We've Been Busy

... finishing up this one film.   Oh, look, here's a new teaser for a film that has some pretty nifty visual effects.   direct YouTube link

"Star Trek Into Darkness" Teaser

The first teaser for J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek Into Darkness" has arrived.  You can watch it in HD at Apple Trailers, or on YouTube.

An exclusive, nine-minute preview of the film will be shown in IMAX 3D theaters in front of "The Hobbit", starting December 14.  For a list of theaters showing the extended preview, click here.

The film features visual effects by Industrial Light & Magic, supervised by VFX supervisor Roger Guyett.  Below are a few random images from the teaser.

Images selected by Randomizer Mountain Lion Edition software.

Almost Done

New commercial for "The Avengers"

update: One more "The Avengers" promo, this one is a lovely fan-made video by Marc Dubuisson.

 The Avengers Extended TV Spot 3 "What have I to fear?" (FAN-MADE)

"Transformers 3"

Two very amazing things happened recently, related to the visual effects of "Transformers: Dark of the Moon".

For one, Deadline Hollywood reports that Michael Bay, Paramount and Dreamworks are buying television commercial ad time to help with the Oscar push for the latest "Transformers" film.  This is unprecedented and very much appreciated.  The commercial also touts the incredible sound work of the "Transformers" team.

Here's the commercial:




I contributed to shots throughout "Transformers 3", and was also compositing sequence supervisor on the tilted building sequence.

On behalf of all the artists at Industrial Light & Magic who worked on your film, I'd like to say, Thank You, Michael.  We appreciate your very public support of our work, and for calling us "The Best Visual Effects Team of the year".  (Here is The Hollywood Reporter's coverage of this event.)

Michael also released the bake-off reel for "Transformers 3" on his website, michaelbay.com.  The bake-off reel is the montage shown to visual effects Academy branch members to help determine the final nominees for the Best Visual Effects Oscar.  Each of the 10 bake-off candidates brings a 10 minute reel of finished work as it appeared in the film (no before/after's or breakdowns allowed).  After seeing all the reels, along with brief Q&A with each visual effects supervisor, the visual effects branch votes on the five final nominees.

The edit clearly illustrates the massive amounts of work put into the visual effects of this epic film.  In most cases, these reels are only seen on the night of the bake-off.  Again, thanks to Michael for sharing this impressive reel with the world.




Transformers' Oscars VFX Reel from Michael Bay Dot Com on Vimeo.

Ghost Protocol

I’m overwhelmed by the positive response audiences have given “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol”.  The folks that had a chance to enjoy the film in a real IMAX theater were treated to an exceptional experience - nearly 30 minutes of the film is presented in true IMAX, with entire sequences filmed with the large-format camera, giving audiences a unique, immersive experience that is, personally, far more intriguing than 3-D.

I was compositing supervisor for Industrial Light & Magic, which provided around 650 visual effects for the film, and I’m extraordinarily proud of the entire team.  The vast majority of our shots were intended to be invisible -- our goal was to stay out of the way of the storytelling and let the scenes play out without the effects calling attention to themselves.  I had a blast working again with John Knoll, our visual effects supervisor, Lindy DeQuattro, our associate visual effects supervisor, Hayden Landis, our Digital Production Supervisor, and our teams at ILM in San Francisco and Singapore and all our facility partners.  I offer humble thanks to all of them for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I’ve never had a greater impact on a film before, and I’m so proud to be associated with such a great film.  I was lucky enough to catch a screening in IMAX, and really enjoyed the movie.  In visual effects, we consider ourselves lucky if we get to work on one really, really good film in our entire career.  I’ve been lucky enough to work on a few of them, and “MI4” ranks among my favorite films to which I’ve contributed.  It was my second "Mission: Impossible" film, my first IMAX film, and my tenth anamorphic film.

Here’s a snapshot of how Brad Bird’s directorial debut has been received by the public:

Box Office

As of January 31, 2012, the film has grossed nearly $572 million dollars.  Its $203 million dollar take in North America makes it the seventh highest grossing film of 2011.  (It will most likely overtake “Fast Five” at number six, with $209M.)   “MI4” is the highest grossing “Mission: Impossible” film, globally, and will most likely become the highest grossing Tom Cruise film of all time, toppling “War of the Worlds”.

Critical Acclaim

For the fourth entry of a franchise based on a television show, “MI4”’s 93% Tomatometer rating is through the roof.  The Rotten Tomatoes summary is as follows:  "Stylish, fast-paced, and loaded with gripping set pieces, the fourth Mission: Impossible is big-budget popcorn entertainment that really works."

Visual Effects Coverage

We were blown away when we were invited to present our film at the visual effects Academy Bake-Off, which featured ten films competing for five nomination slots.  “MI4” was included in a list that also featured “Transformers 3” and “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”. Although we didn’t get a nomination, we were grateful for the opportunity to go to the bake-off and show our reel.

Cinefex and Jody Duncan will cover “MI4” in its April 2012 issue, which should make for a great read.

The Daily interviewed John Knoll to discuss the film’s visual effects.

FXGuide and Mike Seymour expand on The Daily’s coverage with a more extensive interview with John Knoll.

Vincent Frei at Art of VFX also talks to John about the film.

Over at The VFX Show podcast, Mike Seymour, Matt Leonard and Jason Diamond go over the visual effects of “MI4” with a fine tooth comb for nearly 70 minutes, and have some really nice things to say about them.

And if you’re at all interested in how the film was shot, please read this profile of cinematographer Robert Elswit, the man behind the photography of “There Will Be Blood”, on how he shot “MI4” on film with 35mm and IMAX cameras.

"Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol"

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

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.

MI4 in IMAX

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.

More Excuses

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.

More About ILM and "Avatar"

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"

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?)

"Avatar" and ILM

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.