for the Academy Awards from three to five films.

With the overall quality of feature film visual effects achieving new heights over the past 20 years, this decision, while awesome, comes much too late. Far too many films that deserved visual effects nominations were left nomination-less because of the branch's bizarre devotion for three nomination slots.

The visual effects branch's decision needs to be approved by the Rules Committee and Board of Governors. Hopefully, this will mean that the 83rd Academy Awards will feature five nominees for Best Visual Effects. Finally.

It is unknown, at this time, what this will mean to the two-step procedure of determining the 'bake-off' roster, or to the 'bake-off' itself.

And what will this mean to The VFX Predictinator, our totally awesome formula that accurately predicted the visual effects Oscar winner across 21 years? It will require a serious overhaul, since many of the formulas are dependent on the assumption of three nominees. More likely than not, we'll have to come up with an all-new formula.

How Companies View Their Customers

2010-05-12T13:33:00.001-07:00

Want to be a jerk like this guy? If so, then Microsoft wants you as a customer.

Commercials are not simply conduits for product sales, they are a window into how the advertiser looks upon its customers. They reveal how companies really think about their consumers and how they will ultimately use their products. To illustrate the sometimes wildly different perspectives on advertisers' potential customers, let's analyze a few mobile phone commercials and see what they reveal about the company's attitudes toward the masses.

First up, a typical Apple iPhone commercial:

Apple iPhone, "Backpacker"

How Apple regards its potential customers: customers can use our product to easily find hotels, share your photos with your family, and help you learn a new language.

Next up, a Verizon commercial, trumpeting its 3G coverage:

Verizon "Big Red"

A fractured transcript:
• Browse the web much better (Verizon customer is supposedly posing for a sculpture, but is tapping away on her cell phone, the artist ultimately gets frustrated with her lack of focus, and she doesn't even notice when the sculpture is finished)
• Update Facebook pages better (kids on a camping trip are ignoring their father telling a scary story while playing with a phone)
• Ditch your boring job much better (a bellboy ignores his customers because he's having so much fun tapping on his phone)
• You'll watch YouTube on a horse... (um, yeah, that one is self-explanatory)
• Download stupid stuff much better

How Verizon regards its potential customers: Verizon customers can waste time, ignore their job, tune out from the normal world, be brats on camping trips, and, well, we'll just spell it out for them, "download stupid stuff" with our product.

Microsoft essentially says the same thing in this next ad.

Microsoft, "Meetings are Better with a Windows Phone"

Microsoft: "Want to be a douchebag, jerk-employee who wastes time in conferences on Facebook, and then tries to cover it up with an Excel spreadsheet? You should buy a Microsoft phone!"

If You Can't Make It Good, Make It 3D

2010-05-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

Yep, this pretty much sums it up from my perspective.

"If you can't make it good, make it 3D."
source

This is the Sports Report! (updated)

2010-05-06T15:42:00.000-07:00

Since, apparently, I have nothing better to do, here is an update to my "Sports Report!" compilation, featuring Stephen Colbert on "The Colbert Report" riffing air guitar (and, at times, an air orchestra) on his show. This video features all of Colbert's air-performances up to March 16, 2010.

View on YouTube

The original (which featured clips up until 7/20/09 is here.)

"Iron Man 2" Trailer

2010-03-21T15:13:00.000-07:00

The newest trailer for Jon Favreau's "Iron Man 2" has been released, and you can find it here, named Trailer 2. The movie comes out in theaters on May 7.

And here are some sample images from the trailer chosen by the brand new Randomizer '010™ software, featuring ArbitraryBoost vX.

21 Years in a Row

2010-03-12T20:10:00.000-08:00

As you may have heard, "Avatar" picked up the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, which extended the streak of The VFX Predictinator correctly predicting the winner of that category to its twenty-first year. In this post, we showed you our prediction for 2009:

The obvious response from someone who hasn't followed our work on the Predictinator is, "well, of course 'Avatar' won this category. It was a shoo-in." Well, maybe it was, but it illustrated that The VFX Predictinator works.

And The Oscar Goes To...

2010-03-11T16:58:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to everyone involved with James Cameron's "Avatar," winner of the Oscar for Achievement in Visual Effects at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards.

“Avatar”

Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones

"Avatar" Wins Big at the VES Awards

2010-03-05T19:31:00.000-08:00

From the Visual Effects Society:

Los Angeles, February 28, 2010 - The Visual Effects Society announced the winners of the 8th Annual VES Awards tonight at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, California. The annual event recognizes outstanding visual effects in more than twenty categories of film, animation, television, commercials and video games.

Filmmakers, producers and guests joined more than a thousand attendees from the visual effects industry for the sold-out gala which honored James Cameron with the VES Lifetime Achievement Award and Dr. Ed Catmull with the Georges Méliès Award for Pioneering.

Avatar was the evening’s big winner taking home six awards including Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Motion Picture. The animated feature film Up was honored with three awards including Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture.

The 2010 VES Awards will premiere on Friday, March 5 at 10pm ET/PT on REELZCHANNEL.

And here are all of the winners of the live-action feature film categories. (To see all the nominees, click here .) Congratulations to all the winners!

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Feature Motion Picture
AVATAR
Richard Baneham, Joyce Cox, Joe Letteri, Eileen Moran

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature Motion Picture
SHERLOCK HOLMES
Dan Barrow, Jonathan Fawkner, Chas Jarrett, David Vickery

Best Single Visual Effect of the Year
AVATAR- Neytiri Drinking
Thelvin Cabezas, Joyce Cox, Joe Letteri, Eileen Moran

Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture
AVATAR - Neytiri
Andrew R. Jones, Joe Letteri, Zoe Saldana, Jeff Unay

Outstanding Matte Paintings in a Feature Motion Picture
AVATAR - Pandora
Jean-Luc Azzis, Peter Baustaedter, Brenton Cottman, Yvonne Muinde

Outstanding Models and Miniatures in a Feature Motion Picture
AVATAR - Samson/Home Tree / Floating Mountains / Ampsuit
Simon Cheung, Paul Jenness, John Stevenson-Galvin, Rainer Zoettl

Outstanding Created Environment in a Feature Motion Picture
AVATAR - Jungle / Biolume
Shadi Almassizadeh, Jessica Cowley, Dan Cox, Ula Rademeyer, Eric Saindon

Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture
DISTRICT 9
Janeen Elliott, Simon Hughes, Hamish Schumacher, Shervin Shogian

For more information on the VES Awards, sponsorship and tickets, please visit www.visualeffectssociety.com.

Oscar Pool Ballot

2010-03-05T08:43:00.000-08:00

Having an Oscar party this weekend? Want to liven things up with a pool? If so, use this ballot I created for my Oscar party.

Every year I create a special ballot based on the oscar.com printable ballot -- but on my ballot, each category has a different point value. The highest valued category is "Best Picture," while the mainstream films' categories are valued at two points. The non-mainstream categories (like the documentary and short film categories) are valued at one point.

This way, in a tight race for the winner, the winner most likely would not be determined by the non-mainstream films (i.e., blind guesses).

To download the ballot, click here.

And if you're wondering why Tom Cruise is on my ballot... he's on every one of my Oscar ballots. Because he's soooo cool.

The VFX Predictinator, Part 4

2010-03-04T13:52:00.000-08:00

Just joining us? Please read "The VFX Predictinator Part 1", "Part 2" and "Part 3."

Finally, it's time to answer the two burning questions that result from the creation of the 100% accurate-for-20-years VFX Predictinator. First, can the Predictinator be tweaked and used to predict other categories? And second, which film will bring home Oscar for visual effects this year according to the Predictinator?

Could this formula, or at least the ideas behind the formula, work for predicting other categories? In fact, I think this formula, with some tweaking, could work very well in the other 'craftsman'-type categories, particularly the sound and sound effects editing Oscar, since expensive, well-made, and popular films are usually nominated in the sound categories.

However, I cannot say the same for acting categories, writing or directing, or even cinematography and editing. There is no way to predict the randomness of a breakthrough performance or a particular film. I mean, Marisa Tomei won an Oscar for a Joe Pesci comedy. Who could have predicted that? And a non-winning "American Idol" contestant (Jennifer Hudson) won an Oscar for "Dreamgirls" in her very first film performance. What quantifiable data could possibly support that prediction? On the same wavelength, who could have predicted the awards success of 2004's "Crash," directed by Paul Haggis? Certainly when a filmmaker like Eastwood, Spielberg or Scorsese is in the running, their quantifiable chances certainly improve, since they have a significant body of work that can be numerically tracked (for acclaim, box office, etc). There simply exist far too many chances for breakthrough Academy Award victories, which makes numerically predicting them virtually impossible.

And now, it's time to reveal the Predictinator values of the 2009 contenders for the Academy Award for visual effects. And the nominees are "Avatar," "District 9," and "Star Trek." Let's see what the Predictinator thinks:

As you can see, "Avatar" ended up with a Predictinator score of 8.03, with "District 9" geetting 6.36, and "Star Trek" earning 4.61.

The 2009 films share, unlike most years, near-universal love from the critics. All three films earned over 82% on the Tomatometer, which hasn't happened since 1995, when both "Babe" and "Apollo 13" earned rave reviews. But that's where the similarities between this year's three nominees end. The box office tally was overwhelmingly dominated by the cultural phenomenon that was "Avatar." It also earned heavy points in the Month of Release criteria (December) and additional Oscar nominations (9 total).

"District 9" puts up a good fight against "Avatar" on two significant fronts, since the films both shared organic characters as their primary visual effects, and both featured facial acting amongst those characters. But the other important criteria gives "Avatar" a Predictinator-predicted victory.

Of course, we'll revisit the Predictinator's success after the Oscars on March 7, and see if its streak of accuracy can be continued into its 21st consecutive year. And here it is.

