Monday, January 26, 2015

Sketching and doodling

I haven't drawn in what felt like eons, so it was time to go Cintiqing and scrape off the rust.

Photo reference warm up.

A battle royale between all of the 'Best Visual Effects' Oscar nominees.

Friday, January 16, 2015

'X-Men: Days of Future Past' receives Academy Award Nomination for "Best Visual Effects"


Congratulations to the Visual Effects team on X-Men: Days of Future Past on their Academy Award nomination. It was a great project to work on and I was happy with the result.

Monday, January 12, 2015

2015 VFX "Bake-Off" Recap

This weekend I attended the Visual Effects "Bake-Off" at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. It was fascinating and entertaining look at the best visual effects in film for 2014, as presented by the visual effects supervisors and vendors who produced the final results. Previs was mentioned at times as well, which was nice. At this point in filmmaking, previs settles so many storytelling, art direction, and composition decisions early on, which allows the final vendors to concentrate more of their limited time on producing photorealistic effects.

Going in to the bake-off, the finalists to choose from for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects are (bold = projects I worked on):

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Godzilla
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar
Maleficent
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
Transformers: Age of Extinction
X-Men: Days of Future Past

After watching so many incredible shots throughout the bake-off, it was clear this is a very tough, competitive year. I have a feeling Marvel Studios will emerge with only one nominee. Transformers will probably be left out again. I have not seen Maleficent, but I know it did very well at the box office, which makes it a strong contender against other kid-friendly movies like Guardians and Godzilla. When all the dust clears, I think the finalists will be:

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Godzilla
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar