Gene Roddenberry’s team shot the first pilot episode for “Star Trek” back in 1964. The Anderson Company, which was part of Desilu, the production company, was responsible for the visual and optical effects for both pilot episodes as well as the following episodes. However, the Anderson Company was already hopelessly overwhelmed when editing the effects for the first regularly filmed episode, “The Corbomite Maneuver”.

At the time, nobody was prepared for the mass of visual effects that a weekly science fiction series would entail. Before Star Trek there was “Lost in Space” and “Buck Rogers”, but here you were surprised if you didn’t see the strings on which a model was hanging. The quality standards for Star Trek were different.

Star Trek was also the first science fiction series to be shot in colour, which significantly increased the effort and problems involved. What’s more, the cinema was just showing what science fiction could look like: “The Time Machine” from 1960 or “Fantastic Voyage” from 1966, which won an Oscar for its groundbreaking effects, naturally also increased the pressure of expectation on the makers of Star Trek.

In desperation, producers Gene Roddenberry and Robert Justman hired Eddie Milkis, who had previously worked as an editor. He quickly realised that the sheer number of effects shots, or opticals as they were called at the time, could not be managed by one effects house, but rather by all the effects houses that existed in Hollywood at the time. And so Milkis became probably the first post-production supervisor in our industry, even though this job title didn’t even exist back then. He was listed in the credits as a production assistant.

The practice that is common in our industry today of distributing shots to several service providers and coordinating them in terms of content, design and economics by a studio-side supervisor thus took place for the first time on “Star Trek”. But visual effects not only created problems, they also solved some of them: Beaming the crew around Kirk and Spock was not only a futuristic means of transport, it also solved the problem of having to land the Enterprise or one of its shuttles in every episode – an effect that would have been much more costly than a dissolve between the take with the actors and a corresponding cleanplate.

The actual transporter effect was applied to this dissolve with the help of an Oxberry printer – moving aluminium shavings, illuminated by a strong light, transported our heroes to alien worlds. Incidentally, the fact that the Enterprise ended up with a shuttle at all was thanks to one of the first and probably most creative merchandise deals of all time. The company AMT Ertl was granted the licence to sell Star Trek model kits. In return, AMT promised to build a full-size model of the shuttle for filming – another way of keeping the ever-exploding budget down.

The Enterprise itself was built as a model in three sizes: A twelve centimetre model, one ninety centimetres long and a detailed version four and a half metres long. The materials used were balsa wood and plastic, which didn’t exactly make filming any easier, but modern materials such as fibreglass were still rather experimental at the time. There was also little motion control technology available, which meant that both the movements of the Enterprise and the lighting were limited. The shots of the Enterprise were filmed in black and white and then recoloured on the Oxberry printer and punched in front of the appropriate planet of the week.

This process of re-colouring also explains why the Enterprise often had a different colour cast in different episodes. It was particularly noticeable when the producers used another cost-cutting measure: the recycling of optical effects. Especially exterior shots of the Enterprise, when it was not shown in orbit around the planet of the respective episode, were often shown several times. For example, the Enterprise could fly around a planet with a reddish tinge, only to chase the Klingons a few minutes later in the most beautiful blue.

Especially in the third season, when the budget was radically slashed, this can be observed very often. But every trick in the book was used to transport viewers into the twenty-third century. The beams from the phasers were painted frame by frame for both the live action shots and the model shots of the Enterprise – whether the phaser was red, green or blue often depended in the end on which effects house was responsible for the respective shot.

Today, the effects may seem antiquated or even ridiculous in some cases, but you should really bear in mind that “Star Trek” was the first series to work with effects on this scale. Whereas other series had perhaps two or three visual effects shots per episode, one episode of “Star Trek” easily had twenty such shots on the television screen.

Star Trek’s path to the cinema led through many stages of “development hell”. Several projects were considered and then cancelled until Paramount Pictures, now the rights holder of Star Trek after the acquisition of Desilu Studios, decided to send the Enterprise on a second five-year mission. Star Trek – Phase II was to become the cornerstone of a new television channel. Sets were built, scripts written, test recordings made – and then everything changed. After the success of “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, Paramount now saw Star Trek as an opportunity to bring something similar to the big screen.

The script for the pilot episode of “Phase II” was thus developed into a two-hour opus and Robert Wise, known for “The Sound of Music”, “The Day the Earth stood still” and “The Andromeda Strain”, was hired as the director. Without going into too much detail about the drama behind the scenes, it is important to know that the script was constantly changed.

Screenwriter Harold Livingston was in a constant battle with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy insisted on changes on their part and, to add to the pressure, Paramount had the film booked for a fixed date in cinemas. On the seventh of December 1979, “Star Trek – The Motion Picture” had to flicker across the screen or the studio would be heavily sued.

Robert Abel and Associates was chosen as the effects house at the time. This company had made a name for itself in Hollywood with groundbreaking commercials for the time – but also with notorious delays and exploding budgets. Concerned about this situation, Paramount brought Douglas Trumbull onto the project as a consultant in August 1978. Trumbull had already been responsible for the visual effects on Stanley Kubrick’s “2001 – A Space Odyssey” and was working at the time for the Paramount company “Magicam”.

When it became clear that Abel and Associates would not be able to meet the deadline, which was so critical for Paramount, Trumbull took over the visual effects and was thus given carte blanche on the project in many respects, also with regard to the finances. Meeting the release date was so important to those responsible at Paramount that the budget was increased several times and ended up at 44 million US dollars – originally calculated at 15 million.

But even Douglas Trumbull could not cope with the mass of visual effects on his own, which is why John Dykstra’s Apogee Studios also came into play. While today it is common practice for several companies to work on the effects of a single film, this cooperation caused additional logistical problems at the time. While Trumbull’s Entertainment Effects Groups Pipeline relied entirely on 65 mm film, Apogee worked with Vistavision. All live action scenes were shot on anamorphic 35mm.

The film contains some beautiful shots and groundbreaking effects: Marvellous flights through the giant alien probe called “V’ger”, all an evolution of the slit scan process from “2001”, the wormhole effect, and of course the almost nine-minute flight around the completely refurbished U.S.S. Enterprise – to this day a breathtaking sequence that fans like to call “ship porn”. Never before and rarely since has the Enterprise looked so good. And yet, to this day, one still has the impression that the film comes across as long-winded, elegiac and bloated. Here, too, the fans have found a fitting name: “Star Trek – The Motionless Picture”.

There is a reason for these lengths – in addition to weaknesses in the script. The effects were largely completed so late that they were used in full length in the editing process – there was simply no time for a proper editorial process. In the end, it was so tight that director Robert Wise personally took the still wet film reel of the fifth act to the premiere.

Nevertheless, the circumstances surrounding “Star Trek – The Motion Picture” were nothing less than a perfect storm for the fledging VFX industry. The deadline was set in stone, the film had to be finished. If you study the credits of this first cinema adventure carefully, you will realise how many remarkable careers began here.

The Genesis trilogy

The budget, which had exploded from the original fifteen to forty-four million dollars, was still a very sour pill for Paramount to swallow. Nevertheless, they wanted to send the Enterprise on another journey, perhaps this time a little more profitably than with the first film. Paramount turned to Harve Bennett, then a producer in the TV department of Paramount Pictures. When asked if he could make a Star Trek film for less than 44 million dollars, he replied that he could make three of these films for the budget. He was to keep his word: “Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan”, with a budget of 11 million dollars, was to become one of the most successful films in the franchise.

