2012: interview of Goran Pavles

The new end of the world movie of Roland Emmerich, 2012, is just released today.
It's a whole vfx festival which has more than 10 vfx houses implicated and that was necessary to deliver more than 1300 shots !!

Among the studios, there is Double Negative who did the Vatican and the Yellowstone sequences and there is also Uncharted Territory (founded by Volker Engel, a long time collaborator of Roland Emmerich) who did the destruction of Los Angeles and the fly over Las Vegas (almost 400 shots). Scanline VFX did the huge wave submerging the Himalaya.

Here is an interview of Goran Pavles who has worked on the show as TD artist at Uncharted Territory:

- Can you introduce yourself ??
So my name is Goran Pavles. I'm 25 years old, born in Croatia and living in Basel for 18 years or so. Started CG five years ago as a hobbyist. Working as accountant at that time.

- What was your job position on 2012 ??
I was one of the many VFX Artist at Uncharted Territory. You can call it TD Artist. We all did get pretty tricky tasks and enough time to get them look how the supervisors want. So everybody was developing his own little tools and setups.

- On which sequence have you worked on ??
Uncharted Territory did the L.A.-Limousine sequence. From the point where the earthquake starts, up to the point where they arrive at the Santa Monica airport.
Second Sequence was the Vegas one. There I had just a little part to do.

- 2012 is a big massive destruction movie, what was the biggest challenge on it ??
I think the biggest challenge was to fill so much different things into those full CG images, that they do look believable. For us Artists it was kinda "easy", we got a task and had to solve it. I think to manage all those shots, to keep continuity, and match all the elements of each frame to work together is the hardest thing. There are unbelievably many elements in each shot. There were 3 people dedicated just to keep overview of who is doing what, what has he to do next and keep everything updated.

For me personally the challenge was to find a more or less procedural way of working, so I could adapt the simulations to the supervisors wishes. I had this huge ground element that was breaking, and it was not possible to simulate it in one go. At least not in reasonable time. Splitting it up into many smaller simulations, but still keep it work together was kind of a tricky thing.

- Did you have encounter some difficulies and how did you achieved them ??
Hell Yea, Every day!
There are always unexpected things that slowdown your work flow and ask for crazy workarounds. I was lucky that I knew a little scripting. So I could write something that helped me out. We were also a lot of artists coming from different softwares with different experiences. So there was always somebody to ask and who knew how to solve a problem or just had an idea how to workaround it.

- Which softwares did you used ??
We used 3ds Max 2008, Thinking Particles, FumeFx, Final Render and Nuke.

- How long did you work on this show ??
I've been 6 months over there

- What was your best memory ??
I think the whole thing is a great memory. The working climate was really nice. Uncharted is a great company that does not try to save each cent and creates a very nice working atmosphere. Also to see this other world on the other side of this big blue is very interesting. It's one thing to go there for a week and see the interesting tourist parts. But a whole other thing to stay there for a longer time and live there the way Americans do and see the good and bad parts of their system.

- What's your next project ??
No further plans at the moment.

- Thanks a lot for your time !

You can see a long movie clip of the destruction of Los Angeles in HD, here !!!

TRANSFORMERS 2: exclusive interview of Jean-Denis Haas

Here is a brand new exclusive interview for TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN which complete the other one did by Natasha Devaud by giving an eye on the animation and CG aspects of the show

Jean-Denis Haas work since 5 years at ILM, his resume contains big shows like STAR WARS: EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST, TRANFORMERS or STAR TREK.
As you have seen it in a past news, Jean-Denis is working on the next movie of James Cameron, AVATAR !!!

He gives us a some of his times to talk about his work on the show

Hello Jean-Denis, can you tell us what was your position on the show ??


I was one of the lead animators on the show.


In what consist your job ??


Transformers 2 was my first show as a lead, so my job requirements changed a bit. Usually you are assigned shots and you animate the characters within that shot according to the direction of the client. As a lead animator I was overseeing certain sequences and made sure that the animators working on shots within those sequences had all the information and help they needed.


On which scenes have you worked ??


Most of my work was focused on the underwater sequence where I helped with previz and animation of shots. I also animate a few shots with Ravage, Optimus Prime & Megatron in the forrest fight, Jetfire, etc.


How is the preparation for a typical shot ??


You check in with a lead or supervisor who will give you the specific direction for your shot. That way you know what's going on and what the action or acting beats are for your character(s). Then you start planning out your shot by either acting it out, shooting video reference or using other tools. Whatever helps you out to get a good idea of what you want to do. Once you're clear about that, you start blocking out the shot.


