Hey, I Know That Shot!

Peter Litwinowicz and Pierre Jasmin picked up Oscars at the 2006 Scientific & Technical Academy Awards. I've been using their software for years on countless films, and have been a big fan of their software. I was honored to be a reference for them during the application process, and thrilled when they won.

This is just one of many shots that I've used RE:Vision Effects software. In the last few years, I've used Twixtor, Warp, and their other After Effects plugins on "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" (dude getting yanked by the Kraken), "Mission: Impossible III" (Tom being thrown in to a car) and "Star Wars: Episode III" (Anakin becoming char-broiled). And it was a real nice surprise to see the shot appear during the Oscar telecast, beside host Maggie Gyllenhaal.

A hearty congratulations to Peter and Pierre and their teams. You guys rock.

Oh, and ILM's very own Florian Katz, Steve Sullivan, Colin Davidson, Max Chen and Francesco Callari picked up Sci-Tech Oscars, too. Swzeet.

Must-Have Book on Visual Effects

Hey, all you kids (and you kids-at-heart) who are interested in the meat and potatoes of visual effects, I have a must-have recommendation for you.

I get a lot of emails from folks who still visit my old website, Visual Effects Headquarters, who ask me about training resources, getting a job in visual effects, learning the tools, and on and on and on. Well, here's an easy one. If you're interested in learning some of the basics of compositing from a practical, tools-based perspective, you have to buy the Encyclopedia of Visual Effects.

Written by Damian Allen and Brian Connor, the book illustrates the fundamentals of compositing techniques, with dozens of examples for Shake and After Effects.

Brian is a friend of mine at ILM. Okay, he's an acquaintance. Okay... he barely acknowledges me in the hallway. But apparently he acknowledges be enough to have asked me to contribute to the book with a description of how I used After Effects and 3D compositing to complete a shot in "Van Helsing." There are also contributions from ILM's Marshall Krasser, Pablo Helman, Tim Alexander and more.

I also talked about this shot in this post, My "Van Helsing" MacAddict Interview.

Look, just buy the book. You'll be glad you did. Oh, and looky here-- a convenient link!

link: Apple Pro Training Series: Encyclopedia of Visual Effects (Apple Pro Training)

My "Van Helsing" MacAddict Interview

Back in June 2004, MacAddict magazine published an interview with yours truly, covering my use of Macintosh and After Effects for the film, "Van Helsing." They also put together a sweet video interview, too. I just put the video online, so you can take a look. Kris Fong from MacAddict spent a couple of hours with me discussing OPN072, one of our visual effects shots from "Van Helsing." It was a lot of fun, and it was really great to show off some of the terrific features of After Effects. Sometimes it's really difficult to describe what I do for a living with just words. This video does a pretty darn good job giving you a glimpse into the type of work we do in the visual effects world, day in and day out. MacAddict interviews Todd Vaziri, for "Van Helsing" http://www.vfxhq.com/tvaziri/van.html

watch on youtube
Here's how the feature looked in the magazine, itself: http://www.vfxhq.com/overflow/macaddict/ What you couldn't see is the fact that the interview took place during the second to last week of production on "Van Helsing," and I was severely stressed. So were my office mates, Sean Mackenzie and Tia Marshall, who had to endure me yapping about my shot with Kris for a few hours, with all of the lights and cameras, and trying to get their shots done, too. So super thanks go to them for putting up with me, that day, and every day. Visual Effects by Industrial Light & Magic. "Van Helsing" (c) 2004 Universal Pictures.