VERSO: the trailer !!!

The trailer for the new movie directed by Xavier Ruiz, VERSO, with Carlos Léal, Laurent Lucas and Stress is available ici.

The visual effects were done by Demain La Lune and are of different kind:

- the main and end titles
- font effects
- adding weapon visor
- adding blur and reflects
- subliminal shots
- restorations
- adding some car lights on police car (for wide shots)

Here a some trailer screenshots:

The release dates are November 19th 2009 for the swiss german and February 2nd 2010 for the french part.

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 !!

CARGO: the premiere

Don't miss tonight, at 8pm, on STAR TV an exclusive documentary on CARGO directed by Ivan Engler !!!

You'll see interviews, film clips and behind the scenes footages !!!

The documentary should be available soon on the StarTV's website...

The movie will be released September 24th.

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 !

AVATAR: A swiss on Pandora !!!

The movie of the year, James Cameron's AVATAR, is at last visible with a teaser trailer and with a special screening of 15 minutes (Avatar Day). The images are really awesome !!!

Many VFX houses (Weta Digital, ILM and Framestore among others) are working on this show which will be released in mid-December.

A swiss, Jean-Denis Haas, is working as 3D animator at ILM on the show.
Before that he has worked on movies such as STAR WARS: EPISODE III, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST, TRANSFORMERS ou encore STAR TREK !!!

Here are some screenshots from the teaser (available on Apple):

More informations soon but before that don't miss the website of Jean-Denis Haas, HERE !!!

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 !!

CARGO, the trailer !!!

At last, the trailer of CARGO is out !!!

And that's really really impressive !!! Great pictures and lot of VFX shots !!!

Here are some images:

The trailer is available on the website of the movie !!!

Please make some comments on the forum !!!

CARGO, the movie posters

Waiting the trailer of CARGO, here are the movie posters of the film:

And the release date: the 24th september 2009 !!!

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 !!

CARGO, the first VFX images !!!

The opening of the new CARGO's website is the opportunity to see a lots of new images. Some of them shows VFX !!!

The result is really amazing and the set extension works is perfect !!!
It's a real pleasure to see that kind of images for a swiss movie !!!

The trailer will be available in the next few days.

Go see the new website, here.

2012, massive VFX destruction

Roland Emmerich purpose us with 2012, his new vision of the End of the World.
The trailer HD is here.

Be prepare to see the most impressive massive destruction scene on big screen !!!

A swiss is working on the VFX, it's Goran Pavles from Uncharted Territory.
He works on the scene where the road breaks up (Picture 2).

Here are some screenshots: