Something AMAZING

SOAR, by Alyce Tzue, just received the gold medal for the Student Academy Awards

I had the wonderful opportunity to work on this film as a texture artist and then one of the lighting leads. Congratulations to Alyce Tzue and to the rest of the crew! I wish I could have made the trip down to L.A. and celebrated with everyone.

Also, congratulations to the other Student Academy Award Winners.
An Object at Rest
Taking the Plunge

The Student Academy Awards are a huge honor and a massive achievement. However, it doesn't just stop there! SOAR is qualified for Oscar nominations so here's me crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

Hey Alyce, is SOAR finally going to be public on the interwebs for everyone to see and share now? :D

VFX Oscars Protest

While the film Life of Pi won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects last night, it was not exactly the happy occasion as one expects. Rhythm and Hues, largely responsible for working on the film, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is neither receiving largely the respect nor the help that they need and thus many VFX artists gathered to stage a protest. Myself, and many others, in honor of those artists, have changed our profile pictures to a neon green (in association with green-screening).

 When VFX supervisor, Bill Westenhofer attempted to give his speech last night, was rudely cut short by the orchestra playing the ominous music of Jaws right when he was about speak of the plight of the VFX industry. It may just be bad timing but, as others have pointed out, he was cut off very abruptly and precisely while other award winners have gone overtime without any problems.

As mentioned, an issue of the VFX industry is the high overhead in creating the visual effects and maintaining the facility but a very low margin. The VFX houses just hope to break even and not, as more often than not, lose money. The issue has further escalated as jobs are gradually outsourced outside the country mainly due to subsidies that the outsourced country may offer. Creating jobs outside in other countries may be great also but again, many times what happens is that small studios are quickly set up for that one project and then after the project finishes, the studio close down again.

Another worrying aspect to this predicament is what that means for us students. People who have just graduated or will be graduating soon will be competing against all these very talented people from Rhythm and Hues and from Dreamworks.

For anyone looking for some more details on the issues of the industry and the exact details that the protestors are arguing for, there's a great post over on Reddit. The VES, supporting the visual effects community, have written open letters about the current situation and they are a great read. Definitely stop over at vfxunion.com to read more details on what the artists are organizing for!

Oscar nominees for Best Animated Shorts

For those who haven't seen them yet, the 5 Oscar nominees for best animated shorts have finally made it onto the internet for public viewing pleasures. Of the five I had already previously seen Paperman and Fresh Guacamole. Now being able to watch the rest I have found a love for Adam and Dog and Head over Heels, both beautifully crafted and tells a lovely story. I previously had thought that I wouldn't care much for the Simpson's one but after watching it I found it to be a very endearing short. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTLySbGoMX0?rel=0] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq0-i8GQbgw?rel=0] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHs3Pe32b8Q?rel=0] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMO6vjmkyI?rel=0]

*Will update with Maggie Simpson's The Longest Daycare when I can find a good full length version. It does not appear on youtube yet, the vimeo one has embeds disallowed and metatube does not work with wordpress*

Oscar Nominees 2013

The nominees for the 85th Annual Academy Awards have been announced. Yay!The awards show will be broadcast live on Sunday, Feb 24th on ABC.Let's take this by categories, mainly focusing on animation and vfx.

Best Picture “Argo” “Django Unchained” “Les Miserables” “Life of Pi” “Amour” “Lincoln” “Silver Linings Playbook” “Zero Dark Thirty” “Beasts of the Southern Wild”

Life of Pi is expected, and I've already mentioned it twice before so I won't say as much about it this time. Les Miserables was amazing; I cried, everyone cried. I haven't seen Beasts of the Southern Wild yet but I have heard great things about it and this movie is particularly of note due to that a group AAU students worked on the VFX of the movie.

Animated Feature Film “Brave” “Frankenweenie” “ParaNorman” “The Pirates! Band of Misfits” “Wreck-It Ralph”

As unfortunate as it seems, I don't really expect Brave to win as there have been many contention points about the story being somewhat weak. ParaNorman and Wreck-it-Ralph are some great contenders for the award. I'm somewhat disappointed that Rise of the Guardians was not nominated, but I suppose since the list is limited to five and there are already two 3D animated films that picking Frankenweenie would be a more diversified choice, although I found the movie to be somewhat dull.

Short Film – Animated “Adam and Dog” “Fresh Guacamole” “Head over Heels” “Maggie Simpson in ‘The Longest Daycare’” “Paperman”

I just went to watch the trailers for Adam and Dog and Head over Heels and they look beautiful and so adorable. As I haven't seen the full short it's somewhat hard to judge though. I think I've only seen Fresh Guacamole and Paperman in full but here I am fully expecting Paperman to take the award. Beautiful story, beautiful art, beautiful music, and particularly the advancement and combination of integrating 2D animation with 3D animation.

Visual Effects “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” “Life of Pi” “Marvel’s The Avengers” “Prometheus” “Snow White and the Huntsman”

I still think that the top two films fighting for the award will be Life of Pi and The Hobbit. It's quite hard to say who will win but I think I would prefer Life of Pi. I had a lot less issues with Life of Pi compared with The Hobbit, particularly at 48fps. I thought the vfx in Life of Pi was more beautiful and used well without a lot of frivolousness.

VFX Oscar Shortlist

The 85th Academy Awards are coming up and the 10 films currently remaining in the list for visual effects have been announced. The list will be shortened down to just 5 titles to be nominated for Oscar consideration and will be announced Thursday, January 10, 2013. The Amazing Spider-Man Cloud Atlas The Dark Knight Rises The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey John Carter Life of Pi The Avengers Prometheus Skyfall Snow White and the Huntsman

Unfortunately I have not seen all the movies so it would be hard for me talk about each one individually but the ones that I would definitely see go through are Cloud Atlas, The Hobbit, and Life of Pi. Cloud Atlas is quite a large and overwhelming project to take on as it crosses through both time and space in six different locations. A lot of effects went into the production of the film but most importantly they were used to drive the story. While The Hobbit hasn't even been released yet, the film is a very strong contender from what we all already know of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Peter Jackson. All three of the LotR films have won in the past and people have high expectations for The Hobbit. Life of Pi was considered one of the many unfilmable book films but Ang Lee has done a beautiful job in directing. With both being shot in stereoscope, beautifully scenery, imposing storms, and realistic animals, Life of Pi has additionally been called the "Avatar" film of the year.

Batman may have to fight for it's position in the top five as it contends along with two films that are not only heavy in effects but also in the same super hero genre. John Carter is an unfortunate circumstance in where the marketing of the film was not done well and not many people even know about the film. I wish I could like Snow White and the Huntsman as it had some beautiful effects with the crows and the liquid gold magic mirror but Kristen Stewart completely ruined the movie and it was agonizing to watch her on screen.

As Dennis Muren says, vfx is there to serve the story and provide emotional effect. It is not about how many vfx shots there are in a film or how much money the film is making in box office. Here is to looking forward to the final 5 nominees of the Oscars and the final film taking the award!