Industrial Light and Magic, although still busy with “Return of the Jedi”, opened its doors to other clients at this time, and one of the first was Paramount Pictures for the Enterprise’s latest adventure. Some shots could be recycled from the first film – just like they did on the TV series. When the Enterprise leaves Earth, it’s a radically edited version of the dry dock sequence from “The Motion Picture”, and the simulated battle with the Klingons has also been seen before.

Nevertheless, the film has a completely contrasting look, much denser and more compressed than the opulent first film. This is also reflected in the techniques used. For example, the Mutara nebula, in which Admiral Kirk duels with the eponymous Khan at the end, was not created using slit scan technology, but in a water tank. Different coloured liquids with different viscosities were mixed and filmed at a high frame rate. The Enterprise in battle with the U.S.S. Reliant were then visually superimposed over this nebula. “Star Trek” probably benefited greatly from the experience ILM had gained with “Star Wars”, especially with the use of motion control and the impressive orgy of destruction at the end of the film.

The masterminds at ILM used another clever trick in the two battle sequences between the Enterprise and the Reliant: In order to have a believable scale during the explosions, especially of flames, details that were destroyed were built as a partial model on a larger scale. This meant that a warp nacelle could explode without looking as if it had been hit by a gigantic Bunsen burner.

In another respect, however, “The Wrath of Khan” broke completely new ground and has a unique effect sequence that can hardly be underestimated for our industry as a whole: the genesis sequence, in which the creation of a planet from the impact of a torpedo on a dead celestial body to its transformation into a living planet with mountains, valleys, meadows and lakes is shown in a one-shot, is the first completely computer-generated sequence to be used in a cinema film. It was created before Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Division. This division was renamed Pixar shortly afterwards.

Two years later, “Star Trek III – The Search for Spock” followed. Ince again the effects where made by ILM, and the aforementioned Genesis sequence was once again recycled. The film is quite solid in terms of the effects, but suffers a little from the conditions in the TV department. The scenes on the Genesis planet unfortunately show that they were filmed in the studio and not in Hawaii, as cinematographer Charles Correll wanted. The destruction of the iconic Enterprise, however, is still an eye-catcher even after almost forty years and has definitely aged well.

“Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home” is not really a film that makes you think primarily of groundbreaking visual effects,as most of the film is set in the 1980’s San Francisco. What is remarkable, however, is the journey through time that Kirk and his crew manage by warping around our sun. During this flight, we see a somewhat etheral scene in which the CGI heads of our heroes morph into one another. Back then, the actors were scanned in a construction that seems crude today and which, in retrospect, can be seen as the great-grandfather of today’s light stages. Quite remarkable for the year 1986.

Never change a winning team

“Star Trek V – The final Frontier” was not only to be William Shatner’s directorial debut, but also to continue the success of “The Voyage Home”. However, competition in the 1989 cinema summer was fierce and ILM was already busy with films such as “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and “Ghostbusters II”. Worried that ILM would only be able to let the “C-Team” work on Star Trek V, the decision was made in favour of the effects house Assoicates and Ferren from the east coast of the USA.

As with “The Motion Picture”, they opted for an effects house from the advertising sector and overlooked the fact that this company did not necessarily have the right pipeline to handle the effects for a science fiction motion picture. The distance between Hollywood and Long Island, New York caused additional problems in the approval processes, as did the lack of experience and the obvious disinterest in the effects of director William Shatner.

Many of the effects in the “Galactic Barrier” appear overlit, the Enterprise is poorly integrated or not integrated at all and the overall proportions in the film don’t seem appropriate. The approach of Associates and Ferren was also fundamentally different to that of ILM. While ILM had already refined the bluescreen technique for itself at the time, Bran Ferren was absolutely unwilling to work in this way.

To make matters worse, between “The Voyage Home” and “The Final Frontier”, the model of the Enterprise had been loaned out to film an attraction at Universal Studios. The effects company responsible had sprayed the model with a matt finish, presumably to prevent blue screen spill. The elaborate mother-of-pearl effect that the Enterprise had been given for “The Motion Picture” had to be reapplied over a period of several weeks.

Whether or not, as William Shatner claims, better effects or even the ominous stone creatures he wanted for the film’s finale but was denied for budget reasons would have made the film better in the end is up to debate. What is certain is that “The Final Frontier” was considered a flop at Paramount and the sixth and final film with the original cast only came about because Paramount did not want to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of “Star Trek” without a film in the cinema.

For “Star Trek VI – The Undiscovered Country”, they once again relied on the experience of ILM, who were able to contribute their expertise to the destruction of the Klingon moon Praxis and the morphing of the model Iman into William Shatner.

Back to television

While “Star Trek” had established itself well as a franchise in the cinema, Paramount wanted to bring the Enterprise back to television. And even though “Star Trek – The Next Generation” was seventy-eight years past Kirk, Spock and co. in the future, there were to be some synergies between the franchise in the cinema and the new series on television in the here and now. For the pilot episode “Encounter at Farpoint”, ILM was once again commissioned to create the visual effects for the new Enterprise.

Probably the most important shot here is the scene in the opening credits in which the Enterprise goes to warp speed. The rubber band effect, where the front part of the ship appears to be flying away while the rear part is still stationary, was created by a combination of motion control, slit scan and the use of a streak camera.

The original plan was for ILM to create a kind of stock library of effects shots, which would then be used as required during production, thus minimising the need for new effects shots. However, it was soon realised that, apart from the usual fly-by shots, each script required very individual settings, so this library could only be used to a limited extent.

It was originally assumed that around ten new effects shots would be needed per episode. However, this very quickly levelled off at an average of sixty effects shots, and in particularly effects-heavy episodes it was as high as one hundred. However, the aforementioned warp effect was so complex and cost-intensive to produce that there were only two different shots available for the 178 episodes in which the Enterprise went to warp – because even though the effect only lasts a few seconds each time, the pure shooting time for a single shot was two days due to the many passes and long exposures for the rubber band effect described above.

It is interesting to note that the producers of the new series were seriously considering realising the effects entirely in CG at the time – in 1987. It would be another six years before another science fiction series – namely “Babylon 5” – was prepared to take this risk. The documentary “The Trek not taken” (included on the Blu Ray edition of “The Next Generation” Season 3) shows fascinating test footage and is astonishingly open about the decision-making process as to why the decision was ultimately made in favour of classic model shots.

What was a massive innovation in “The Next Generation”, however, was that it was edited on D1 video. This decision not only brought cost savings, but also greater flexibility. Phaser beams could now be created on a real monitor, effects footage could be used and reused much more flexibly and new effects systems such as Quantel’s Mirage and later Harry and Henry were used. And it was only with this change that the desire for a serious stock library could be fulfilled: From the third season of “The Next Generation”, the effects shots were also no longer optically printed, but digitally comped. And so the same shot of the Enterprise could also appear in orbit around different planets.

The transition to CGI

The success of “The Next Generation” heralded the first golden age of Star Trek. This became apparent in 1993 when a second Star Trek series was launched in parallel for the first time with “Star Trek – Deep Space Nine”
was launched in parallel. While CGI elements tended to be the exception in “The Next Generation”, such as the crystal being in “Silicon Avatar”, “Deep Space Nine” was to have a main character, the shape-shifter Odo, whose production included regular morphs. The company responsible for this was VisionArt Design & Animation; this iconic effect was designed by Dennis Blakey, who was deservedly honoured with an Emmy for his work.

in 1995, “The Next Generation” left the TV screen for the cinema, making way for “Star Trek – Voyager”. Star Trek on television was a well-oiled machine at this point, and so things were done the way they had always been done. In terms of the spaceships and stations, this meant that in the mid-nineties, most of the filming was done with models and miniatures. But science fiction was booming and so there were several other shows vying for viewers’ favour.