The VFX Predictinator, Part 3

2010-02-23T06:22:00.000-08:00

Just joining us? Please read "The VFX Predictinator Part 1" and "Part 2"

Let's summarize the criteria that make up our formula that correctly predicts the winner of the Academy Award for visual effects:

Critical Acclaim
Domestic Box Office
Academy Nominations
Month of Release
Sequel Score
Previous Sequel Was Oscar Winner
Primary VFX Are Creatures
Facial Animation Acting
Lead Actor Prestige

And here are the numerical guts of the formula:

(((RT Score/ Sum of all noms' RT Score) X 5)^2) + (BO (millions)/ BO Total of all noms) + (Academy Noms (only if 4 or more) X .25) + (((Month of Release / Total Month of Release) X 2.5)^2)* + (Sequel = -.5) + (Prior Sequel won Oscar = -1) + (Primary FX organic creatures = 1) + (Primary organic creatures include facial acting = .75) + (Lead Actor an Academy Award Winner = 1) = Final VFX Predictinator Score

*value has an upper limit of 1

Huh? You might be thinking, that's an awfully complicated way to manipulate the data. Yes, it uses odd comparative values that are multiplied by random numbers and then squared. Yes, we've assigned arbitrary values to various criteria. And, yes, we don't write formulas for a living, which probably explains a lot. Needlessly complex? Probably. 100% accurate? Definitely.

The Data
Before I list all 20 years' worth of nominees and their scores, proving that the formula works, I need to remind myself of something my wife told me when she originally saw Part 2 of my analysis from 2008. I believe she said, "that's a gigantic, boring mess of charts. I don't think anyone is actually looking at all those. Don't do that next time." She was right. If you're interested, click on the images below, which show our data for 20 years of analysis. Below the images, we'll highlight a few individual competitions, and see how the formula really works.

Now that you've seen all the data, let's take a closer look at some case studies.

Case Study: Blowout Years
Let's look at a couple of instances where the Oscar winning film's Predictinator score was far above its competition. A blowout year was 2001, when "Fellowship of the Ring" won the Oscar with a Predictinator score of 11.6, with its counterparts "A.I." and "Pearl Harbor" earning 4.2 and 2.0 respectively. Tipping the scales for "Fellowship" was its staggering amount of additional Oscar nominations, its month of release, and its very high Tomatometer rating (92% vs. "Pearl's" 25%). Similarly, in 1997, "Lost World" and "Starship Troopers" (with scores of 1.6 and 4.4, respectively) didn't have a chance against the winner "Titanic" (with a score of 9.7). The James Cameron film had a lot going for it - box office, acclaim, 14 Oscar nominations, and a late release date. In 1991, Cameron's "Terminator 2" won with a score of 10.0, while its competition "Hook" (3.9) and "Backdraft" (3.7) didn't stand a chance. "T2" had enormous box office, acclaim, character animation, and additional Oscar nominations, and won even though it was a sequel.

Case Study: Close Calls
What about the years in which the Predictinator scores were neck-and-neck? A narrow margin of victory existed in 1995, when "Babe" (11.1) narrowly beat "Apollo 13," (10.5). The films were fairly evenly matched throughout all criteria, with similar critical acclaim, month of release, but "Apollo" had stronger box office, and a lead actor who already one an acting Oscar. Pushing the family friendly kid movie into victory was the fact that its primary effects were character-based, and also included extensive facial animation.

A three-way close call took place in 1999, when all three nominees were strong contenders. All three films had strong numbers, with "Stuart Little" and "Star Wars Episode I" faring stronger than "The Matrix" with their character animation points-- "The Matrix" even had to deal with a March release, killing it in the Month of Release category. However, "The Matrix" eeked out a win with a stronger Tomatometer score, and more additional Academy Award nominations than its contenders.

And what about possibly the most controversial year of all, the year where "Golden Compass" (4.98) toppled "Transformers" (4.91)? As you can probably guess, their Predictinator scores were one of the closest battles in the 20 years of analysis. While "Transformers" had the edge in acclaim and box office, "Compass" had the slight advantage of a later release date, and a significant advantage that its primary effects were character-based and featured facial animation. (Or it could just be that some members of the Academy have 'issues' with Michael Bay.)

Case Study: Tough Years
There were some 'tough' years, too. By 'tough,' I mean years where the Predictinator was put through the ringer, testing its validity. We focused our attention on these 'tough' years carefully, tweaking the formula until it clinched the correct victory.

1996 proved to be quite difficult to land "Independence Day" on top. While the Roland Emmerich film had a strong box office helping its numbers, "Dragonheart" was hot on its tail with character animation and CG facial animation, two strong criteria in which "ID4" had zero points. And in 2006, "Superman Returns" had extremely strong numbers (with a strong Tomatometer score and solid box office). Its primary competition was "Pirates 2," which rendered weak scores on the Tomatometer, but was narrowly buoyed by character animation and facial character animation. 2006 illustrated the power of the critical acclaim criteria within the formula, and how it nearly allowed "Superman Returns" to topple "Pirates 2." And, as previously mentioned in Part 2, it was difficult to 'get' "What Dreams May Come" to win in 1998, and "Death Becomes Her" to win in 1992.

The Predictinator nearly let "Superman Returns" win the Oscar over "Pirates 2."

What It All Means
This is how it all boils down: the VFX Predictinator will guarantee an Academy Award win if the film is critically acclaimed, is a huge box office hit, grabs several additional Oscar nominations, and is released late in the calendar year. It can't be a sequel and it must contain lots of organic character work that includes facial performance. Oh, and the lead should probably have an acting Oscar under his belt. Easy, right?

This, however, is a fairly obvious conclusion. What makes the Predictinator interesting is not solely the criteria itself, but the assigning of weight and value to each piece of criteria. The heavy weight of performance-based, organic characters, actor prestige, and critical acclaim, and Oscar nominations match the subjective values of the heavily actor-based Academy. It truly is an honor to be nominated by your peers in the visual effects community, but to win the Oscar, your film needs to be loved by actors who enjoy (and wish to reward) lively character-based visual effects.

Two questions now arise from this analysis. One, could this formula, or at least the ideas behind the formula, work for predicting other categories? Secondly, what are the scores of the 2009 Academy Award nominees for Achievement in Visual Effects, and which film does The VFX Predictinator predict will take home Oscar gold? We'll find out in Part 4. And here is Part 4.

And the Nominees Are...

2010-02-02T08:28:00.000-08:00

Here are the nominees for Best Visual Effects for the 82nd Academy Awards:

“Avatar”

Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones

"District 9"
Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken

“Star Trek”
Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanaugh, Burt Dalton

The VFX Predictinator, Part 2

2010-01-26T20:14:00.000-08:00

Just joining us? Please read "The VFX Predictinator Part 1."

So, how could anyone accurately predict the winner of the visual effects Academy Award using known, quantifiable data? My wife’s little idea suddenly became an obsession. We analyzed the last 20 years of Oscar nominees and winners and started playing with various quantifiable pieces of data and tried to find (or create) some sort of logical narrative behind Academy voters’ choices. What causes the over 6,000 Academy voters to choose these films? What influences these voters?

Critical Acclaim and Box Office
A consensus of critical acclaim from movie critics and strong domestic box office gross both play a significant role in the film's victory. These were the two bits of criteria that drove my first wave of research, and although these criteria did not prove to be slam dunks, the data illustrated that stronger films were more likely to win the Oscar. We recorded acclaim with the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, which gauges acclaim on a percentage scale. Our earliest year of analysis is 1989, since beyond that year, we felt like the aggregate Tomatometer score begins to weaken due to fewer reviews in their pool. For box office tally, we looked at the film's final domestic box office gross (from boxofficemojo.com), and assigned each film a box office value relative sum of each year's nominees, to reduce inflationary discrepancies.

The strong critical acclaim for 2000's "Gladiator" gave it a strong advantage relative to its fellow visual effects Oscar nominees "The Perfect Storm" and "The Hollow Man," which both earned much lower Tomatometer scores.

The Tomatometer point value was weighted more heavily than box office as acclaim is a much better indicator of who will win the Oscar (see my previous work at predicting the Oscar for more discussion on this topic).

Additional Academy Nominations
We noticed that films that ride a wave of additional Academy Award nominations grab the gold for visual effects more frequently. Generally speaking, if a film with technically well-done effects (yet comparatively unremarkable or un-groundbreaking) ends up with a boatload of additional Oscar nominations for acting, directing, or art direction, more likely than not, Academy voters will jump on the bandwagon muttering to themselves "well, that movie got 12 nominations, so the effects must be pretty good! I'll vote for it!" The most extreme example occurred in 2000, where the effects Oscar went to "Gladiator" (which earned 12 total nominations that year), rather than "The Perfect Storm" or "The Hollow Man" (which earned 2 and 1 nominations, respectively). The most lopsided year in this category of criterion was 1997, where "Titanic," the winner of the Oscar, earned 14 total Academy nominations that year, while its competition, "Starship Troopers" and "The Lost World" earned only one nomination each. If a film earned four or more Oscar nominations, we assigned it a point value.

"Gladiator" was nominated for twelve Academy Awards in 2000, while its two fellow nominees earned a total of three nominations.

Month of Release
Producers of 'prestige' pictures--films that are generally regarded as 'important' and Oscar-worthy--know exactly the best time to distribute their films. A film debuting in the fall, particularly November and December, will be in the forefront of Academy voters' minds. With their film fresh in their memory, producers have a much better chance of nabbing Oscar nominations and wins, versus the same film (with the same acclaim) released in February or March. With this evidence, we decided to include the calendar month of release to the formula. For example, we noticed that in each of the "Lord Of The Rings" film victories, the movies defeated films that were exclusively released in the summer; the "Lord of the Rings" movies were each released in December. We assigned point values to nominees' month of release, with films later in the calendar year earning a higher value.

Sequels and Oscar-Winning Predecessors
What about battling the 'been there, done that' attitude of Academy voters? In looking at past visual effects Oscar winners, we noticed that sequels to films had a slight disadvantage in voting. The Academy may feel a sequel's effects were good enough to get a nomination, but decided against voting for it since, generally, sequels tread on familiar, well-tested ground. For example, "The Lost World," may have suffered from this issue, since voters may have thought, "well, didn't they do convincing dinosaurs in the first film? I don't want to reward a retread." In addition, we noticed that sequels whose predecessor actually won the Oscar for visual effects also had a slight statistical disadvantage. 2007's "Pirates 3" had the double disadvantage of not only being a sequel, but a sequel to a film that previously won the Oscar. The year this criterion made the greatest impact was 1992, where "Batman Returns" and "Alien 3" lost the gold to non-sequel "Death Becomes Her." Both of the losing films were sequels, and "Alien 3" took an extra hit since its predecessor, "Aliens," won the effects Oscar in 1986. For these two categories, we assigned negative point values.