For the animation, have you used iMocap or keyframe animation ??


I have used both. Some actions can't be mocapped (or would be very difficult and time consuming to do so) and you end up doing it by hand, others will benefit from motion capture takes because you get a lot of subtleties in your animation, which help it make the movement more real.


What was the references for the animation ??


Animators would either act out their scenes or we would study footage found online or through other media. The footage used ranged from fighting bits to acting moments.


Is Michael Bay very specific what he want with the animation or he let the animation supervisor doing that ?
I would say both. He is really good about collaborating with the artists. So either you would get very specific notes from him or he would ask us to come up with something interesting that fits the tone and style of the movie. He has a very good eye for cool shots so either way his comments are very helpful.


What was the most difficult characters to animate ??


That all depends on the definition of difficult. A character can be difficult to animate because of its size, the way it's constructed or any other physical feature, and how it fits and relates with the environment and/or live action plate. Some characters also had more complex acting moments like Jetfire or Optimus Prime. So I would say all the characters might have difficult aspects to them from time to time.


Have you encounter any problems ??


I haven't had any major problems, but that's because the tools and the production team here at ILM are really good at providing you with as many solutions as possible to any potential problems. You never end a day with a feeling of "I can't fix this problem." Obviously you will always encounter complications on a show, but those are usually technical in nature because we push ourselves to do better work than on previous shows.


How many times did you have for this show ??


I worked on Transformers 2 for a couple of months.


What is your next projects ??


Currently I'm working on James Cameron's "Avatar".

Thanks a lot for your time !!

LAND OF THE LOST: interview of Pascal Chappuis

Pascal Chappuis who is working at Rhythm & Hues give us an exclusive interview of his work on LAND OF THE LOST directed by Brad Silberling.
Before that he has worked on THE GOLDEN COMPASS and THE INCREDIBLE HULK.

I'm sorry the interview is in french only

Salut Pascal. Quel était ton poste sur LOTL ??
J'étais Sequence Supervisor. Ce qui veux dire que je suis en charge d'une dizaine de 'TD lighting' et d'une dizaine de 'TD Compositing' sur une séquence entière du film. En général de 100 a 120 shots.

Sur quelles séquences as-tu travaillé ??
J'ai hérité de la séquence dans le temple quand Marshall et son pote viennent secourir Holly suspendue dans une cage au-dessus d'un brasier. La séquence se termine avec Marshall se faisant avaler par le Dinosaure.

As-tu rencontré des difficultés ??
Ce show a été particulier par le nombre intensif de matte painting ou remplacement d'arrière-plan. Cela devient catastrophique à la vitesse à laquelle ils tournent ces films et le nombre de fois où il faut remplacer ce qu'il y a derrière les 'liannes' du décor ou de la fumée sur le set. Il faut donc créer ou étendre les arrières-plans en 2d pure ou en 3d projections, découper les zones où ils doivent se trouver et retrouver de la fumée proche de celle du jour du tournage à intégrer par dessus pour que tout fonctionne.
Ma séquence aura été intensive dans ce genre d'effets invisible a la fin.

Combien de personnes composait ton équipe ??
Mon équipe était en Inde cette fois. Je revenais d'une année passée avec notre équipe à Bombay. J'ai commencé ce show depuis là-bas et je l'ai fini depuis Los Angeles mais avec mes gars sur Bombay. Une ou deux personnes sur place à Los Angeles pour compléter l'équipe pour certaines urgences et tout roule.
Une expérience particulière que celle de 'diriger' une équipe à distance par vidéo conférence. Très enrichissant et certaine fois assez difficile.

Avez-vous eu un temps de postproduction confortable ou le délai était un peu court (ce qui tant à se généraliser malheureusement) ??
Très très court. Peut-être par notre faute, pour ne pas avoir réaliser l'ampleur du travail avec le nombre d'effets invisible qui venait se rajouter aux effets plus standard de bestioles 3D gesticulant dans tous les sens. Mais bien des rires au dérisoire de certaines scènes qu'on nous demandait de faire.

Il semble que le public n'ait pas adhéré néanmoins. Une bombe au box office américain malheureusement. Le film 'Hangover' l'aura tué. Certainement un mauvais marketing pour un film difficilement cernable. Les Studios n'ont pas touché le public cible avec leur campagne ou plutôt n'ont pas su pour quel public ce film se destinait. Un flop financier en a résulté. C'est les règles du jeu du cinema a Hollywood. Quasiment du Poker.