One of these was the ambitious “Babylon 5” by J. Michael Straczynski. The exterior and effects shots for this show were entirely CG, rendered on several Amiga 2000s with Video Toaster hardware and the associated Lightwave 3D. That way, Foundation Imaging, the VFX vendor for “Babylon 5”, avoided the purchase of expensive Silicon Graphics hardware. This cost saving turned out to be so successful that the producers decided early on in the course of “Babylon 5” to realise the effects “in house” using the same business model, and so Foundation Imaging was relatively quickly left without its biggest customer.

Star Trek Voyager was just in its first season at the time, but thanks to successful lobbying, more and more of the effects went to Foundation Imaging. Foundation Imaging took over the CGI model that Amblin Imaging had previously created for the title sequence – in fact, the CGI model was used in three shots, in the others it is a classic model – and prepared it so well in the episode that from the fourth season of Voyager onwards virtually all exterior shots were created in CG on this basis. However, the need for CGI also grew on the sister show “Deep Space Nine”.

The more the conflict with the Dominion came to a head in the show, the more opulent the space battles became – these scenes could not have been realised with classic models and motion control. Originally, there was to be a fixed separation, with Foundation Imaging responsible for “Voyager” and Digital Muse for “Deep Space Nine”. A nice plan, but it didn’t do justice to the reality of production. For example, Foundation Imaging helped out with the finale of the fifth season of “Deep Space Nine”, “Sacrifice of Angels”, to stage the conquest of the space station by the Dominion.

How to meet up legends

The “Deep Space Nine” episode “Trials and Tribble-ations” was a highlight in more ways than one. In view of the franchise’s thirtieth anniversary at the time, the idea was to take the crew around Sisko & Co. back to the time of Kirk and Spock – and have them meet their heroes there. The concept gave the producers quite a headache. Although Paramount had just released “Forrest Gump”, a film that accomplished exactly the same task – integrating a contemporary actor into old archive material – the question remained as to whether this was also possible within the constraints of a television series.

The answer came when the team led by VFX supervisor Gary Hutzel showed the producers a scene from the original episode “The Trouble with Tribbles”. They were a little confused as it was just a normal scene. It wasn’t until the second playback that they noticed the security officer in the background, who was not an actor from the sixties but a VFX artist from the nineties. With this proof of concept, one of the most elaborate Star Trek episodes of all time was given the green light.

As the original model of the Enterprise was on loan to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, Gary Hutzel had a new model built. Unfortunately, the models of the Klingon ship and the K-7 space station had been destroyed in the meantime, which is why new models had to be built as well. To this day, it has to be said that the effort was well worth it – the effects still hold up today and the attention to detail of everyone involved can be seen in every scene.

Rarely have VFX and the on-set team worked so closely together as on this episode. Parts of the original sets of both the Enterprise and the K-7 space station were recreated. The typical lighting of the original series was meticulously recreated. The original negative of the old episode was completely rescanned and the corresponding scenes were matchmoved. With the help of a lot of compositing and rotoscoping, wonderful scenes were created in which O’Brien and Bashir help Scotty and Chekov in a brawl against the Klingons and Dax is allowed to pine after her dream Vulcan. No expense or effort was spared for the exterior shots either.

Meanwhile in the cinema

When “The Next Generation” said it’s farewell to the television screen, this crew went straight to the big screen. Within two weeks, the existing sets were polished up for the cinema and the long-awaited, but ultimately somewhat disappointing, meeting between Captain Kirk and Captain Picard took place.

Even if the film falls short of its potential, the makers did take advantage of one opportunity – they got rid of the model of the “Next Generation” Enterprise that the VFX artists hated in a spectacular way. The NCC-1701-D was often referred to as the “Hilton Hotel in space” due to its wide curved shapes and its aesthetics borrowed from the 1980s. In fact, the model was extremely difficult to stage due to its size and proportions. So what could be more obvious than to blow it up?

The resulting sequence is truly impressive: the Enterprise’s large saucer section separates from the engine section about to explode and tries to escape, but is pushed into the atmosphere of a planet by the force of the explosion and crash lands in a jungle. This landing in particular, as this massive saucer mows away row after row of trees and leaves a trail of devastation, is a prime example of believable shots with miniatures and models.

Two years later, it was time for the Next Generation crew’s first independent adventure. “First Contact” not only had the Enterprise crew travelling through time again, it also brought back the most feared antagonists: the Borg. To give the huge collective a face, the filmmakers created the Borg Queen. In order to showcase this symbiosis between the natural and the artificial, there is a scene in the film in which the Queen’s head, complete with mechanical spine, is placed in a torso. Here, too, plenty of matchmoving, CGI and morphing were used – if there was anything at all to criticise about this scene, it was that the original one-shot was subsequently intercut.

“Star Trek – Insurrection” followed and, like the two previous instalments, got the Industrial Light & Magic treatment. Only with the last of the four “The Next Generation” films, “Nemesis”, did the effects go to another company, this time to Digital Domain. And as with the television series, the trend here was increasingly towards digital models, although the company did not want to completely abandon the miniatures – these were used in the Enterprise’s ramming manoeuvre with the Reman ship.

Back to budget

in 1999, “Deep Space Nine” ended its run with seven seasons and 176 episodes, followed two years later by “Voyager”. The management at Paramount wanted to launch another Star Trek series, this time, in keeping with the times, a prequel. For “Enterprise”, they used completely digital models for the first time. They also had the foresight to produce the series not only in 16:9, but also in HD – even though the effects were only produced in 720p.

Unfortunately, “Enterprise” was not very successful. Various factors, which were summarised by the producers at the time under the term “franchise fatigue”, but which were much more complex, did not put “Enterprise” under a favourable star. The fact that “Nemesis” was squeezed in between “Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers” and “James Bond – Die Another Day” at the box office didn’t really help either and so the third season of “Enterprise” was supposed to be the end. Only the switch from film to HD video and slashing the budget by half made the fourth season possible, which is still regarded as the best by many fans today.

Remastering

But before “Star Trek” was sent back to sleep after seventeen uninterrupted years on air, a whole new chapter began that brought its own challenges in terms of VFX: remastering.

Let’s go back a little, more precisely back to the first motion picture, “Star Trek – The Motion Picture”. As described at the beginning, the film was made under enormous time pressure and never received a proper polish. Director Robert Wise considered the version that was shown in the cinema at the time to be a rough cut. To make matters worse, an “extended version” was released on the American channel ABC in 1983, in which unused material was added in, bloating the film up even more.

This version included a scene in which Kirk leaves the Enterprise and the entire studio construction, including tripods, can still be seen on the right-hand side. in 2001, Foundation Imaging, together with Daren Dochtermann, David C. Fein and Michael Matessino, set about creating a real director’s cut of the film under the direction of Robert Wise – twenty-two years after the release of the original version.

Cuts were trimmed, the sound was mixed better and effects shots were either reworked or in some cases even completely recreated. For example, obvious logical errors were removed, such as the fact that Spock holds his hands protectively in front of his eyes on the planet Vulcan to avoid looking at the sun, which was simply not present in the original edit. And “V’Ger”, the film’s antagonist, also finally takes shape in the Director’s Edition. In the original version, you could always see the energy cloud surrounding V’Ger and close up shots, but never the ship in its entirety, which was somewhat underwhelming.

Last but not least, dialogue scenes were removed that were obviously only there to explain missing effects shots on the narrative level. And all this… in standard definition. With the advent of Blu-ray and streaming services, to call this cost-cutting measure by the studio “short-sighted” in retrospect is a grandiose understatement. It was to take another 20 years before the 4K remaster of “The Motion Picture” was released in April 2022.

However, this experience was not the only reason why Paramount and CBS in particular, who now held the rights to the TV series, began to think more long-term. The effects of the original series in particular no longer really stood up to modern viewing habits. After there had already been several “digitally mastered” versions of the series as a video release, a remastering was to take place in 2006, just in time for the fortieth anniversary of the series, which would bring the original series into the 21st century:

All 79 episodes were re-scanned, re-graded, the sound optimised and, what was definitely considered controversial at the time, new CGI scenes of the Enterprise were produced. CBS Digital, which was responsible for this, faced several challenges: Firstly, the aesthetics, the pace, the whole style had to match the legal content from the 1960s.

The credo that Mike and Denise Okuda, who worked as consultants for CBS Digital, issued to the team was simple: the effects had to look like the original team behind Gene Roddenberry would have done them if they had had the technical possibilities of 2006. Nevertheless, the constant repetition of shots, which was unavoidable in the original version for cost reasons, should no longer occur. The aspect ratio remained conservative: the old series was designed for 4:3 and that’s how it should stay.

Anyone watching it on a modern-day disply will have to live with pillar boxes. But there was another problem in addition to tight deadlines: as the show was cut to film and the uncut rushes were no longer available, the new scenes had to be exactly the same length as the original shots. It became even more complicated when effects shots were faded. But no expense or effort was spared when it came to cleaning up the old negative.

What the software did not recognise as dirt or scratches was painstakingly painted out frame by frame on Flame and Inferno. The new “remastered” versions are now available on Netflix, iTunes and the like. However, a special feature is reserved for Blu-ray owners: Here you can seamlessly switch back and forth between the original and remastered effects.

The CBS Digital team worked on these remasterings for three years. After that, “The Next Generation” was to receive a similar remastering, but the challenges here were completely different. Unlike the original series, “The Next Generation” was comped and edited on video. This meant that over 25,000 rolls of film had to be retrieved from the archives, scanned in HD, cleaned and graded. However, a different approach was taken for the effects shots, as the negative with the individual elements of the effects was still well preserved.

And so the shots from the eighties and nineties were scanned layer by layer and recomped in Flame. Although some of the planets were given more detail, the camera angles and movements remained very close to the original. Other effects, such as screen inserts, beaming or phaser beams were recreated in HD, but only very rarely did they deviate stylistically from the SD original. In “The next Generation”, the preserving approach was even greater than in the original series.

One would expect that “Deep Space Nine” and “Voyager” would also be brought up to date afterwards, but fans are still waiting in vain for this to happen. Remastering the first season of “Next Generation” alone cost CBS Digital nine million dollars at the time. At the same time, Blu-ray sales were slowly dwindling in favour of streaming.

To make matters worse, as already described, “Deep Space Nine” and “Voyager” relied more and more on CGI in their initial production rin. The assets were considered lost in the meantime, as shops such as Foundation Imaging have since closed their doors. You can get a small glimpse of how good “Deep Space Nine” would look in HD in the documentary “What we left behind – a Look back at Star Trek Deep Space Nine”.

Thanks to very successful crowdfunding, the producers of that documentary were able to remaster fifteen minutes of footage in HD – including the breathtaking battle from “Sacrifice of Angels”. It seems that someone had made a backup of old Lightwave files after all. Whether and when fans will be able to enjoy full length high-definition episodes of these two series is still uncertain. Some are hoping for AI upscaling, others for Paramount, the streaming service where Star Trek now has its home.

in 2005, “Enterprise” went off the air and Star Trek disappeared into its second slumber. Star Trek was not due to return until 2009, but in a big way. The Enterprise was to return to the cinema and also be freed from the moderate budgets that had accompanied the film series from the second part onwards. The film was directed by J.J. Abrams.

The whole look was to be younger, more modern and more realistic. The effects were once again handled by Industrial Light and Magic, this time under the direction of Roger Guyett. What really sets the film’s effects apart is the focus on a realistic environment. A scene in which Kirk and Sulu jump onto a drilling platform high above the planet Vulcan was actually shot on a replica of part of this platform outdoors.

The rest of the platform was added in CG afterwards, but you can tell that the actors are in a tangible environment and that they are standing in real sunlight. None of this is unusual today, but when you consider that films like “Revenge of the Sith” were shot entirely in front of blue and green screen just a few years earlier, it’s fair to say that “Star Trek” (2009) was definitely a trend-setter here.

in 2012, “Star Trek – Into Darkness” continued in the same vein. And in the meantime, the shots were also distributed to several service providers, which is why Kirk & Co. were also worked on at the Pixomondo locations in Frankfurt and Stuttgart. 2016 saw the release of “Star Trek – Beyond”, the latest member of the Star Trek cinema family. Over 900 people around the world worked on the VFX, at least 300 of whom were credited in the end credits after tough negotiations. With streaming, increasingly on Paramount , Star Trek is currently experiencing its second golden age and continues to set standards in terms of VFX.

Conclusion

While in other franchises it was the visions of the respective creators that pushed the boundaries of what was possible with VFX, with Star Trek it was often more a matter of necessity. In the beginning, the pressure to take viewers to alien worlds in twenty-six episodes a year made them inventive. Paramount’s blind booking of “The Motion Picture” acted as an incubator for the still very young VFX scene in Hollywood and the Genesis sequence was an opportunity for Ed Cadmull’s team at Pixar to show where CGI was still going.

Later, “Voyager” filled the gap in Foundation Imaging left by “Babylon 5” and paved the way for CGI in the science fiction genre, from which other shows such as “Battlestar Galactica” would also benefit.

The fact that Star Trek’s effects were often enough orientated towards what was feasible is what makes them so interesting for our industry. Because in the end, the famous song line is true: “Space may be the
final frontier, but it’s made in a Hollywood basement.”

The post The visual effects of Star Trek – a retrospective first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Christoph Zapletal.

In nuce: The VFX service provider Redefine (own spelling: ReDefine) has released a VFX breakdown for the streaming series Halo – including sci-fi-tastic battles in the air, on the ground and in the first-person perspective.

In toto: As in the original game, the Halo series tells the story of the armed conflict between humans and an alien civilisation called the Covenant. In terms of dramaturgy, Halo draws its viewers in with a mixture of action and drama. The series is set in a speculative 26th century. The protagonist is John-117, aka Master Chief, the iconic hero from the video game series. The series adaptation of the popular first-person shooter games can be viewed on the streaming service Paramount .

About Redefine: The VFX house Redefine is based in Canada; the company has three locations: in Montreal, London and Mumbai. Redefine’s portfolio includes the Star Wars series Obi-Wan Kenobi (with Ewan McGregor), the actioner Ambulance by director Michael Bay, and the slasher remake Scream by directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. The VFX experts are currently working on the sequel Scream VI and the Disney streaming series American Born Chinese. To the website of Redefine.

Click further: In the past, Digital Production has repeatedly reported on the spacey visual effects of Halo; we present them below:

• 2.08.2022: The Master Chief in Beast Mode: MPC not only plays Halo, but also means series streaming. Does John-117 pull the aliens’ teeth?
• 18.10.2022: VFX Supervisor Patrick David and VFX Producer Nancy Heller chat about Alien Concept Design.
• 24.11.2022: Rodeo FX blows up the Madrigal Tower! A colossal series entry for the Master Chief from the Halo series.

ReDefine | Halo VFX Breakdown

The post Halo | VFX Breakdown first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: Paris-based visual effects service provider Mac Guff has released a VFX breakdown for the eco-thriller Vesper Chronicles, in which alien flying bodies sail through the air, worm-like creatures stretch out of holes – and the future of our planet sinks into an ecological crisis.

What can the Parisians from Mac Guff do? Mac Guff specialises in visual effects for film, television, music videos and advertising (recent portfolio examples include the arthouse blockbuster Titane, the Eurotrash gem Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and the Netflix series Lupin).

In toto: Vesper (German title: Vesper Chronicles) is an adventure film that combines sci-fi and fairytale elements. It was directed by Bruno Samper and Kristina Buozyte. The film is set in a speculative future in which the Earth’s ecosystem has collapsed and the film’s heroes and heroines have to fend off a hostile environment – isolated from wealthy people who live in so-called citadels. At the centre of the plot is 13-year-old Vesper, who fights for her survival with bio-hacking skills (also known as do-it-yourself biology).

Click to continue: On 22 November this year, Digital Production last reported on Vesper – at the time on VFX service provider MPC’s contribution to the dystopian sci-fi film.

Vesper Chronicles – Making Of version longue – Mac Guff

The post Vesper | VFX Breakdown first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: VFX service provider Rodeo FX has released the second instalment of its breakdown series for the sci-fi gaming IP Halo. The video, which runs for just under four minutes, is called “Halo Season 1 – Planets: Eradinus II, Oban & Madrigal Tower”. The video is directed by VFX Supervisor Patrick David and VFX Producer Nancy Heller – as in the first episode, which Digital Production reported on 18 October this year .

In toto: Eradinus II, Oban and Madrigal Tower. About Eradinus: For the fictional desert planet Eradinus II, Rodeo FX has created a proverbial Garden of Eden, an oasis with lush vegetation – from agricultural land to forests. For the series, Rodeo has created a past and present version of this oasis – once covered in lush vegetation, now a deserted wasteland. One of the concept artists who played a leading role in defining the look was Olivier Martin – whose concept art served the visual effects artists as a starting point for all further design decisions. To create the environment, Rodeo FX used a combination of 3D textures and geometry scans of real rocks – as well as Houdini and traditional matte paintings.

Click further: To find out more about the planet Orban, which is referred to in the series as the galaxy’s rubbish dump, and how FX supervisor Sadjad Rabbie helped make the Madrigal Tower from the opening scene of the first episode of the series explode in a flaming inferno, click on the video below.

Breaking Down The Breakdown – HALO – Episode 2

The post Rodeo FX blows up the Madrigal Tower! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: Visual effects service provider MPC has released a VFX breakdown for the eco-thriller Vesper Chronicles, in which alien flying objects sail through the air, worm-like creatures stretch out of holes – and a broom is attacked by biological mass.

In toto: Vesper (German title: Vesper Chronicles) is an adventure film that combines sci-fi and fairytale elements. The film was directed by Bruno Samper and Kristina Buozyte. The film is set in a speculative future in which the Earth’s ecosystem has collapsed and the film’s heroes and heroines have to fend off a hostile environment – separated from wealthy people who live in so-called citadels. At the centre of the plot is 13-year-old Vesper, who uses her bio-hacking skills (also known as do-it-yourself biology) to ensure her survival.

Click to continue: On 14 October this year , Digital Production reported that MPC, along with The Mill and Mikros Animation, had been bundled under the Technicolor Creative Studios umbrella.

MPC – Vesper Chronicles VFX Breakdown

The post Vesper Chronicles | VFX Breakdown first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: The YouTube channel Adam Savage Tested has published a video lasting just under half an hour in which the eponymous Adam Savage heads to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. to get up close and personal with a grande dame of science fiction history: the original U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 from the Star Trek Original Series from the 1960s.

In toto: Mainly made of wood and with more surface details than the smooth spaceship surface would suggest, the starship delights fanboy slash modelling expert Adam Savage. He is assisted by Margaret A. Weitekamp, curator and author of the non-fiction book Space Craze: America’s Enduring Fascination with Real and Imagined Spaceflight and astronaut Cady Coleman. In the course of the conversation, viewers learn why Lucille Ball’s production company Desilu Productions was primarily responsible for creating The Original Series. Lucille Ball is still known today for the sitcom I Love Lucy.

Click further: The full-length video with Mythbusters legend Adam Savage is linked below.

The Original Star Trek USS Enterprise Filming Model!

The post Adam Savage visits the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

As with most science fiction films, “Oblivion” also required a lot of VFX work. Pixomondo and Digital Domain were responsible for the film’s digital eye candy. VFX supervisors Thilo Ewers from Pixomondo and Paul Lambert from Digital Domain explain how to create a huge ice canyon, 3D Tom Cruise models and a space station, among other things.

The plot of the film, in which Tom Cruise plays the superhuman in a post-apocalyptic world, can – in keeping with the film’s title – be forgotten. Visually, however, “Oblivion” is an extremely impressive film. Another positive aspect: the film has been released exclusively in 2D, which is unusual and courageous for an action blockbuster at the moment. The Blu-ray and DVD release is on 15 August – and you can win two BDs and two film posters in the reader survey in this issue of DP.

The VFX supervisors Eric Barba from Digital Domain and Bjørn Mayer from Pixomondo split the total of around 800 VFX shots between the two companies so that no scenes were edited together, only assets had to be exchanged. For example, Pixomondo created the 3D bubbleship and the ice canyon, while Digital Domain created the combat drones and the “TET” space station. The film was directed by Joseph Kosinski, who had already worked with Barba on “Tron: Legacy”. Among other things, the environments are crucial for the realistic look of the film. The film team shot many scenes not in green screen, but in the impressive landscape of Iceland. In addition, almost all of the film’s backdrops were recreated in real life, so that the digital elements in the film do not stand out excessively, but could be integrated almost seamlessly into the live action scenes. Over two-thirds of the film was shot at Celtic Studios in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the futuristic Skytower, the Bubbleship and the 2,800 square metre New York Library set were located. This set provided the VFX team with an ideal reference for the reconstruction of the 3D models using Lidar scans and HDRs. Tom Cruise was even allowed to take the motorbike that was constructed for “Oblivion” home with him after filming as a present for his 50th birthday. The Skytower was an important location, as around half of the film takes place there. Kosinski decided against using green screens in front of the windows in order to create a realistic atmosphere in this building of the future, designed with lots of glass and steel and located in the middle of the clouds. Instead, he used front projection technology with 13 metre high and 152 metre long screens and 21 projectors. The hi-res footage for the projection consisted of dramatic sky shots with variations in the time of day and weather. Bjørn Mayer and his team filmed these for almost a week on the Haleakala volcano in Hawaii using a rig with three Red Epics strapped to it. The real-life lighting setting was not only extremely helpful for the VFX team during the shoot in post, it also created a realistic atmosphere for the film team and the actors.

DP: Hello Thilo, how big was the Pixomondo team for “Oblivion” and which scenes did you work on in Stuttgart?

Thilo Ewers: A total of 231 people worked on 456 VFX shots, mainly in Los Angeles, Stuttgart and Beijing. In Stuttgart we had 144 shots and, as we are a well-rehearsed team here, Bjørn entrusted us with the most demanding scenes, such as the ice canyon with 100 shots and the drone attack in front of Raven Rock. We also did the hydrorigs, huge futuristic oil rigs that pump out water, and complex cockpit scenes.

DP: How were the assets swapped with DD?

Thilo Ewers: DD uses Maya, we use 3ds Max, so both companies have their own special pipeline. So that the other studio knows what to do with the respective asset, a kind of rule book was drawn up beforehand to define how data is to be saved and named. We also sent the rig files, as we each rigged the models ourselves. Which is quick to do once the creative work is done.

DP: Which database do you use?

Thilo Ewers: We use Shotgun because it works very well globally. We have programmed our own extensions to the software for the project, otherwise you would quickly lose track of the many individual parts.

DP: How did the real Bubbleship help you to recreate the 3D model?

Thilo Ewers: We had a high-resolution lidar scan of the ship itself and the cockpit as well as the designer’s CAD model, which was extremely helpful. Thanks to the CAD model, we discovered that there were other things planned that could not be realised in the replica of the bubbleship. There was also a separate mock-up shoot with the bubbleship, in which the actors were moved according to the flight movements.

DP: What tools did you use for the 3D bubbleship?

Thilo Ewers: We modelled and rigged with 3ds Max and textured with Mari. In Stuttgart, we set up our Mari pipeline especially for the project and expanded the tool for our purposes. We’ve been using Mari for two years now and everyone has learnt to love it.

DP: How was the lighting for the 3D bubbleship realised?

Thilo Ewers: There were two shot categories: Firstly, the flying ship in backplates from the Iceland shoot. We used HDRs from the respective shoots for the lighting. On the other hand, there were land scenes where we had to blend the 3D model into the real ship, which was a little more complicated in some cases. We also used HDRs for this. As we had recreated the ship precisely thanks to the lidar scans from the set, it usually matched the real ship well. We edited four of these landing shots.

DP: The brief was: “The landing platform shouldn’t have a Transformers look.” What means did you use to realise this?

Thilo Ewers: The production designer made a significant contribution to this. It was important to the director that the platform had a futuristic, straightforward and cool design that still had to look realistic. He was an architect himself and has a great penchant for functional design. In “Transformers”, the design is detailed and therefore appears rather overloaded at times.

DP: What was it like for you to work with the Skytower filming material using the front projection technique?

Thilo Ewers: Super. It worked so well that none of us could have imagined it beforehand. Almost everything you see in the final film was exactly the same during the shoot. That was a huge time and money saver. Creating the different sky clips beforehand was much more effective than having to matchmove everything and add the reflectors afterwards.

DP: Let’s move on to your biggest challenge in the film, the ice canyon. How did you go about it?

Thilo Ewers: Yes, that was something … At the beginning of the process, the question was: Will the canyon be made of ice or stone? And at first we just asked ourselves: What would be worse for us? Towards the end of the shoot, in July, the director decided in favour of the ice version. Bjørn took pictures of glacier formations that the director found interesting. After filming was completed, the Previz studio Third Floor created a post-viz based on our concepts to determine the speed of the animation and the camera work. But apart from this intermediate phase of development, the film was created entirely by Pixomondo. And despite the post-viz, we still had to design things like the floor completely ourselves when modelling.

DP: How did you go about the modelling?

Thilo Ewers: First of all, we thought about whether we should create the canyon in one big piece that we drive through or whether we should build it from individual parts. To do this, we created a kind of map for all the scenes, on which we saw who was flying where and how at what time – and realised that we were passing the same places several times. That’s why we opted for the modular solution and created around 150 individual parts for twelve categories, such as “overhangs” or “arches”, with different texture variations. The individual parts were around 30 to 60 metres high and 20 to 30 metres wide, fully modelled and textured and therefore extremely large with around eight million polygons per piece.

DP: That sounds like a lot of hard work ..

Thilo Ewers: Of course, it wasn’t possible to create 150 ice cream pieces individually. We would have gone mad and it would have cost far too much. So we initially populated the categories with relatively simple basic shapes that we built using the Postviz. In the first step, the artists created and animated the shots with these low-res objects, which were also the basis for the texturing.

DP: How did you then use procedural animation?

Thilo Ewers: Parallel to these processes, we created the procedurals with the low-res ice pieces in Houdini. When the animation artists were finished, we replaced the low-res pieces with the more detailed and textured hi-res pieces. Once everything was programmed in Houdini, we were able to turn a low-res part into a hi-res part within ten minutes and change the properties via self-programmed containers in Houdini. We didn’t solve everything using procedural processes, but also placed stones by hand so that we had an influence on the animation. We wanted the canyon to look modelled and not like a procedural. When the canyon was assembled with the floor in high quality, we ended up with up to 300 million polygons.

DP: How did you deal with this immense number of polygons?

Thilo Ewers: With V-Ray Proxy. We never saw the canyon in 3ds Max. And on the hardware side with normal 8-core and 12-core workstations.

DP: What physical laws were used for the procedural animation?

Thilo Ewers: We racked our brains over this for a long time and at some point realised what else makes ice besides shading. It can have pretty much any appearance, but it often has this flow and a layered quality. With Houdini, we were able to change the direction of the flow and the entire piece of ice was adjusted in all its procedural parameters. Funnily enough, we put hair on the surface to visualise the flow. We brushed it so that we could see how the ice would flow.

DP: How long have you been using Houdini?

Thilo Ewers: Since “Hugo Cabret”, so about two years. But here in Stuttgart we used it really intensively for the first time for “Oblivion”. We first had to integrate Houdini into our pipeline and build sync tools to keep Houdini and 3ds Max on the same level. Before Houdini, we used 3ds Max for procedural processes. But large quantities are simply more convenient and faster to handle in Houdini.

DP: How long was the ice canyon scene and how many shots did it have?

Thilo Ewers: The scene in the film was about 3.5 minutes long and had 89 shots.

DP: What new projects does Pixomondo have?

Thilo Ewers: We are currently working on the children’s film “Pettersson and Findus”, the cinema adaptation of the bestseller “The Medicus” by Noah Gordon and the children’s book adaptation “Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder” by the successful Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø. Other commissions include the Fox TV show “Sleepy Hollow” and 3D motion ride films for the Chinese theme park Wanda.

DP: Hi Paul, what were VFX supervisor Eric Barba’s tasks on the project and yours as second supervisor?

Paul Lambert: Eric Barba has worked with Joe Kosinski for many years and was on set. My role was to supervise all the DD departments, including problem solving, so that everything could be delivered on time. I was also on set once for a camera test. I did colour checks and made sure that the look of all the cameras used was consistent.

DP: Which cameras were used for “Oblivion”?

Paul Lambert: “Oblivion” was shot with the Sony F65, which was brand new at the time. “After Earth” and “Oblivion” were the first projects ever to use the F65 camera. The production team used the Red Epic and the on-set team worked with the Canon 5D Mark III, 5D Mark II and 1ds Mark III cameras for the references.

DP: How big was the DD team for the film and how many shots did you have?

Paul Lambert: The DD team was 100 people in total and it was all done in Venice. We worked on 370 shots for “Oblivion”.

DP: With the different tools that DD and Pixomondo use, were there any problems with exchanging models?

Paul Lambert: Both companies use V-Ray for rendering. However, as Pixomondo works with 3ds Max and we work with Maya, we were able to share models, but not the exact shaders. That’s why we had a copy of 3ds Max at DD, which we used to view the Pixomondo models and then recreated them in Maya. Once you understand the look, it’s not difficult to recreate. What also helped a lot were the masses of references from the set that were available to both companies.

DP: What tools did you use to realistically integrate the digital elements of the film into the live action scenes?

Paul Lambert: This was possible thanks to the good reference base with the real models in the respective lighting situations. This allows us to concentrate more on the details and achieve a believable look. With a poor asset, more time is spent on pure integration.

DP: Were there any elements in “Oblivion” that DD created with procedural processes in Houdini?

Paul Lambert: Yes, we created all the classic Houdini scenes such as storms, explosions and smoke using our in-house tools such as the Storm Renderer and Houdini. These tools really help to fine-tune the effects.

DP: How long has DD been using Houdini?

Paul Lambert: Longer than I’ve been working at DD and I’ve been here ten years.

DP: Did DD write extra scripts for the project?

Paul Lambert: We have written some scripts, for example for dealing with Deep Shadows and other little things. But there are fewer and fewer projects that we have to script, because our pipeline now has a good basis so that we can work efficiently.

DP: Is it easy to find Houdini artists?

Paul Lambert: At the moment, yes – but it is becoming increasingly difficult. We currently have a good core group of eight Houdini artists at DD.

DP: For which shots did DD recreate Tom Cruise in 3D?

Paul Lambert: We recreated Tom Cruise for the scene where he fights his clone. For these scenes, he fought with a stunt double in both positions in front of a green screen, and we then rotoscoped the double out afterwards. However, there were some scenes where we had to completely replace Tom Cruise’s face. For such cases, we use a technique that we originally developed for the film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. It was then used in films such as “Tron: Legacy” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.

DP: What does this technique consist of?

Paul Lambert: We designed shapes in Maya with different facial expressions that we put on characters. But the core of this work is capture data. We take each actor to the Institute for Creative Technology in Los Angeles, which is run by Paul Debevec. He’s very well known in the industry for image-based lighting. There we place the actors in a dome with a special lighting setup. The actor’s face is captured very quickly with every light on it. The sampled light values provide a geometry of the light structure that can be imported into the CGI scenes. With this data from the light stage, we can make the CG version of the actor’s face look like the real thing.

We took hundreds of HDR photos of Tom Cruise in the dome, so we had a perfect reference for every conceivable lighting condition. The Oblivion scenes with Tom Cruise were a little easier than past film work because he doesn’t speak in the scenes.

DP: Was Tom Cruise also completely scanned for the scenes?

Paul Lambert: Yes, a full body scan was made of him in the suit. We also shot props such as his suit and helmet individually with different lights.

DP: What was the most complicated scene for you on the project?

Paul Lambert: That was the final scene with the TET space station. As soon as we saw the concept, we realised that it was going to be very complicated. The space station was around 100 kilometres long and extremely detailed. And modelling and texturing an asset on this scale was very complicated, but we still managed to pull it off.

DP: How did you become a supervisor?

Paul Lambert: I’ve been with DD for ten years, before that I worked as a CG artist in the UK for eight years. I’m currently still working in California, but the tax incentives in Canada have really hurt the Californian VFX industry. And at the moment, companies are looking at the tax incentives and going there. I think that’s why I’ll be moving to Vancouver sooner or later.

DP: What school did you go to?

Paul Lambert: When I started in the VFX industry 18 years ago, there were no schools for this field. It happened more by accident. Initially I studied engineering at college, but it wasn’t right for me. Then I went to art school and graduated. In the meantime, I worked as a courier in London for a while and one of our clients was in the film business. I talked to the film team a lot and was able to work there a bit. I thought to myself that this job is both technical and artistic. It suits me perfectly. I wouldn’t want to do anything else.

The post A memorable VFX project first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Mirja Fürst.

In nuce: The online asset shop KitBash3D has released a download package that can be used to enhance science fiction projects: Mission to Minerva.

In toto: The download package contains over 90 free, customisable 3D models, which are provided in FBX and OBJ file format and are suitable for the representation of cargo ships, terraformers and other sci-fi vehicles. The package was released as part of the Mission to Minerva Challenge (more information below). To download the package, it is necessary to register for free at KitBash3D. Fun Fact: As the antithesis of Mars, Minerva represents the goddess of defensive warfare.

System requirements: To get the most out of Mission to Minerva, your Artists workstation should have the following specifications:

• CPU: 6-core processor
• GPU: 8 GB VRAM
• RAM: 32 GB
• Hard disc space: 15 GB per kit

Click to continue: Mission to Minerva can be downloaded from kitbash3d.com . If you are interested in the challenge , you can submit your project until 2 December this year (see also the video below). The jury is made up of employees from ILM, Riot Games, CD Projekt and other well-known companies.

Mission to Minerva 3D Challenge Launch Trailer

The post Free kitbashing package for sci-fi projects released! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

… so “edited with Avid” in Klingon. J. J. Abrams is currently in charge of “Star Trek” and “Star Wars”. This shake-up in the fan scene led to expectations for the second instalment of the Star Trek reboot that can hardly be fulfilled. Nostalgia fans, who for decades have tried to interpret every twitch and accept poodles with unicorns glued on as aliens, meet blockbuster filmgoers with an affinity for bikini scenes.

What do all J. J. Abrams films have in common? Exactly: they all have Maryann Brandon as editor. Since the acclaimed series “Alias”, the two – and Mary Jo Markey – have worked as a team in the editing room. That’s unusual, to say the least. We had a chat with the editors. Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey were mainly responsible for the editing. Rita DaSilva and Julian Smirke, the two “first assistant editors”, also took part in the interview.

DP: What was your workflow like on “Star Trek Into Darkness” and what will you keep for future projects?

Rita DaSilva: Our lab prepared the dailies for us, we then got the files in a bin on a hard drive, which we then shovelled into Avid. Me and Jules (Julian Smirke) then checked the footage to make sure everything was there and took a look at syncro, metadata and so on. That usually works, but if there are any problems, it’s much easier to fix them at that stage before Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey – the editors in charge – touch the data. Since Maryann and Mary Jo have very different approaches, I and Jules have already adjusted the sorting accordingly – while one of the editors has already started script syncing. During the actual cutting, the VFX editor then loaded all the comps that were needed directly into Avid and created a good view that satisfied both the editors and the director, and when the OK came, we passed it on to the respective VFX studio for the scene.

DP: And how did 3D come into play?

Rita DaSilva: Since the film was being converted to 3D, we had to give everything to the 3D conversion company as early as possible, i.e. shots with and without VFX. And once a week there were VFX and 3D “review sessions” in which the director J. J. Abrams looked at the shots. These edited shots were also cut at the same time in Avid, and the film was developed further in many places at the same time. We also edited in 5.1 surround sound and our 2nd assistant editors were an invaluable help in getting the sound right. Fortunately, we also had a sound designer and re-recording mixer from Skywalker, who has been with Bad Robot (the production company) for a long time. We learnt an awful lot from him in terms of noises, speech and sound. Me and Jules mostly used the soundtracks from the first “Star Trek” for background sounds and SFX specifically for “Star Trek Into Darkness”. But whenever we couldn’t find something, we had sound designers who developed and recorded the sounds. We also had the conforming done directly at Bad Robot by a Mistika specialist and his assistant. And even one of the VFX departments and the music editor are based directly at Bad Robot. Of course, this made work incredibly easy for Jules and me, because we could discuss everything on foot and through short official channels.

DP: What did your editing suite look like and what can you recommend for the ideal workplace?

Julian Smirke: On “Star Trek Into Darkness” we all worked with Media Composer. We started with MC 5.5.3 and ended up with MC 6.5.2 – with all the updates that came out in between, of course. During our production time, Avid released things that helped us a lot, such as 5.1 audio. We used that right away for an evolving temporary sound mix throughout the post-production span. Everything was stored on a 64 TB ISIS 5000 and each system had an Avid Nitris DX as hardware.