Up until this point, I've been listing 100% quantifiable, undeniable criteria to help drive our formula. But to push the formula further into the realm of invincibility, we had to come up with two more criteria that aren't 100% quantifiable, and may be controversial. We labored over these final two pieces of criteria, and pared them down to the most barest of definitions. Let's dive in!

Trevor Wood, Ben Morris, Bill Westenhofer and Mike Fink with their Academy Award for "The Golden Compass."

Organic Creatures and Facial Animation
Looking at the Oscar winners over the past 20 years, a specific trend is undeniable. The visual effects Oscar goes to a film that features synthetic, organic characters. This phenomenon became much more significant in the post-"Jurassic Park" era, where advances in computer graphics allowed filmmakers to tell extraordinary stories with fully animated characters that play a significant role in the narrative. We asked of each film: does the movie's primary visual effects consist of organic creatures? And, as a second piece of criterion, if so, does the film contain CG facial animation, i.e. organic acting?

Can you see where this is going? "Babe" beat out "Apollo 13;" talking barnyard animals trump space travel. "Fellowship of the Ring" won over "Pearl Harbor;" Balrogs and cave trolls trump exploding airplanes. "Benjamin Button" tops "The Dark Knight;" CG human trumps miniature car chases. And, most significantly, "The Golden Compass" topples "Transformers;" talking polar bears trump robots made of metal and chrome. Academy voters have a strong preference in voting for films with organic creature effects, particularly with facial acting performances, rather than films whose visual effects surround action set pieces, extraordinary environments, or digital stunt work. We awarded films a point value for these two criteria.

Even with all of these fairly accurate criteria under our microscope, we still had a problem accurately predicting certain years' competitions. "Death Becomes Her's" 1992 win and "What Dreams May Come's" 1998 win were naggingly baffling. Even though "Death" was not a sequel like its competition (giving it a slight edge), it suffered at the box office compared to fellow nominee "Batman Returns," especially with the 1-2 punch of "Batman's" huge box office and strong critical acclaim. Similarly, in 1998, "What Dreams" had strong statistical competition with "Mighty Joe Young." Both films had nearly identical box office and critical acclaim, but "MJY" had an edge with its organic creature work while "What Dreams" primarily had environmental visual effects.

We had a difficult time crafting a formula that correctly predicted "What Dreams May Come" getting the Oscar over "Armageddon" and "Mighty Joe Young." And then, Robin Williams showed us the way.

Lead Actor with an Academy Award
What made "Death" and "What Dreams" special? We came to the realization that these films had something in common most visual effects films don't have: lead actors with some serious performing prestige. Both Meryl Streep and Robin Williams, leads in "Death" and "What Dreams," previously won acting Oscar statuettes. This is a fairly rare occurrence for visual effects films. When looking through visual effects nominated films through the last 20 years, you frequently see lead actors of serious stature (Johnny Depp, Robert Downey Jr., Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum) but very rarely will you see a lead actor with an Academy Award under its belt. In fact, the phenomenon only occurred seven times among sixty nominated films. We created the criterion, 'Has the lead actor previously won an acting Academy Award?', and gave it a point value.

Meryl Streep's presence in "Death Becomes Her, might have given Academy voters one more reason to vote for the film.

Adding this last bit of criterion helped "Death" and "What Dreams" defeat its competition; the thought is Academy voters may have been swayed by the presence of Streep and Williams in those films. Or it could have been a desperate attempt to skew the data so our formula became fool-proof. Or, maybe it's a little of both.

For each year of analysis (1989-2008), we added the point values of each nominee, and the film with the largest point value became 'our pick' for the winner of the Academy Award. And in each and every year from 1989 to 2008, the 'our pick' was, indeed, the winner of the Oscar.

In Part 3, we'll summarize our findings, and give you a look at how the formula works. The formula that correctly predicted the winner of the visual effects Oscar for twenty out of the last twenty years. Read Part 3.

The VFX Predictinator, Part 1

2010-01-23T14:52:00.000-08:00

Avid readers of this site may have noticed a curious omission during last year's awards season. I didn't run the numbers to try and predict which film would win the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

In early 2008, I took an exhaustive (and exhausting) look at the previous 23 years of visual effects nominees and tried to determine what was a better predictor of the film that wins the Oscar: critical acclaim or box office popularity. (If you're interested in all of the explanations and data, be sure to read the full articles, "Predicting the VFX Oscar Part 1," which has links to Parts 2 through 5.)

Here is a brief summary for those who need to catch up. I've always wondered if there exists a statistical relationship between the winner of the visual effects Academy Award and some sort of quantifiable criteria which informs the Academy's voting. I wondered if one could accurately predict which nominee wins the award. And, most importantly, which is the more accurate predictor of the visual effects Oscar - critical acclaim or box office success?

And please keep in mind that this is a game of prediction; this process does not take into account the actual quality or achievement of each years' nominees. We are looking at Academy voting trends, and what criteria influences Academy voters' choices.

Analysis of 23 years of Academy Award nominees for Best Visual Effects brought me to this conclusion: critical acclaim is generally a better predictor of the winner of the Academy Award than box office popularity. And, to state the obvious, this theory surmises that critical acclaim (which initially drives the wave of publicity, such as "For Your Consideration" advertisements, Oscar "buzz," and the self-fulfilling prophecy of "If people are saying it's Oscar-worthy, then it must be Oscar-worthy") ultimately informs Academy voters and influences their vote.

For the 80th Academy Awards, I ran the numbers (in Part 4), and the data overwhelmingly indicated that "Transformers" would bring home the gold. The silly giant robot film had the greatest critical acclaim (a modest 57% on the Tomatometer, but still higher than its competitors) and earned the most money at the box office (barely edging out "Pirates 3" but destroying "The Golden Compass"). In addition, in eleven years of the 23 years charted the film that earned the most acclaim and box office won the Oscar ten times. Armed with this ammunition, I felt pretty confident predicting "Transformers" would bring home the gold. Of course, I-- and the rest of the moviegoing world-- was a bit stunned with "The Golden Compass" win.

Huh?

Not only did my prediction fall flat on its face, but my heart was broken (not because I'm particularly fond of shiny robots, but because I was a sequence supervisor at ILM for the film). The "Transformers" loss left my theory dead.

As the 81st Academy Awards nominations were announced, I had a sinking feeling that the theory would fall apart yet again. The three nominees for the Oscar were "The Dark Knight," "Iron Man" and "Benjamin Button." Looking at the numbers, all three films earned some fairly solid acclaim ("Dark Knight" earned 94% on the Tomatometer, "Iron Man" earned 93% and "Button" garnered 72%), and although "Dark Knight" destroyed at the box office, they each made a respectable amount of money ($513, $318 and $125 million, respectively). According to the numbers, with its domination of the box office and the highest amount of critical acclaim (by a hair), "The Dark Knight" should have wrapped up the statuette.

As we drew closer to the awards, I realized it was not meant to be. The stinging, theory-destroying win of "The Golden Compass" would probably be repeated, with "Button," the least acclaimed nominee and the least earning film winning the Oscar. (On a personal note, I actually felt that "Button" deserved the Oscar by a hair, just slightly more than "Dark Knight." But to quote Clint Eastwood in "Unforgiven," 'deserve's got nothin' to do with it.')

So I decided not to run the numbers and not write up a blog post. Ultimately, I feel somewhat vindicated since my fears came true; "Button" won the award, once again foiling my theory that the film with the most amount of critical acclaim has the best chance of winning the award.

Just before the Oscars, I heard through the grapevine that my humble "Predict The Oscar" methodology was mentioned on The VFX Show podcast, show #68, from February 13, 2009. As an aside - thanks, guys, for the mention! When my wife heard about FXRant's mention on an actual, respected podcast, her immediate response was "Wow, somebody actually reads your blog? And then talked about it?!" Later, after thinking about it for a few moments, she said, "You know, you're doing this all wrong."

"Doing what all wrong?" I asked.

She said that I was looking for correlation between statistics and the ultimate winner of the Academy Award-- and getting upset when the correlation breaks between the data and reality. A far more interesting exercise would be to devise a formula to actually predict the winner, based on quantifiable, known criteria. We could look at several years' worth of data, craft a series of calculations based on certain values, and weight those values accordingly to skew the formula in the right direction.

She, like always, was correct.

After analyzing the data and looking for the trends in the winning films, we added several new criteria and weighted the criteria until we hit paydirt. Using nine carefully weighted scores, we devised a formula which was able to predict the visual effects Academy Award winner with a strong degree of accuracy.

How strong?

In 20 years of Academy Awards data, the formula is 100% accurate. It correctly predicted the winner of the visual effects Academy Award every single year. We're calling the formula The VFX Predictinator.

Stay tuned for Part 2 coming soon! It will be worthy of these exclamation points! Trust me!

And now... here's Part 2!

More About ILM and "Avatar"

2010-01-22T16:27:00.000-08:00

Thank you so much to everyone who wrote me with kind words on our VES Award nomination. Even though there are four names associated with the nomination for Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture (Jay Cooper, Beth D'Amato, Eddie Pasquarello and Todd Vaziri), the nod belongs to the entire ILM team that worked on "Avatar." Our ILM work for the film was also nominated for Best Single Visual Effect of the Year, for the Quaritch Escape (Jill Brooks, John Knoll, Frank Losasso Petterson and Tory Mercer).

The full credits for the film are here: Avatar: How Many People Does It Take To Make A Movie?, from the Birmingham Sunday Mercury, where you'll see the full visual effects credits for Weta Digital, ILM, Framestore, Prime Focus, Hybride, hy*drau"lx, Buf, Lola Visual Effects, Look Effects, Pixel Liberation Front, and Spy Post. Putting this ambitious film together took the skill, artistry and talent of hundreds upon hundreds of individuals, as you'll see when you read through the credits.

Who do the ILM nominations belong to? The folks listed below: the ILM team for "Avatar."