Quel est votre pipeline logiciel ??
Propriétaire en majeure partie avec un gros complément par Houdini.

Quel est ton prochain projet ??
Je suis sur 'The Wolf Man' avec Anthony Hopkins et Benecio Del Toro tout deux en loup-garous. Sortie prévue en Février 2010 aux US. Nous aidons simplement sur une centaine de shots. Le show est en grosse partie fait par des compagnies londoniennes.

Un énorme merci à toi pour ta disponibilité !

UP: exclusive interview of Simon Christen

Here's an exclusive interview of Simon Christen who works at Pixar !!
He talks to us about how it come at Pixar and his work on UP.

Don't forget to see his great showreel (on the "animation" part) on his website.

Hi Simon, can you tell us how did you come at Pixar?
I was interested in CG from early on and started playing around with Photoshop and later 3D Studio Max while studying at the Gymnasium in Bern.
After countless hours in front of the computer and many personal CG projects, I decided I wanted to try and make it my career. Searching the internet I found a school in San Francisco, California - Academy of Art University - which seemed to be really promising. The school offered a 4 year BFA program and being with close proximity to Studios such as Pixar, PDI and ILM, I hoped there might be some good teachers teaching the classes.

So I moved to San Francisco and started Art school. After 2 years I got accepted into the advanced Animation classes, which at the time were taught by Pixar animators. I worked on numerous animation exercises and was able to put my first demo reel together. During a summer semester I was able to work as an intern at a small Computer Games company and get some industry animation experience.

After graduating I applied for the Pixar Animation Internship and was extremely fortunate to get accepted. It was an incredible learning experience and we worked again on different animation exercises ranging from Luxo interacting with a ball to dialogue tests. After 3 months the internship was coming to an end and all of us interns were of course hoping to get picked up. I was offered a Fix Animation position on "Ratatouille". A dream came true for me. For the next 10 months I was fixing shots for the movie and getting to see how a real production works. Unfortunately after "Ratatouille" was over they didn't have enough space to keep me on the team, so I sent my reel out and got picked up as an animator at Walt Disney Animation Studios where I got to work on "Bolt". It was again a great experience and interesting to see how another studio works. After "Bolt" was wrapping up I reapplied at Pixar and got hired back on, this time as full time animator on "UP".

What was your job position on Up?
I was an animator responsible for character animation.

On which sequences and characters have you worked on?
As an animator at Pixar you are responsible to animate an entire scene including every character within. Therefore you get to work on multiple characters which is challenging and interesting at the same time.
There were a bunch of smaller scenes throughout the movie but the two bigger chunks of shots were:
Where Carl is holding on to the hose hoping Russell, Kevin and Dug didn't die after the house fell off the dirigible. He rushes forward to the edge trying to take a peak, has a second of uncertainty before the trio swings happily forward and Russell shouting "That was cooooooool". Russell then starts to climb up the hose.
Another chunk of shots I worked on is towards the end where Alpha attacks Dug and eventually gets stuck in "the cone of shame".
At the very end of the show I was running out of work and I got to animate all the pages of the adventure book for the end credits. :-)

What was the most complicated character to animate?
In Up I would have to say Russell. I struggled a lot with the shot where Russell is climbing up on the hose. His arms are just too short to be able to reach far enough. It involved a lot of “cheating” to get it to read the way I wanted it.
Also Kevin was tricky.

Which software did you use?
At Pixar we animate in a program called Marionette which is proprietary software.
It works much the same like Maya, but has some cool additional features.

Have you encounters any difficulties?
Difficulties with the software or with animating? Either way, both offer plenty of opportunities to be challenged. The software is very sophisticated but you still run into hiccups from time to time. The good thing is that the software is constantly updated and bugs are taken care of very quickly.

Animation itself poses a lot of difficulties and for me it is a daily challenge to come up with interesting acting choices and turning my ideas into polished finished animation. Sometime it helps to step away from it for a little bit and then come back to it later and start fresh again.

What's your next project?
I just finished working on a teaser for the re-release of “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2” in 3D.
Currently I am animating on Toy Story 3, which is scheduled for release in the US June 18th 2010

Thanks a lot for your time !!

TRANSFORMERS 2: interview of Natasha Devaud

As for the first movie, ILM did the visual effects along with Digital Domain (the vfx house belong to Michael Bay). Asylum also did some VFX.

