November 2009 Archives
A new trailer for the show is out! You'll have to click the title of this entry to view this at it's optimal width of 600pixels.
A couple of my shots are in here, they include the first Hydra breathing fire shot, and the first water explosion shot. They're still in progress.
Yes, it is only Monday night, but things are just flying along! Let's start in reverse, shall we? On Sunday I got a chance to catch 2012: Disaster Porn. It ran a long two hours and 45 minutes! We were in the theater from 9:30am, to 12:30pm. Luckily, the tickets were only six dollars. Sunday morning matinees are the best. :) I thoroughly enjoyed 2012 for what it was, a spectacle of a film. There was some amazing work in there by all the digital houses. Some stuff looked unfinished, but that's par for the course on a show that big! I really enjoyed all the water stuff, and the destruction of LA and DC. I was disappointed that we only saw a small part of Rio fall apart, as well as Italy. :( You can't have it all, I guess.
On Saturday I worked a half day on a shot that is most likely going to go for a while longer. It's pretty big shot, but it is slowly coming together. When the movie comes out, I'm sure to have a least a screen cap of it or something! It might be in the new trailer too, but I don't know when that's coming. On Saturday afternoon, I ran over to Imageworks to take part in a VES Panel discussion on how to get started in the industry.
Here is the group that was up there. From left to right; Nick from New Deal Studios, myself from Digital Domain, Mark the moderator, Tad from Imageworks, and Susan from Furious FX. It was a pretty long and in depth panel that started probably around 2:15pm and went to 4pm! I'm sure we could have talked for much much longer! Unfortunately, I can't say exactly how the day was organized, I couldn't find it mentioned anywhere. Hopefully there will be more, and hopefully I'll be a part of them as well! Here's another quick camera photo from the audience of the panel set up. It's a little blurry, but it shows how we sat and the size of the audience. Tad had an old demo reel (he has 25+ years in this industry) of some of the first visual effects and animation that he had accomplished using multi-plane setups. His first show was The Great Mouse Detective in 1986!
Friday was an interesting day, as my shot count for the show was reduced by three. That was the number of finals that I was able to finish and pass through to the client. Every week we have a meeting with the client who sits down and looks at all our work. Since we're getting close to the finish line, we're having a bunch of shots finalled, which is a good thing! Also, Friday afternoon, I received the Astro A40 Audio System. I've been meaning to get a good quality headset for gaming, as I often play late into the night and don't want to disturb the wife. This headset was ideal! Good build quality, excellent documentation and service, and lots of extras. Don't take my word for it. Check out my very first unboxing photos!
It has all the necessary equipment to listen to voice and game chat on the Xbox 360, and of course, all the right connections for PC and PS3 gaming as well. So far it's been serving me well!
Also last week I received notice that our interns have been so successful and are doing such a good job, that they have decided to extend the internship for the rest of the year! It's a very good deal. Unfortunately, the rest of the year does equate to only about another six or so weeks, two of which are the holiday break.
It's been nine days since my last post, and it's been crazy. We've a trailer delivery running around now, so expect a new trailer of the show in the next couple of weeks!
Today is the day that COD:MW2 comes out. After spending countless hours in COD4:MW in MP, leveling up, and enjoying the hell out of that game, I can't wait for my copy to come! I'll most likely be spending a lot of late evenings playing it.
Two months left to go for 2009! It's been an amazing year. Lots of interesting opportunities and a fair bit of travel. On Friday evening the Digital Domain Halloween Party was held. While it was not as huge as previous years, I still had a good time. Kogi BBQ catered the event, which I have grown to become a fan. We actually stayed until the end and started barhopping along Main St with some festival goers!
We've got about another three weeks before Thanksgiving, during which time I'll start introducing the intern into more elaborate Nuke tools. I think I'm pretty on point with the curriculum, as I'm hitting everything that I wanted to hit in the 11 week term. The show has filled up with compers, and we're now about 18 strong. I don't think we'll be getting more, but we'll see. There's still a lot of work to do by our deadline. My workload at the moment is pretty heavy. I've been tasked with quite a few number of shots, several of those are pretty big. I think I have around 25 shots, two of those are.. uhm.. BIG. Working on a Sunday is fairly invigorating, as I can get lots of work done, the farm is empty, and I can blast The Bloodhound Gang.
Speaking of music, last Sunday we hit up the U2 concert over at the Rose Bowl! I've never seen U2 in concert, much less been to a concert in a long time. It was fun! We drove to Pasadena and hung out in the park from about 1pm until 7, and then entered the arena to our seats. Getting out was another matter entirely! We spent an hour in the lot trying to leave. The concert ended at 11:15, we got home at 1:30am! What a night.
I am going to try and write more relevant vfx topics in the future, but it's been extremely busy between DD, Industry Wages, and other personal items that I have not had as much of a chance to update DigitalGypsy.