Visual Effects & Animation by
INDUSTRIAL LIGHT & MAGIC
A Lucasfilm Ltd. Company

ILM Visual Effects Supervisor JOHN KNOLL
ILM Animation Supervisor PAUL KAVANAGH
ILM Visual Effects Producer JILL BROOKS
Digital Production Supervisor MICHAEL DICOMO
Compositing Supervisor EDDIE PASQUARELLO
CG Supervisors PAT CONRAN PHILIPPE REBOURS DAVID WEITZBERG
Digital Matte Supervisor RICHARD BLUFF
Digital Model Supervisors DAVE FOGLER BRUCE HOLCOMB
Viewpaint Supervisor RON WOODALL
Creature Supervisor KARIN COOPER
Layout Supervisor JOHN LEVIN
Roto and Paint Supervisor BETH D'AMATO

Sequence Supervisors
JAY COOPER, THOMAS FEJES, JEN HOWARD, TORY MERCER, MARK NETTLETON, GREG SALTER, ROBERT WEAVER

Digital Artists Leads
FRANCOIS ANTOINE, JASON BILLINGTON, YANICK DUSSEAULT, CHRIS FOREMAN, CHRISTOPHER HORVATH, FRANK LOSASSO PETTERSON, JOHN SIGURDSON, JIM SOUKUP, TODD VAZIRI, DAN WHEATON

Digital Artists
JOAKIM ARNESSON, JEREMY BLOCH, AMANDA BRAGGS, TRIPP BROWN, CATHERINE BURROW, KELA CABRALES, MICHAELA CALANCHINI CARTER, JEREMY CANTOR, TAMI CARTER, LANNY CERMAK, GRADY COFER, MIKE CONTE, MICHAEL CORDOVA, TIM DOBBERT, SELWYN EDDY III, CONNY FAUSER, SIMON FILLAT, SHINE FITZNER, BRIAN FLYNN, TIM FORTENBERRY, MARIA GOODALE, DAVID GOTTLIEB, GILES HANCOCK, TREVOR HAZEL, SHERRY HITCH, PEG HUNTER, JIRI JACKNOWITZ, PATRICK JARVIS, RYAN L. JONES, KIMBERLY LASHBROOK, ASIER LAVINA, HILMAR KOCH, MARSHALL KRASSER, DAVID MARSH, TIA MARSHALL, MARCEL MARTINEZ, KENT MATHESON, JOSEPH METTEN, CARLOS MONZON, DAVID MORRIS, TIM MUELLER, MYLES MURPHY, DAVID NAKABAYASHI, MARLA NEWALL, BEN O'BRIEN, AKIRA ORIKASA, COS¸ KU ÖZDEMIR, SCOTT PRIOR, EDWARD QUINTERO, MICHAEL RICH, ANTHONY RISPOLI, SHANE ROBERTS, ELSA RODRIGUEZ, BARRY SAFLEY, JEFF SALTZMAN, STEVE SAUERS, JERRY SELLS, JOE STEVENSON, FLORIAN STROBL, ALAN TRAVIS, YUSEI UESUGI, NOAH VICE, KELLY WALSH, DAVID WASHBURN, TALMAGE WATSON, SCOTT YOUNKIN, DEAN YÜRKE, RITA ZIMMERMAN

Animators
JEREMY CANTOR, JEAN-DENIS HAAS, ALEX LEE, ERIK MORGANSEN, STEVE RAWLINS, GREG TOWNER, TIM WADDY, ANDY WONG, JOHN ZDANKIEWICZ

Digital Models and Simulation
LEIGH BARBIER, ANDY BUECKER, DAVID DEUBER, KALENE DUNSMOOR, CHRIS EVANS, CHRIS HAVREBERG, KELVIN LAU, SEUNGHUN LEE, GREG MAGUIRE, SCOTT MAY, STEVE SAUERS, AARON WILSON

Visual Effects Editor JIM MILTON
Production Coordinators STACY BISSELL, MARISSA GOMES
Production Assistants KAT BACHERT, LEE BRIGGS
Production Support MELISSA DE SANTIS, PETER LEBER, MIKE McCABE, PETER NICOLAI, JULIAN SALVADOR, JEROME SOLOMON, MARCI VELANDO, KEVIN WONG
Technical Support SEAN BITTINGER, CHANTELL BROWN, KAI CHANG, RAYMOND CHOU, GEORGE GAMBETTA, SHAHZAD KHAN, FRANKIE KWAK, SAM PENROSE, JESSICA RIEWE
Research & Development AARON ELDER, RONALD MALLET, ROBERT MOLHOLM, JOHN OLMSTEAD, POITR STANCZYK, STEVE SULLIVAN
ILM Executive Producer GRETCHEN LIBBY
ILM Senior Staff LYNWEN BRENNAN, CHRISSIE ENGLAND, CURT MIYASHIRO

ILM's Space Jump from "Star Trek"

2010-01-22T12:29:00.000-08:00

Image From the Millimeter Magazine article about ILM's work on "Star Trek."

Post Magazine recently published a nice little video, giving audiences a brief glimpse into the work that Industrial Light & Magic created for "Star Trek"'s space jump sequence. The video includes some breakdowns of ILM shots, and features our visual effects supervisor Roger Guyett, our associate supervisor Eddie Pasquarello, and our animation director Paul Kavanaugh.

I was thrilled to contribute to a few key shots in this exciting sequence. The work was brilliantly sequence supervised by Jay Cooper and Francois Lambert.

Go watch the video! Now! (Wouldn't this video look great on a website, like, say, oh, ilm.com?)

VES Announces Nominations for 8th VES Awards

2010-01-19T14:38:00.000-08:00

Here's the press release sent out by the Visual Effects Society, announcing their nominees for the 8th Annual VES Awards.

"Avatar" earned 11 nominations (from 8 live-action feature film categories). Other multiple nominees include "2012" and "District 9" with 3 nominations each, and "Star Trek," "Terminator: Salvation" and "Sherlock Holmes" grabbing 2 nominations each.

What follows is an edited list of nominees, listing live-action feature film categories only.

-todd

VES Announces Nominees for 8th Annual VES Awards
Los Angeles, January 19, 2010 - The Visual Effects Society (VES) today announced the nominees for the 8th Annual VES Awards ceremony recognizing outstanding visual effects artistry in over twenty categories of film, animation, television, commercials and video games. Nominees were chosen Saturday, January 16, 2010, by numerous blue ribbon panels of VES members who viewed submissions at the FotoKem screening facilities in Burbank and San Francisco as well as at other facilities in London, Sydney and Vancouver.

“The Visual Effects Society is proud to present these nominations as the most outstanding work in the field this year,” said Jeffrey A. Okun, Chair of the Visual Effects Society. “It’s important to keep in mind that it wasn’t machines that created these images but incredibly talented artists. We congratulate them all and look forward to seeing who is chosen as the best of the best at the awards show in February.”

As previously announced, this year James Cameron will be honored with the VES Lifetime Achievement Award and Dr. Ed Catmull with the Georges Méliès Award for pioneering.

The 8th Annual VES Awards will take place on Feb. 28, 2010, at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, CA.

The nominees for the 8th Annual VES Awards for live-action feature film categories are the following (click here for full list):

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Feature Motion Picture
2012
Volker Engel, Josh Jaggars, Marc Weigert
AVATAR
Richard Baneham, Joyce Cox, Joe Letteri, Eileen Moran
DISTRICT 9
Stefanie Boose, Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, James Stewart
STAR TREK
Burt Dalton, Russell Earl, Roger Guyett, Shari Hanson
TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN
Scott Benza, Wayne Billheimer, Scott Farrar, John Frazier

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature Motion Picture
ANGELS & DEMONS
Angus Bickerton, Mark Breakspear, Ryan Cook, Barrie Hemsley
THE BOX
Peter Cvijanovic, Mark Kolpak, Olcun Tan, Thomas Tannenberger
INVICTUS
Geoff Hancock, Dennis Hoffman, Cyndi Ochs, Michael Owens
THE ROAD
Mark O. Forker, Paul Graff, Ed Mendez, Phillip Moses
SHERLOCK HOLMES
Dan Barrow, Jonathan Fawkner, Chas Jarrett, David Vickery

Best Single Visual Effect of the Year
2012 - Escape from L.A.
Volker Engel, Josh R. Jaggars, Mohen Leo, Marc Weigert
AVATAR - Quarich's Escape
Jill Brooks, John Knoll, Frank Losasso Petterson, Tory Mercer
AVATAR- Neytiri Drinking
Thelvin Cabezas, Joyce Cox, Joe Letteri, Eileen Moran
KNOWING - Plane Crash
Dan Breckwoldt, Camille Cellucci, Andrew Jackson, Angelo Sahin
TERMINATOR SALVATION - VLA Escape
Chantal Feghali, Charles Gibson, Susan Greenhow, Ben Snow

Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture
AVATAR - Neytiri
Andrew R. Jones, Joe Letteri, Zoe Saldana, Jeff Unay
DISTRICT 9 - Christopher Johnson
Brett Ineson, Jeremy Mesana, Steve Nichols, Vera Zivny
G-FORCE - Bucky
Benjamin Cinelli, Peter Tieryas, Dustin Wicke, Ryan Yee
WATCHMEN - Doctor Manhattan
Aaron Campbell, Kevin Hudson, Victor Schutz, Keith Smith

Outstanding Matte Paintings in a Feature Motion Picture
AVATAR - Pandora
Jean-Luc Azzis, Peter Baustaedter, Brenton Cottman, Yvonne Muinde
FRANKLYN - Meanwhile City Scapes
Tania Richard, Christoph Unger
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE
David Bassalla, Emily Cobb, Tania Richard
STAR TREK
Brett Northcutt, Shane Roberts, Masahiko Tani, Dan Wheaton

Outstanding Models and Miniatures in a Feature Motion Picture
AVATAR - Samson/Home Tree / Floating Mountains / Ampsuit
Simon Cheung, Paul Jenness, John Stevenson-Galvin, Rainer Zoettl
CORALINE
Deborah Cook, Matthew DeLeu, Paul Mack, Martin Meunier
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN - National Air and Space Museum Escape
Robert Chapin, Tony Chen, Forest Fischer, Ian Hunter
TERMINATOR SALVATION-Practical Models and Miniatures
Nick d'Abo, Brian Gernand, Geoff Heron, Patrick Sweeney

Outstanding Created Environment in a Feature Motion Picture
2012 - Los Angeles Destruction
Haarm-Pieter Duiker, Marten Larsson, Ryo Sakaguchi, Hanzhi Tang
AVATAR - Floating Mountains
Dan Lemmon, Keith F. Miller, Cameron Smith
AVATAR - Jungle / Biolume
Shadi Almassizadeh, Jessica Cowley, Dan Cox, Ula Rademeyer, Eric Saindon
AVATAR - Willow Glade
Thelvin Cabezas, Miae Kang, Daniel Macarin, Guy Williams

Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture
AVATAR
Erich Eder, Robin Hollander, Giuseppe Tagliavini, Erik Winquist
AVATAR - End Battle
Jay Cooper, Beth D'Amato, Eddie Pasquarello, Todd Vaziri
DISTRICT 9
Janeen Elliott, Simon Hughes, Hamish Schumacher, Shervin Shogian
SHERLOCK HOLMES - Wharf Explosion Sequence
Jan Adamczyk, Alex Cumming, Sam Osborne, Kate Windibank,

For more information on the VES Awards, sponsorship and tickets, please visit www.visualeffectssociety.com.