ILM did the most complicated and impressive sequences of the show like the opening sequence, the forest battle and of course the enormous final battle.
The VFX supervisor was Scott Farrar who supervise the first movie and also Minority Report, A.I. or Men in Black.

Natasha Devaud explain to us her work on TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN directed by Michael Bay.

Hello Natasha, can you tell us on which sequences you have worked on ??
Hello. I got on the show pretty late in the game and only spent a couple of months on it, so I did a few shots wherever necessary, but weren't attached to any particular sequence. I did some shots with Jetfire on the airplane field, some around the fight between Megatron and Fallen on top of the pyramid, and some with quite a few guys in the desert for Jetfire's death.

After Iron Man and Terminator Salvation, you works again on robots ??
Is that just coïncidence or it's because you like very much robots ??
It's certainly not because I'm a big fan of robots, although they can be quite fun to light. It seems to be the current fade, like we had the big ship series (Master and Commander, Poseidon, Pirates) or the fantasy series (Harry Potter's, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Spiderwick Chronicles).

What was the most complicated sequence to do ??
The biggest and most complicated sequences on the show were the formation of Devastator and destruction of the pyramid, and the forest fight sequences.

Have you utilized the lighting and render techniques developped for Terminator Salvation ??
Not quite. Both shows were running simultaneously for the most part and Terminator Salvation was the test show for the latest lighting technique. But Transformers 2 had it's own challenges and novelties.

Did you used Nuke on this show ??
Can't say.

How did you manage so many robots at the same time ?? The render times should have exploded !
The rendering times were indeed quite impressive. We try to minimize the rendering times by limiting the geometry to what's visible on screen or simplify some of the materials or geometry if the characters are far away. Most robots are rendered seperately as it's often not even possible to load several of them in one session.

Have you encounter any problems ??
The biggest challenge was the IMAX aspect of many of the shots. We had to determine what resolution we had to render at (it ended up being 4k), and how to handle the elements and comps during the production to suit the IMAX resolution, so the details would look just as sharp as on the rest of the shots.

How many times did you have to finish the effects ??
ILM's involvement on Transformers was 15 months, but the whole production lasted about 2 years.

How was it to work with Scott Farrar who has a long experience in the pre- digital era ??
Very good. I've worked with Scott on a few other shows, he has a very good eye and always has very pertinent comments. His extensive experience, digital and pre-digital, is very valuable.

Thanks a lot for your time !!

TERMINATOR SALVATION: interview of Raffael Dickreuter !!!

Here is a brand new exclusive interview about Terminator Salvation !!
That's Raffael Dickreuter of Pixel Liberation Front who give me some of his time for my questions.

Hi Rafael, Can you tell us what was your position on this show ??
I worked as a previs animator in pre production at Warner Bros Studios as well as postvis animator during shooting and post production on the film.

Can you explain to us in what consist the pre-viz ??
Previs is a process where you visualize shots or entire sequences that are usually very difficult to film and figure out how much they will cost. you recreate film sets in a virtual environment and create shots using animation techniques that then are used by the film crews, the director and the studio to film them and make them work.

On which sequences have you worked ??
I worked on the long sequence that started with the harvester grabbing people out of the gas station, the mototerminator chase till all the way the plane and hunter killer fight in the air. as well as the sequence where John Connor shoots down a HunterKiller for the first time to test the signal that is supposed to kill the Terminators.

What softwares did you use ??
Pretty much the standard softwares that is used for previs which is Maya and After Effects.

Is the final result is true to your animations ??
Yes and no. As a previs animator you are involved very early in the project long before even actors are cast. the sequences that we as a team of Pixel Liberation Front worked on evolved over a period of several months to what happens now to be the end result in the film. Its a creative process where many ideas are being tried out. Overall the shots ended up being very close to the previs and postvis. To maybe understand how long a film takes to make, we basically worked on previs about a year and half before the movie has come out. As you can see it takes a very long time from first storyboards, to previs, filming, post production till it finally ends up on the screen.

How was the collaboration with the director McG ??
He is a very intense guy I can say that. but a lot of fun and very passionate. He definitely was a big Terminator fan and wanted to make sure that the movie turned out great. I worked with him mostly on the lot of Warner Bros Studios, besides workign with Chris Batty, the previs supervisor, as well as Charlie Gibson, VFX Supervisor. In pre production we worked a lot with Director of Photography Shane Hurlbut who is a lot of fun, great guy. In the postvis phase we worked also with Conrad Buff, the film editor, who actually alreay edited Terminator 2 back in the day. We collaborated with him to make the Mototerminator sequence work.