"Avatar" and ILM

2010-01-19T10:10:00.000-08:00

Hi, folks. Here's my big "Avatar" post, and there will probably be a few more about James Cameron's film in the coming weeks.

The overwhelming global box office dominance of "Avatar" continues, and with it, more stories about the process of creating the world of Pandora and its inhabitants are hitting newsstands. The industry leader of visual effects journalism is Don Shay's Cinefex, whose magazine which has inspired legions of visual effects fans and professionals (myself included). Cinefex #120, the January 2010 issue, covers "Avatar," along with "The Road" and "2012."

As an aside, the magazine also features the most astounding quote I've read in some time. "2012" visual effects supervisor Volker Engel describes Roland Emmerich's script for the disaster film: "... we though it was the best script that we ever got from Roland. It worked on so many levels, not just 'let's destroy everything we can and make it visually fantastic.' The characters worked well, and there were some very emotional moments [in the script]." Did he just say that with a straight face?

An image from Roland Emmerich's "2012." A fast, efficient way to anger Todd Vaziri is to add anamorphic lens flares to a non-anamorphic film.

Jody Duncan's Cinefex article on "Avatar" goes into great detail on how Weta Digital interpreted James Cameron's vision, and is the definitive text on the film's visual effects. As described in the article, with about a year remaining to deliver the final picture, Cameron and Weta awarded some 600 shots to other visual effects shops, including Industrial Light & Magic, which took on over 180 shots. The ILM shots were carefully chosen as to not contain any hero animation work (which was being completed at Weta), and heavily featured vehicles, certain Pandora environments, and battle sequences. The division of labor was crafted to be as logical as possible-- but it still required an extraordinary amount of coordination and cooperation between Weta, ILM and other vendors who shared assets, in order to make the work as seamless as possible. In the final film, you might see two Weta shots, then two ILM shots, then Weta and ILM shots back-to-back. We spent a great deal of time ensuring a seamless blend of our work; our hope was that audiences felt no perceptible change in quality, texture or feel between the different vendors' effects shots.

Due to the overwhelming amount of innovation involved with Weta's work on the film, the vast majority of Duncan's article focuses on Cameron and Weta's collaboration, but only has a few paragraphs about ILM's involvement. We're very proud to have six our our images published within the article.

Since "Avatar's" release, several articles about the films' visual effects have appeared to supplement the Cinefex article. A snapshot of these articles includes: VFXWorld, Cameron Geeks Out On "Avatar," VFXWorld, "Avatar," The Game Changer, and 30 Ninjas, Three-Part Interview with "Avatar's" John Bruno.

And then there's this CNet article, which is the only article I have yet to find that specifically focuses ILM's work on the film: CNet: ILM steps in to help finish 'Avatar' visual effects.

That headline makes me squirm, since the reader might get the wrong impression, as if the folks at Weta needed 'rescuing.' Headlines, by their very nature, only give you the slightest impression of the story, and tease you to read on. But I pushed this squirmy feeling aside, chalking it up to my increased sensitivity to visual effects journalism.

For the most part, the article by Daniel Terdiman does a nice job of giving an overview of ILM's work. He interviewed ILM visual effects supervisor John Knoll, and even gave more details on our work than the Cinefex article. For example:

For the most part, the teams at ILM and Weta worked on different scenes, but Knoll said there were some in which the two companies handles different parts of the same sequence. An example, he said, was a scene in the film where a group of helicopters attack the giant "home tree," where the Navi, the humanoid alien race in the film, live. Knoll said that the effects in the scene were mainly put together by Weta, but ILM handled all the shots in which the camera looks back toward the choppers. In the scenes where the two effects houses both were charged with creating shots, the challenge was figuring out how to "checkerboard" the shots, Knoll said, especially because in some cases, ILM didn't know what Weta's work looked like. "You keep cutting back between ILM shots and Weta shots," Knoll said. "They're really intermixed. I was worried, because we had to get going and go pretty far down the line before we had any Weta shots to refer to. We were both doing development in parallel."

However, near the top of the article, there was this unfortunate paragraph:

Weta Digital... was a bit in over its head. For ILM, this wasn't the first time it had been called in to help rescue another effects house, but it may well have been the first time it did so for one as big and as accomplished as Weta. And while ILM's overall contribution to the finished film was minor compared to Weta's, the fact that "Avatar" came out on time and is being seen as a visual tour de force is certainly due, in part, to ILM's ability to come in and, if not save the day, at least contribute mightily to the day turning out well.

911 work by its very nature is a sensitive issue for effects houses. The situation is nothing new (effects houses have been collaborating to finish a film for decades), but with the current climate of filmmakers demanding ever-increasingly difficult work and studios continuing to shrink post-production schedules, 911 work is as frequent as ever. As aggressive as effects houses need to be during the bidding process, we all respect one another and realize we are part of the same family. We all understand that, in most cases, when an effects house becomes overburdened with an impossible-to-complete body of work, it usually has more to do with studios and filmmakers' failure to accurately predict the scope of the work (combined with inexcusably small effects budgets), rather than failure on the effects' houses end.

Thankfully, a few days after the original publication of the original CNet article, the controversial paragraph was significantly altered, along with the following end note:

For ILM, this wasn't the first time it had been called in to help aid another effects house, but it may well have been the first time it did so for one as big and as accomplished as Weta. To be sure, ILM's overall contribution to the finished film was minor compared to Weta's, but nonetheless critical in helping get the film to its final, finished state, Knoll suggested.

footnote: The fifth paragraph in this story was updated on December 22 to better reflect Knoll's statements of how and when ILM came to be involved in "Avatar" and what the company's impact on it was.

The new, altered fifth paragraph of the story gives a slightly more accurate description of how ILM came to work on "Avatar," but does not expand on the delicate sensitivities involved with 911 work in our industry. And the article still contained the unfortunate phrase "Weta was a bit in over its head." Perhaps, someday, someone will write an essay on this aspect of the visual effects industry. The issue of 911 work is not only emotionally heated but can be economically dangerous. No effects house wants to ever appear as though they cannot deliver work on time and on budget, without the risk of losing out on future studio work. The issue is a public-relations minefield, and will probably remain shrouded in mystery, silence, and remain in the shadows (yet openly and frankly discussed privately amongst visual effects professionals).

Back to the CNet story. Since its original publish date, the CNet article was apparently syndicated to other websites, several of which apparently decided to re-write the headline. After a copy of the article appeared on several dozen other news websites, we were quite shocked to read an article headlined "How ILM Rescued Avatar's Special Effects," which was a popular rewriting of the original headline (here's an example). Although the content of the article was identical, the headline, as it appeared in other venues, went from 'nearly inaccurate' to 'completely inaccurate.' ILM was brought on to help finish the movie, not to 'save' or 'rescue' the film. This wrong implication out in the world does nothing to help ILM's reputation. The syndicators' rewriting of an already painful headline was unfortunate.

And, to add insult to injury, some of the re-printed, syndicated versions of the article have the original, controversial, 'save the day' fifth paragraph intact. Ugh.

The artists at ILM were very proud and grateful to have made a contribution to James Cameron's vision, and were astounded and amazed by Weta Digital's extraordinary work. It's a shame that the CNet article had to unfold in a shoddy manner.

A much more detailed and tech-heavy exploration of ILM's work on "Avatar" took place in a recent FXGuide podcast. Make sure you listen to FXGuide's January 15 podcast, where Mike Seymour interviews John Knoll, and goes deep into the specifics of our body of work, as well as a lengthy discussion of stereo 3D techniques (scroll down to the "Avatar: ILM" podcast). FXGuide podcast host John Montgomery actually mentions the CNet article in his introduction to the interview, concurring that the tone of the article was not faithful to the collaborative spirit of the work.

No More Anonymous

2010-01-12T08:53:00.000-08:00

We interrupt our stream of FXRant-ing to bring you this relatively unimportant announcement. I've disabled anonymous commenting on the site.

I've made this change because I've gotten tired of deleting spam comments that have been filed anonymously, and hopefully this will help. Plus, this change will enhance the already lively discussions we've had on the site. Sorry about the extra step, folks, but I hope the process of logging in will not deter you from contributing from the cool discussions that we have here on FXRant.

"Avatar," "Transformers 2" and the Tomatometer

2010-01-11T09:33:00.000-08:00

photo credit: michaelbay.com

We can all breathe a sigh of relief. 2009 will not go down in history as the year a "grinding garbage disposal of a movie" earns the top spot at the box office. The film once described as "a horrible experience of unbearable length" has been overtaken by James Cameron's "Avatar" as the highest grossing film released in 2009. No longer will there be a risk of a "a wad of chaos puked onto the big screen, an arbitrary collection of explosions and machismo posturing and frat boy assholery" permanently marking its spot at the yearly box office charts.

I have updated my previously posted chart, comparing the box office champs of the last 29 years, to include "Avatar." I kept "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" on the chart for comparative (and comedic) purposes.

Sources: Box Office Mojo and Rotten Tomatoes.

Microsoft Admits to Stealing Ideas

2010-01-09T15:45:00.000-08:00

Have the folks in the Microsoft marketing department completely lost their minds? Watch this ad, and realize that the answer is 'yes':

So, the tech company that is most associated with stealing others' ideas is now showing off their new flagship product, touting it as, essentially, stolen intellectual property?

I love how willing they are to trash their previous product, Windows Vista. Why doesn't the announcer just come right out and say, "Tired of worrying about crashes and freezes under Vista? Boy, Vista sure does suck, doesn't it? Well, we've got a fix for that." Apple did a nice job slamming the Windows 7 ads in their typically succinct, on-the-nose fashion:

Oh, yeah, and Microsoft is still sticking with that tired "I'm a PC" tagline, trying to out-gotcha Apple. "And I'm Microsoft, and I don't know what a metaphor is. Oh, and I have no imagination."

But back to advertising... no one decodes the silliness of Madison Avenue better than Stephen Colbert. Watch this amazing clip from the January 6, 2010 episode of "The Colbert Report," where he dissects Domino's Pizza new ad campaign:

The List of 7, 82nd Academy Awards

2010-01-06T11:56:00.000-08:00

It's Bake-Off time! The visual effects branch of the Academy have narrowed their 'list of 15' films to the seven films that will be participating in the bake-off for the race for the 82nd Academy Awards:

“Avatar"
"District 9"
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"
"Star Trek"
"Terminator Salvation"
"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"
"2012"

The Executive Committee have narrowed the List of 15 to these seven films when they met last week. The Bake-Off, which features 15 minute reels from each film and a short Q & A from each film's visual effects supervior, will take place on Thursday, January 21. Immediately after viewing the reels, the entire visual effects branch gets to vote on the final three nominees for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. As always, the entire Academy then votes for the winner of the award.

Industrial Light & Magic contributed to five out of the seven films ("Avatar," "Harry Potter," "Star Trek," "Terminator" and "Transformers 2"), and I personally worked on three of those films. Weta Digital brought us "Avatar" and "District 9," (along with several other houses) while a flurry of facilities contributed to "2012" and "Harry Potter."

My predictions for the List of 7 was almost spot-on; I only missed one film (I wrongly predicted "G.I. Joe" would grab a spot, rather than "Terminator"). Thankfully, I made up for my dismal predictions from last year.

My always-not-to-be-trusted predictions for the three final nominees? "Avatar," "Star Trek" and "District 9."

"Transformers 2" and the Tomatometer

2009-12-21T16:17:00.000-08:00

photo credit: michaelbay.com
read about what these two are discussing here

Update, January 11, 2009 - "Avatar" has surpassed "Transformers 2." Read more here.

Happy end-of-2009! 2009 will be remembered as the year we saw "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" earn $402 million at the North American box office (and $834 million globally)!

Putting those $402 million into context: "Transformers 2" was the highest grossing film of the year! And it wasn't even close! The #2 grosser was "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," with over $100 million less in earnings!

I thought it would be fun to chart the box office champions of the last 29 years against their Tomatometer rating, an aggregate of the critical consensus of the film! So I did it! And, boy, it was fun!

sources: Box Office Mojo and Rotten Tomatoes

Wow! That's enlightening! An updated chart is here.

(Why all the exclamation points, you ask? Obviously, this post was meant to be a reflection of the spirit of "Transformers 2," which is the cinematic equivalent of an exclamation point!)

Expectation vs. Reality

2009-12-18T14:12:00.001-08:00

The Cinematography of "Let The Right One In," Part 2

2009-12-15T17:37:00.000-08:00

In Part 1, we looked at cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema's geometric motifs in "Let The Right One In." In this post, we look at some simply cool images from the film.

Images may contain minor spoilers.

The List of 15, 82nd Academy Awards

2009-12-15T10:16:00.000-08:00

The visual effects branch of the Academy have announced their 'list of 15' films, considered semifinalists in the race for the Oscar nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards, as determined by the branch's Executive Committee:

Angels & Demons
Avatar
Coraline
Disney’s A Christmas Carol
District 9
G-Force
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Sherlock Holmes
Star Trek
Terminator Salvation
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2012
Watchmen
Where the Wild Things Are

The visual effects branch's Executive Committee will then whittle this list down to seven films in the next few weeks, which will be featured at the bake-off (to take place on January 21, 2010) where each of the seven films presents a 15 minute reel of their finished work, and takes questions from the entire visual effects branch. The entire branch then votes for their top three choices, which ultimately determine the three Academy Award nominees for Best Visual Effects. The nominees for all categories will be announced on February 2, 2010. The entire Academy membership then votes on the winner.

I'm very proud to have contributed to the visual effects for three films on this list: "Star Trek," "Avatar" and "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," while at Industrial Light & Magic.

My prediction for the final seven films: "Avatar," "District 9," "G.I. Joe," "Harry Potter," "Star Trek," "Transformers 2" and "2012." Stay tuned!

James Cameron's "Avatar" Trailer

2009-11-20T09:41:00.000-08:00

Yeah, it's a few weeks late, but I've been a bit busy finishing a film. On an unrelated note, the final trailer for James Cameron's "Avatar " is out in the world, and the Randomizer 2009™ software was cranked into overdrive and selected two images from the trailer.

Hey, didn't this shot look a little different in the teaser?

View the trailer here.

The Cinematography of "Let The Right One In," Part 1

2009-11-16T12:22:00.000-08:00

Illustrating a visual motif without being overt and obvious is not a simple task. Director Tomas Alfredson and his cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema achieve this delicate balance in "Let The Right One In," the excellent Swedish thriller from 2008.

We'll present two posts on the cinematography of "Let The Right One In." In this post, we'll examine the geometric shapes formed within the images, and illustrating how the camerawork and production design work together to give the film a distinctive look. In the second post, we'll feature a few, simply cool images.

Hoytema frequently frames his shots with long lenses, allowing vertical and horizontal lines to remain parallel to the edges of the frame, giving the feeling of the shapes within the frame existing as subsets of the theater screen. Contrast this with, say, the wide-angle photography of Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" (which we examined here: "Converging Lines and 'The Dark Knight'"). The production design and cinematography of "The Dark Knight" worked together to impart a sense of dread, a feeling of the decaying world collapsing around the characters. In addition, "The Dark Knight" was filmed with anamorphic lenses, which bow and bend straight lines giving even long lens shots a fish eye, distorted and abstract feel, while Hoytema chose to film "Let The Right One In" with spherical lenses (in Super35 for a 2.35 to 1 composition), minimizing distortion. Hoytema's images have straight lines that are parallel to the edges of the frame, emphasizing, coldness and geometric precision.

Alfredson, Hoytema and production designer Eva Noren use everyday objects to highlight this geometric precision. The window frames of Oskar's apartment building is used to great effect, along with the tiny jungle gym in the building's snowy yard (where we meet the mysterious Eli for the first time). Even props like the Rubik's Cube Oskar gives to Eli help drive home the visual theme.

For "Let The Right One In," the use of long lenses significantly reduces the impact of converging lines; wide lenses exaggerate perspective, while longer lenses compress perspective. When a zoom lens is framed on characters, it isolates and focuses the subject. Using longer lenses also reduces depth of field, so extreme foregrounds and backgrounds drift in and out of clarity, further isolating our characters.

American Cinematographer Online has a short article about the film here, called "An Unusual Romance," from December 2008.

Images may contain minor spoilers.

In Part 2, we'll look at some simply cool images from the film. Go to Part 2.

Twins on TV!

2009-11-03T13:19:00.000-08:00

Holy cow - my sister is on the television!

I wrote about her before, when her book debuted a few weeks ago. Well, were she is, promoting her book "Raising Twins: From Pregnancy to Preschool" on WGN News with Allison Payne.

Way to go, Shelly!

Twins!

2009-10-01T12:31:00.000-07:00

Do you know someone with young twins? Or is expecting twins? Is that someone you? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you have to buy this book.

My sister, my amazing little sister, wrote a book called "Raising Twins: From Pregnancy to Preschool." She's a mother of four and a brilliant pediatrician, and offers a unique insight into raising twins.

The book is published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which kinda indicates that she knows what she's talking about. She even has a blog called "A Pediatrician Mom of Twins," which features even more advice on having fun with your twins, and also features some of her mentions and interviews in, you know, obscure outlets like The New York Times.

I am so incredibly proud of my sister. You go, girl, indeed.

From the Amazon.com page:
About the Author: Shelly Vaziri Flais, MD, FAAP, is a board-certified pediatrician, a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the mother of four children, including a set of twins. She has contributed to Chicago Parent, Healthy Children, and Twins magazines.

James Cameron's "Avatar" Teaser

2009-08-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

update: Please read the new FXRant post, "'Avatar' and ILM" to learn more about ILM's work on the film.

Looking back at the last few posts, it seems like I nearly leapfrogged over an entire production on which I worked. It's almost as if "Transformers 2" didn't even happen, as if it is being erased from our collective consciousness. Huh. Imagine that.

Anywhoo, the highly anticipated teaser for James Cameron's "Avatar" is now available online. And the image above was chosen by the Randomizer 2009™ software, featuring ArbitraryBoost 3.0.

View the teaser here.

Because Editing Is Fun

2009-08-14T13:52:00.001-07:00

Harrison Ford keeps losing his family.

This is the Sports Report!

2009-07-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

Here are some cleverly edited clips from "The Colbert Report," with Stephen air-guitaring the 'extreme' theme of the Sports Report. And I say 'cleverly,' because I did it.

Colbert Character Breaks

2009-06-05T14:59:00.000-07:00

Here are two amazing fan-made videos of Stephen Colbert breaking character. Serious kudos go out to these obsessive fans who cut the videos together.

Character Break Compilation by Di_br

These videos are courtesy of the No Fact Zone, the amazing Stephen Colbert fan site.

Camera Confusion

2009-06-05T13:34:00.001-07:00

From "The Colbert Report," June 2, 2009. During the opening segment, the camera does an inadvertent cut, briefly taking Stephen by surprise. Ostensibly remaining in character, Stephen gives an honest and hilarious reaction. I just love Stephen's complete mastery and control over his face, and how he can change his entire screen presence with relative ease. I also admire Stephen's ability to move the show forward with nary a pause, as well as the producers' choice to keep the minor glitch in the show (rather than edit around it, or reshoot the segment).

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A Summer of Sequels

2009-05-25T20:15:00.001-07:00

Two summers ago, I wrote about a Pixar film standing tall as the only major summer studio feature that was wholly original. In Wonder Takes Time, we marveled at Pixar's genuine intent on giving the marketplace of ideas fresh stories. Among sequels ("Pirates 3," "Spider-Man 3," "Shrek 3") and based-on-toy-films, television shows, and reboots ("Transformers," "The Simpsons Movie," "Halloween"), Brad Bird's "Ratatouille" stood alone as the unique entry of the summer.