What is your next project ??
I am not sure yet. Next up is a vacation going to good old Switzerland.

Thanks a lot for your time.

Pictures source: Kulturplatz documentary

Documentary about Raffael Dickreuter online !!!

If you've missed the documentary last wednesday night on SF (Kulturplatz) for his work on TERMINATOR SALVATION, dont' worry Raffael purpose it online on his website.

It's in swiss german. But the pictures speak for themsleves.
It's the occasion to see many work in progress pictures !!

Don't miss this really interesting doc (almost 7 min) !!!

TERMINATOR SALVATION: interview of Natasha Devaud !!!

This new Terminator movie has a huge level of effects, 1300 shots !! ILM did almost 400 of them among the most complex.
The others shots are divided between Asylum (face remplacement), Rising Sun Pictures (submarine sequences and some Hunter Killer explosions).
Imaginary Forces did the titles design and the terminator's POV. Matte World Digital was in charge for the matte-paintings. Kerner Optical (who was before the ILM model shop) and New Deal Studios did the models.
The pre-viz was done by two studios, Proof and Pixel Liberation Front.
The special effects makeups were done by Legacy Effects (that was Stan Winston Studio but renamed that way for a tribute to the master).


The visual effects supervisor for the movie was Charles Gibson (Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy) and for ILM it was Ben Snow who is very familiar with CG robots. He supervised IRON MAN and he's now supervising IRON MAN 2 !!

Natasha Devaud, senior TD, answer some of my questions about his work on the movie:

Hi Natasha. Can you tell us on which sequences you have worked ??
I worked on the sequences with the hydrobots (these snake-like robots underwater) and inside the factory. I also did the look developpment of the hydrobots and several digital doubles from live actors.

In what consist your job ??
As a TD (technical director), I gather the work of the layout people, the animator and creature dev people (sim of cables, skin, ...), and add all the textures and lighting to the characters, which I then render to hand out to the compositor. 

The work of the TD is bit like the center point of a shot, with most of my time being spent creating realistic lighting to make the CG effects blend seamlessly into the background.

After TRANSFORMERS and IRON MAN, ILM is the reference for CG robots.  What was the challenge this time ??
One of the big challenge was the CG Arnold. Very tricky. And also the nature of some of the shots where the lighting on the background plate would be different at every frame. Given the metallic and reflective nature of the robots, these constant changes had to be applied on them as well.

To which step did you use the puppets of Legacy Effects ??
We used them as references to develop the textures, materials and look in general, and the way they react to the light.

For the animation of the robots, have you used IMocap (motion capture device developped by ILM on Pirates of the Caribbean 2) ??
No, it's all hand animated.

The render of the robots are impressive. How did you get this result ??
We used a new technic of lighting, image-based.

Did you have encounter some problems ??
Arnold was quite difficult, and as mentionned earlier, the fact that the environment was constantly changing on some of the sequences.
On the animation side, the biggest challenge was to make these robots look as realistic as possible in their movements while giving them a sense of heavyness due to their size. Some of the interractions between the cg effects and the live-action background was also quite challenging. Think about shots where we had to add heavy damage to real structures.

What was the most complicated sequence to achieve ??
Probably Arnold. But pretty much every shot has its challenge.

How was the collaboration with Charles Gibson and McG ??
I didn't interract directly with them, but I think, it went very well. The crew on the ILM side was excellent, led by Ben Snow who's a great visual effect supervisor.

What's your next project ??
Can't say yet as I'm not sure myself. I just finished Transformers 2 and will take a few weeks off.

Thanks a lot for your time and help. Congratulations for your great  work !

An another interview about this movie will be soon online !!
Raffael Dickreuter of Pixel Liberation Front give me some of his time for my questions !!

X-MEN ORIGINS WOLVERINE and HatchFX's mattes

Here's a small interview of Deak Ferrand which present to us his work on WOLVERINE and in exclusivity some behind the scenes pictures (sorry, it's in french).

Bonjour Deak, peux-tu nous dire combien de mattes-paintings as-tu fais sur ce film et sur quelles séquences ??