Well, here we are again, in the summer of 2009, where Pixar has the lone wholly original film of the summer. Pete Docter's "Up," which opens May 29, and is a (gasp!) original screenplay, goes up against these summer films:

Fast and Furious (sequel)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (sequel)
Star Trek (reboot/sequel)
Angels and Demons (sequel/based on novel)
Land of the Lost (based on television show)
Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian (sequel)
Terminator: Salvation (sequel)
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (remake)
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (sequel/based on toy)
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (sequel)
Bruno (based on television character)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (sequel/based on novel)
Julie and Julia (based on article)
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (based on television show)
The Final Destination (sequel)
H2 - Halloween 2 (sequel of a remake)

Post Magazine: "Star Trek" Returns

2009-05-14T14:46:00.000-07:00

Post Magazine's cover story is all about ILM's visual effects for J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek." The article, written by Ken McGorry, touches on some of the major challenges behind our visual effects.

The article includes mentions and quotes from visual effects supervisor Roger Guyett, co-supervisor Russell Earl, animation supervisor Paul Kavanagh, digital production supervisor Michael DiComo, CG supervisor Tom Fejes, compositing supervisor Eddie Pasquarello, paint supervisor Beth D'Amato, and sequence supervisors Greg Salter, Mark Nettleton, David Weitzberg, Raul Essig, Conny Fauser, Jay Cooper, Francois Lambert, and Todd Vaziri.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

J.J. Abrams and DP Daniel Mindel shot Star Trek with an anamorphic lens... and if there's the sun or a star in the corner of a synthetic ILM shot — or when the Enterprise passes in a beauty shot and its lights strike the virtual lens — the compositors have to replicate all the complexities of light dancing across such a lens. "There are all these different layers to the lens flare that we have to replicate digitally," DiComo says.

ILM's Todd Vaziri analyzed what anamorphic lenses do and all their different properties so they could be used in simulated shots and they call the resulting program "Sunspot." Vaziri was a sequence supervisor whose job was to overlook all the sequences and make sure that ILM's shots were "correct to the film" — that they matched. "He takes great, great pains and it shows," says [compositing supervisor Eddie] Pasquarello. "That was one of our compositing coups that I feel made a difference here — finishing touches that help our shots blend with the live action that J.J. gave us."

Click here to see the full credits for J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek."

"Star Trek" Fun

2009-05-08T12:22:00.000-07:00

The banner image for Gizmodo's review of "Star Trek."

Here's an excerpt from a Gizmodo article titled, 'J.J. Abrams Admits Star Trek Lens Flares Are "Ridiculous"'

I'm curious to hear more about why you decided to use so many lens flares, and exactly when you decided to use them?

[Smiles] I don't know what you're talking about. [Laughs] I'm kidding. I know what you're saying with the lens flares. It was one of those things... I wanted a visual system that felt unique. I know there are certain shots where even I watch and think, "Oh that's ridiculous, that was too many." But I love the idea that the future was so bright it couldn't be contained in the frame.

The flares weren't just happening from on-camera light sources, they were happening off camera, and that was really the key to it. I want [to create] the sense that, just off camera, something spectacular is happening. There was always a sense of something, and also there is a really cool organic layer thats a quality of it... There are something about those flares, especially in a movie that can potentially be very sterile and CG and overly controlled. There is something incredibly unpredictable and gorgeous about them. It is a really fun thing. Our DP would be off camera with this incredibly powerful flashlight aiming it at the lens. It became an art because different lenses required angles, and different proximity to the lens. Sometimes, when we were outside we'd use mirrors. Certain sizes were too big... literally, it was ridiculous. It was like another actor in the scene.

We had two cameras, so sometimes we had two different spotlight operators. When there was atmosphere in the room, you had to be really careful because you could see the beams. So it was this ridiculous, added level of pain in the ass, but I love... [looking at] the final cut, [the flares] to me, were a fun additional touch that I think, while overdone, in some places, it feels like the future is that bright.

(To learn more about the lens flares from "Star Trek," click here and here.)

Here's a clever video that mixes the "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" worlds, from current.com titled "Starship Enterprise Destroyed by the Death Star."

Another clever video, bringing the original series visually up-to-date with J.J. Abrams' film, from YouTube user 'partmor':

Finally, a hilarious video (that requires multiple viewings) from The Onion, with the headline, "Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film as 'Fun, Watchable.'"

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Movie Marketing is Hard! "True Blood" and "Jennifer's Body"

2009-05-07T23:12:00.000-07:00

Another in our Movie Marketing Is Hard! series.
Okay, so "True Blood" is not actually a feature film (it's the Alan Ball series on HBO), but the studio used this one-sheet as a prominent part of their publicity campaign. The series debuted in 2008, and the Megan Fox starrer "Jennifer's Body" comes to theaters later in 2009.

The posters are essentially dead ringers for one another, with the slight exception of one storytelling element: the "True Blood" poster features a subtle vampire fang, while "Jennifer's Body" has no such fang (since the film is about cannibalism, not vampires). But the similarities in overall composition, framing, color scheme, the heavy lipstick, tongue lick and blood drip are groanworthy.

Thanks to Alessandro for the tip!

Millimeter Magzine: Back On Trek

2009-05-05T19:02:00.001-07:00

Millimeter Magazine recently posted a really nice article about the making of "Star Trek," with an emphasis on the cinematography, visual effects design, and the digital intermediate color timing process. As part of a discussion about the photographic style of the film, director J.J. Abrams, cinematographer Dan Mindel and visual effects supervisor Roger Guyett talked about the use of lens flares in the film. As a sequence supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic, one of my duties on "Star Trek" was to create synthetic lens flare aberrations for our visual effects shots that matched stylistically and technically with the first unit photography.

We used flares in "Star Trek" as a storytelling device in a way that has never been done before. The great thing is that J.J., Roger and I were on the same visual wavelength in terms of how, when and why to create the flaring aberrations in the film. The flares give the film a unique flavor of spontaneity and intensity, paradoxically giving the film a documentary-style grittiness, as well as a fanciful, otherworldly, abstract quality. I'll let them explain:

[The] technique was the strategic plan to build camera lens flares into the photography. For a sci-fi space film—or any film these days—that aesthetic is extremely rare, since filmmakers usually battle to remove flares from their photography, rather than insert them. Abrams’ and Mindel’s obsession with lens flares, however, was part of a strategic vision for the photography. The technique is so prevalent that Abrams jokes he may have designed “a future in which you’ll have to wear shades.”

“I can’t explain it with intellectual reasoning—I can just say it was important to me,” Abrams says. “Even though some people may think we went over the top with flares, I just loved that they made it feel like there was always something spectacular going on off-camera, as well as what was happening on-camera. It reminded me of the feeling I would get watching NASA footage. It might be a distraction to some people, and I apologize to them, but I loved that feeling that this was a more natural future, rather than a [stereotypical sci-fi] shiny future.”

Mindel says the approach required an attitude adjustment on the part of the camera crew. “We have been spending the last 20 to 30 years trying to take flares out,” he says. “Here, we loved the way the anamorphic lenses flare naturally, and we were told to let them happen and we even put them in when they weren’t there. Other space movies have that non-believable aspect of being photographically sterile, and they rarely allow the idiosyncratic nature of light and movement into the arena, which gives you a kind of homogenized movie. We were eager to make sure that did not happen here. We felt a degree of believability comes with the idiosyncrasies that we allowed onto the film—those aberrations on the lenses, flaring, and even a little misframing or accidents. Often, it’s accidents that go on to make up the great pieces of movie art. We felt that by allowing flares in, we would get an organic infringement into the sterile frame—adding a bit of imperfection, a degree of reality.

“We developed an interesting, low-tech technique for it. We had two guys with flashlights flaring the lens constantly. There is a real expertise to it. The hardest thing about the technique was how to keep the lamp operators out of frame since they had to play very close to the lens. The trickery comes from knowing how to flare the lens and hide behind the flare."

But the flaring technique hardly stopped once the production left the set. Mindel’s camera work served as the inspiration for the creation of artificial lens flares for many bits of hundreds of visual-effects shots. These flares were created using a proprietary system developed at ILM to match the specific aberrations of Mindel’s anamorphic lenses.

ILM Sequence Supervisor Todd Vaziri was responsible for developing the artificial lens-flare software system, which the company dubbed SunSpot. The system essentially combines off-the-shelf software, certain proprietary ILM tools, photographed elements, and several custom paint elements to painstakingly match the flares captured on the negative.

“The technique gives compositors instant, highly realistic anamorphic lens flares for our all-CG shots that are indistinguishable from real, practical flares shots by the first unit,” Guyett says. “We used it to create flares for a variety of purposes such as spotlights on the exterior of the Enterprise, lights on synthetic set extensions, the Vulcan sun, and a dwarf star featured in the film’s prologue.”

The article is available online here (free registration may be required), and in its April 2009 print edition.

Full Credits for "Star Trek"

2009-05-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

It looks like the full credits for "Star Trek" are available online at trekmovie.com. Scroll down to the Industrial Light & Magic section to see the names of the 300 people who worked to create the film's visual effects.

Click here to see the full credits.

Remastering "Star Trek"

2009-04-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

I recently came across a nine-year-old article to which I contributed. Frank Garcia was looking for visual effects professionals' opinions on the idea of creating new visual effects for the original "Star Trek" episodes. The article, from January 2000, was written in the shadow of the Special Editions of the "Star Wars" trilogy and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," each of which featured newly created visual effects.

CBS Digital ultimately performed visual effects facelifts to the episodes, and has since released them on video and broadcast. You can learn everything that Paramount wants you to know about the remastered episodes at startrek.com, which features plenty of articles and before-and-after comparisons.

I contributed to the article, "Special Effects Redux," and my comments hold up surprisingly well. I'm always hesitant to read some of my old writing and interviews, (a few of the reviews on VFX HQ still make me cringe) but am happily satisfied that, in this case, I made an ounce of sense. I still am of the opinion that these 'special edition' revisits are ridiculous and purely driven by commercial concerns, rather than artistic merit.

For a discussion on contemporary visual effects and exploring the idea of recreating STAR TREK'S SFX, Fandom asked two visual effects professionals who are working in the business today for their views. First is Todd Vaziri, a noted visual special effects supervisor whose artistry can be seen in DR. DOLITTLE and XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS. He also writes extensively about the visual SFX business at his website Visual FX Headquarters. After a full briefing of Digital Stream's activities, Vaziri's feelings were mixed, just as they are with STAR WARS' special edition releases, about which he has written previously. 'As a purist, I think it's rather ridiculous,' says Vaziri. 'At a certain point you have to call a piece of art finished. And when they're done, you let it be. And you move on to a new project. You don't continually go back and fix a mistake that you may have made or retread the same ideas you had before. 'I'm very much an advocate of preserving the past and looking forward to try and create new classics. Which is the current, most accurate film? Are we going to get special editions with every film every 10 or 20 years? When a film comes out I'm assuming already 'Okay, this is the first pass, the rough draft.' '

On the other hand, Vaziri recognizes the allure of a compelling idea. 'It was such a refreshing change to see in DEEP SPACE NINE's 'Trials and Tribble-ations' the technology and the detail we can get today of the space station and the Enterprise. It was an interesting gimmick. Replacing the SFX of a single episode, that would be kinda cool. You put it on UPN and get great ratings. But to get into it for the entire series or a couple of episodes, is ridiculous.'

Vaziri also has strong feelings from an artists' point of view. 'I think of the people who toiled feverishly over the original STAR WARS, getting the shots and how revolutionary they were. The original SW shots that were replaced, they'll never be seen again!' Although Vaziri recognizes that the original STAR WARS releases will live on with DVDs and videotape, he says, 'The Special Edition is the 'final edition.' 'They made those episodes as well as they could with the money they had,' he says. 'Don't betray their efforts just because, oh, 20 or 30 years have passed and they can do it much better now.'

Asked if it is likely for Hollywood to develop a practice of replacing SFX on other iconic film or TV projects, Vaziri replies that the bottom line is economics. 'It could be profitable,' he says. 'The studio executives have to look and say, 'Are we going to spend to revamp this 30 year old film?' Studios are even reluctant to making new video transfers. They think it's not worth it. I think it will be very sparse.'

If there are any sins in Hollywood, in the way that visual special effects are produced, says Vaziri, are those projects that are spectacle over substance. 'I'm constantly pushing towards the use of SFX as a portion of the film,' he says. 'Not as a character gimmick or 'Hey! Look at me!' The best films are always about stories and characters. The SFX creates the worlds in which they live. In rare cases, the SFX are the characters, like JURASSIC PARK or THE PHANTOM MENACE where an entire character is being generated as SFX. For the most part, they should never take center stage. They shouldn't draw attention to themselves. The best SFX I've ever done are the ones people haven't noticed because they were so caught up with the film. We did about 50 or 60 visual effects for A STIR OF ECHOES, and there were only two or three that were really 'in your face.' Nobody noticed any of the other SFX. That's a big compliment because the work doesn't draw attention to itself. People don't walk out of the theater saying, 'Wow! Great SFX!' I think invisible is important.'

Contextual usage of SFX as part of the film is also very important, says Vaziri. Sinful 'spectacle over substance' effects films includes THE AVENGERS, LOST IN SPACE and GOZILLA, says Vaziri. In the case of a Digital Stream-created STAR TREK vision, Vaziri also has a problem with the forced comparison between the original and a new edition. 'That's extremely distracting. You're going to see an episode where the sets were so cheaply made that you can see a little gap on the floor and then you cut to this new, perfectly detailed CGI SFX shot? It totally does not fit within the context of the film! It takes you out of the film and draws attention to itself. If new SFX are made for 'The Doomsday Machine,' they're out of place and context. It draws attention to them rather than being a service to the story and characters.'

We Are America

2009-04-24T17:21:00.000-07:00

For quite possibly the first time ever, I wholeheartedly agree with a Fox News anchor. Here's Shepard Smith speakin' the truth, with some salty language, as an added bonus!

Update: Our friend Stephen Colbert had something to say about Smith's antics.

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Our Director

2009-04-22T17:16:00.000-07:00

If you only read one article about director J.J. Abrams and his approach to creating a brand new "Star Trek" film, read this one. Here are some choice excerpts:

LATimes: You know that no matter what you do, you'll get an earful from hardcore fans.

Abrams: The key is to appreciate that there are purists and fans of "Star Trek" who are going to be very vocal if they see things that aren't what what they want. But I can't make this movie for readers of Nacelles Monthly who are only concerned with what the ship's engines look like. They're going to find something they hate no matter what I do. And yet, the movie at its core is not only inspired by what has come before, it's deeply true to what's come before. The bottom line is we have different actors playing these parts and from that point on it's literally not what they've seen before. It will be evident when people see this movie that it is true to what Roddenberry created and what those amazing actors did in the 1960s. At the same time, I think, it's going to blow people's minds because its a completely different experience than what they expect.

...it felt to me that the key to "Star Trek" was to go from the inside-out: Be as true to the characters as possible, be as real and as emotional and as exciting as possible and not be distracted by the specter of all that the "Star Wars" film accomplished.

"Star Trek," directed by J.J. Abrams, featuring visual effects by Industrial Light and Magic, hits theaters on May 8. Watch HD trailers for "Star Trek" at Apple.com.

Los Angeles Times Interview with J.J. Abrams, part 1 and part 2.

"Button" Buttons Up VES Awards

2009-02-27T07:10:00.000-08:00

The visual effects teams from "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" nabbed four VES Awards last week, with "The Dark Knight" earning three and "Changeling" earning two.

It wasn't easy to find coverage of the VES Awards from the Visual Effects Society itself. If you go to VESAwards.com, there is no information on the winners listed (only applications and nominees). No email went out to VES members, which is strange because VES is usually pretty good about disseminating information via email. I went to visualeffectssociety.com, and on the far right side is a tiny link to a hastily prepped PDF file, which contained the names of the winners. The site contained no photographs of the event, no video, no acceptance speeches, and no links to other press coverage of the event. Disappointing, to say the least, especially for VES' biggest night of the year.

One of the many elaborate matte paintings for Clint Eastwood's "Changeling"

As for the awards themselves, I heard that it was a fun show. They gave lifetime achievement awards to the one and only Phil Tippett, as well as the monster producing partners Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall.

As for the awards themselves, I was, of course, rooting for my fellow ILMers for our nominations for "Iron Man" and "Indiana Jones." I especially was hoping for an "Indiana Jones" win for Best Created Environment, since I contributed to the Temple Heart sequence (hopefully more on this in a future post). But "Button" and "Dark Knight" swooped up most of the awards, and for the most part, rightfully so.

An image from "The Science Behind Benjamin Button"

If you haven't seen it yet, make sure you visit the well-made The Science Behind Benjamin Button, which nicely highlights some of the visual effects challenges from the film.

Here are some press clippings that I was able to muster:

Variety: 'Button' Tops Visual Effects Awards
VFXWorld: Backstage at the VES Awards
FXGuide: VES Awards Report and Photo Gallery

And here are all of the winners of the live-action feature film categories. (To see all the nominees, click here.)

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Motion Picture
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Eric Barba, Edson Williams, Nathan McGuinness, Lisa Beroud

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Motion Picture
CHANGELING
Michael Owens, Geoffrey Hancock, Jinnie Pak, Dennis Hoffman

Best Single Visual Effect of the Year
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON - Benjamin's Secret
Eric Barba, Lisa Beroud, Steve Preeg, Jonathan Litt

Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Motion Picture
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON - Benjamin Button
Steve Preeg, Matthias Wittmann, Tom St. Amand, David McLean

Outstanding Matte Paintings in a Feature Motion Picture
CHANGELING - 1928 Downtown L.A.
Romain Bayle, Abel Milanes, Allan Lee, Debor Dunphy

Outstanding Models and Miniatures in a Feature Motion Picture
THE DARK KNIGHT - Garbage Truck Crash Models and Miniatures
Ian Hunter, Forest Fischer, Branden Seifert, Adam Gelbart

Outstanding Created Environment in a Feature Motion Picture
THE DARK KNIGHT - IMAX Gotham City Scapes
Peter Bebb, David Vickery, Philippe Leprince, Andrew Lockley

Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON - Benjamin Comes Together
Janelle Croshaw, Paul Lambert, Sonja Burchard, Sarahjane Javelo

Outstanding Special Effects in a Motion Picture
THE DARK KNIGHT
Chris Corbould, Peter Notley, Ian Lowe

"Button" Buttons Up The Oscar

2009-02-24T14:59:00.000-08:00

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron

Hearty congratulations go out to the visual effects teams behind "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," which won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects at the 81st Academy Awards. Here's Eric Barba's acceptance speech:

Oh my God. On behalf of myself, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron, I'd like to thank the Academy for this incredible honor. I'd also like to thank Edson Williams and his team at Lola Visual Effects and Nathan McGuinness and his team at Asylum as well as all the other visual effects teams that worked so hard on this film. I'd like to thank our amazing team at Digital Domain, my mentor Ed Ulbrich, my wonderful producer Lisa Beroud, the woman who is my biggest supporter, my wife Roma, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Ceán Chaffin, for trusting that we could actually pull this off. Brad Pitt for an amazing performance. And of course David Fincher for giving us all the opportunity to work on this film. To my kids, Cole and Nicolette, I'd just like to say, "Work hard, do good work and never give up." Thank you.

This was a rare year in which all three nominees were worthy of Oscar, in my opinion. And it was extra special to see my friend Craig Barron holding that statuette on the stage of the Kodak Theater. Way to go, Craig!

I even updated the Academy Awards section of Visual Effects Headquarters. How about that?

Update: Here is the backstage Thank-You cam, where Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron were allowed to make their thank-you's.

...and there are the four winners, answering questions from the press backstage.

"Transformers 2" Superbowl

2009-02-07T15:31:00.000-08:00

Not only did a new commercial for "Star Trek" appear during the Superbowl last week, but the very first images from "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" landed on television screens. Head over to Apple's Quicktime page to view the new commercial in HD.

These four still frames were chosen by the Randomizer 2009™ software, featuring ArbitraryBoost 3.0.

"Star Trek" Superbowl

2009-02-07T15:30:00.000-08:00

So, a little movie called "Star Trek" debuted a new commercial during the Superbowl last week. Make sure you watch the commercial (in sweet, sweet high definition). In the meantime, here's a frame from the commercial, chosen by the Randomizer 2009™ software, featuring ArbitraryBoost 3.0.

And The Nominees Are...

2009-01-22T06:57:00.000-08:00

Here are the nominees for Best Visual Effects for the 81st Annual Academy Awards:

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron

“The Dark Knight”
Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber and Paul Franklin

“Iron Man”
John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick and Shane Mahan

Congratulations to all the nominees and everyone who contributed to the visual effects of these three films! The winner of the Academy Award will be announced February 22, 2009.