Un grand "crane down" sur une ville de favelas qui est utilisé a plusieurs reprises dans la séquence en partie.
Un plan où Wolverine est en route vers Las Vegas (très drôle, le Studio voulait que l'audience comprenne qu'il allait vers LV donc fallait mettre le panneau qui se trouve en ville en dehors de la ville! Beaucoup de gens reconnaisent le signe illumine est rigolent bien!).
Quelques autres sans beaucoup d'intérêts.
Nous avons été appelés après des reshoots à Vancouver fin Janvier pour une livraison début Mars.

- Quels logiciels utilises-tu ??

Nous avons utilisés Photoshop, Softimage XSI et After Effects.

- Est-ce que tu prend en charge un plan dans sa totalité ou tu fais juste le matte-painting ??

Absolument le plus souvent possible..... du concept, au shot final!
C'est ça qui rend le travail plus intéressant!

- Un grand merci pour ton temps ;)

Merci Vincent! A très bientôt!

For more informations, go see their website.

Thanks to Deak and Cheryl for the pictures.

MAX GABL from Basel to Los Angeles

Here is an exclusive interview of Max Gabl, a swiss matte painter who left Basel to Los Angeles. There, he will work at Digital Domain on Clint Eastwood's FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS or Quentin Tarantion's KILL BILL 2. Now, he's working at CBS Digital on TV shows like STAR TREK and PUSHING DAISIES.

Between two mattes, he give me some times to answer my questions. Happy reading.

VinceFX: Can you tell us a little about you and how you come to work at LA ???
Max: I have been painting from a very early age. As A kid I was fascinated by painters such as Velazquez, Leonardo and Van Eyck, which I copied, knowing that realistic painting is what I wanted to do. After Gymnasium I went to the Kunstgewerbeschule Basel (Ecole des Arts, Bale), where I had graphics and painting. I wasn't really happy with the curriculum there so after Kunstgewerbeschule I started studying painting in-depth by myself, copying old masters in the Musee de Louvre and Museo del Prado in Madrid. In my mid twenties I worked as a commercial illustrator, layout and graphic artist for advertising agencies, and as a digital artist for a small company that made animated movies for commercials. I also did oil portraits and taught airbrushing classes.

I did a lot of things since it was impossible to make a living as an artist in Switzerland specializing in one thing only. In the early nineties, when work in Switzerland became even more scarce due to the collapsing of many advertisement agencies, my wife (then my girlfriend), who is a costume sketch artist and costume designer, and I decided we would try to move to LA to find work in the movie business. Money earned from art that I sold at an exhibition and my wife's savings, got us to LA where we lived for half a year in 1994, trying to connect and find an employer/sponsor, but it didn't work out.

Before returning home we played the greencard lottery and luckily my wife won one, so a year later we immigrated. I worked my way up starting as set painter, miniature painter, storyboard artist, scenic artist (painting large realistic backdrops for movies), concept artist, and since about five years as matte painter.

VinceFX: Which software did you use ???
Max: I use Photoshop, Painter, Cinema 4d/Bodypaint, SketchUp, After Effects, Illustrator. Sometimes I paint textures the old fashioned way on canvas and photograph/scan them.

VinceFX: What's your best experience til now ???
Max: I love my jobs almost always but my most memorable experiences and highlights are connected to the people I meet and the crews I worked in. At Digital Domain, I remember the jokes and beers that followed us from the restaurant at the beach to the desk at work right next to our screens, where they would still be after we woke up from our extended after-lunch naps ... Of course this only happened after a job well done.

I also had a great time at CBS, when I worked for two years on Star Trek (remastered). Great crew there and the reactions of the Trekkies (StarTrek fans) to anything we did was just amazing. The smallest touch created thousands of comments on blogs and web sites worldwide, every painting I made was discussed by hundreds of people.

VinceFX: What are your projects ???
Max: My matte painting film credits include Stealth, Flags Of Our Fathers, Racing Stripes, The Celestine Prophecy, Primeval, Underdog.

My TV film credits include Star Trek, Kings, SIS, Ugly Betty, new Amsterdam, Pushing Daisies, The Bronx Is Burning, Boldly Going Nowhere, The Curse Of King Tut's Tomb, Supernova, Blackbeard, Mysterious Island (all HD).

My scenic backdrops film credits include The Terminal, Kill Bill 2, Hulk, The Haunted Mansion, Mystic River, The Scorpion King, The Stepford Wives, Spanglish, Live From Baghdad, and more.
A great thanks to Max, don't hesitate to visit his demoreel, she's very impressive with many breakdowns.

Beside, you'll find on the website TrekMovie, a great text on CBS Digital and their work on the STAR TREK TV show.