I always work with a standing desk. With 12-hour days, I just can’t manage to sit for 12 hours at a time, it makes my bones ache. Apart from that, I like working with Wacom tablets, but that’s a “can”, not a “must”. We always use Filemaker Pro in the team, and I recently discovered “Keyboard Maestro” from one of our assistant editors, Nate Orloff. Similar to Autohotkey on Windows, it allows you to sequence different actions on a hotkey on Mac – and it saves an incredible amount of time, which means that dailies sync faster and get to the editor quicker.

Rita DaSilva: Well, it’s important to me that there’s a comfortable sofa in the room. I also need pleasant lighting and perfectly adjusted monitors – and of course I need to be as close as possible to Mary Jo’s editing suite. And – after this project – I would like to continue editing at Bad Robot again. We’ve been working here for 14 months now, and much more important than a comfortable armchair are motivated, imaginative colleagues – of which there are plenty here.

DP: What’s on your “Swiss army knife USB stick”?

Rita DaSilva: One of the assistant editors wrote a script called “EDL to Subcap Converter” that we all used excessively on this film. Whenever we needed to export Quicktimes with VFX names in the file name, we used this script instead of exporting manually. This script uses the EDL and converts it to the Avid DS Subtitle format. This was a phenomenal time saver. You can find it at www.evanschiff.com .

Julian Smirke: Will Files helped with the temp sound design and mix, and from him came three RTAS (Real Time Audio Suite) in Avid, which were great for us. This automatically brightened up the soundtrack in the frequencies of human voices, cleaned it up and made the dialogue more audible, especially in the big action sequences. That was enormously helpful.

And some more scripts from Evan Schiff, which Rita has already mentioned. They were incredibly helpful in synchronising the two editing locations. The main editing suite is here on Bad Robot, but during the shoot we were on set with J. J. Abrams – and keeping the two in sync was absolutely essential. We had to make sure that all the files, all the bins and all the projects were up to date, on both locations. And with Evan’s scripts, we have been able to eliminate the “human error” – in the past, everything was typed by hand … Now it’s neither time-consuming nor error-prone!

DP: You edited with Media Composer – was that your first attempt with Avid?

Julian Smirke: MC7 was unfortunately not yet available when we were in the hot phase – we ended up working on 6.5.2. However, I have to say that I’m very happy with the version – and we incorporated the 3D functions and 5.1 features directly into the “sharp” production workflow. Our team has been working with Avid for a long time – Maryann and Mary Jo edited “Mission: Impossible III” (2006) on Avid Meridien in OS9.

DP: In your opinion, does an editor need to master as many tools as possible? Or is specialised knowledge always the trump card?

Maryann Brandon: I use very few tools. Of course it helps to know different options and approaches when planning your workflow, but I’ve focussed on using Avid as efficiently as possible. Even though I sometimes wish I was a bit more tech savvy, for speed reasons my main focus has to be on using the tools for editing and story.

Julian Smirke: I don’t think more tools make you more efficient. You just have a wider range of tools that may be better suited to the task. On “Star Trek Into Darkness” we edited in Avid Media Composer, sound design and music editing came from Pro Tools, our VFX artists work with Nuke, After Effects, Maya and many, many other programmes. We used Cinesync for the VFX reviews. Mistika for 2D and 3D conforms – and we’re just at the beginning of the list here. All of these programmes are exciting, cool and definitely worth the learning time. But at the end of the day, I think there’s no substitute for the security that a well-known programme package offers. Because only when the technology takes a back seat can I as an editor concentrate fully on the material.

DP: Having already worked with J. J. Abrams: Does the job get easier when you already know the director?

Julian Smirke: This mainly applies to editors, but I can also say from my own experience, having worked with J. J. Abrams on all his feature films, that it gets easier and more enjoyable to work with him every time. You know what the other person expects and you find your own tone.

Maryann Brandon: It depends on the director. If someone is open to ideas and adapts the scenes, the job becomes a lot easier. That’s the case with J.J., who is very open to ideas and suggestions, gets on well with people and is happy to accept the team’s input and integrate it into the overall picture. I think that’s a stroke of luck – but in general you can work with any director who has a vision while he’s shooting. Then you already have a shared interest in the end product and can make something out of it.

DP: You’ve also worked together as a team before – for example on the films “Star Trek” (2009) and “Super 8” (2011) – does that help when working and are teams for certain tasks something that studios absolutely have to form?

Maryann Brandon: Yes, a permanent team that knows the processes – and also understands why they are the way they are – makes it very easy to switch between films. But I believe that a studio that has chosen a director should also let that director choose the other people involved. That way, logical hierarchies develop naturally within the team and you spend your working time with people you can work with. Julian Smirke: That makes a huge difference to efficiency. If you work with each other, you can adapt to each other at the interfaces and know what the other person needs. And in some cases you can do a lot up front, which is particularly helpful for us who work with the editors – we know what they need before they say it, and “downtime” and waiting times are reduced. But I don’t think a studio should be particularly involved – our industry works with people you already know anyway, and that kind of thing forms organically.

DP: In light of the Rhythm&Hues debacle, do you see too much focus on directors and actors in blockbusters that are largely VFX?

Maryann Brandon: Well, I’ve gotten out of the habit of expecting anything in that regard. I’m just as involved in the actors and their work as I am in the VFX or the grading. The success – at least the aesthetic success – of a film is the interplay of all these aspects, as well as a good script and good acting. But in my opinion, effects and sound contribute enormously to the impression a film makes.

Julian Smirke: Definitely. Editing is the most underrated aspect of filmmaking, and yet one of the most important.

DP: You’ve been editing since the early 90s – what has changed the most for you and where will we be editing in 20 years’ time?

Maryann Brandon: The most obvious difference, of course, is that there is no more film in the editing room (laughs). But I think editing physical film was the best possible training ever. When you did a cut in the workprint, it was an actual cut. Now I can look at 40 versions of a scene and choose which of the cuts and shots I like best. And for the future, I hope that we will continue to work together as a team on location. The back and forth between colleagues is the best way to work creatively. So many great scenes and edits in “Star Trek” came from discussions between the editing, VFX and sound departments. So the role of the editor hasn’t really changed overall. I still read the script as often as I need to, and I still can’t get involved in the design of a scene until the director has given his vision. In my opinion, the main difference lies in the CGI scenes, which have to be finished much earlier. I’m always on set for these scenes so that I can say exactly what needs to be done during the rough cut.

DP: You’ve switched between TV series like “Felicity”, cinema films and TV films. What’s the difference, and can you really cut “slower” in the cinema?

Maryann Brandon: I switched between media types for a number of reasons – it depended on the script idea, among other things, and the rest of the project depends on that. Differentiating by output medium doesn’t help in my opinion. A good cut looks good on any medium if it supports the story. But I can say that editing for TV was an important lesson. You really learn to work there, with the short production times and small segments and the immovable deadline of the broadcast date. That trains your instincts on how to get a good cut quickly. DP: Is there a fundamental difference for you in cinema films, for example between “MI:3”, “Kung Fu Panda 2” and “How to Train Your Dragon”? Maryann Brandon: There is only a difference in editing between live action and animated films. In live action film you take things away, in animated film you add things, which of course completely changes the possibilities of an editor. Simply requesting shots or a few more frames – as an editor, that’s a real pleasure!

DP: You were director and producer on “Alias”, sound editor, production assistant and much more. Do you have to know the other steps of production to be a good editor? And as an aspiring editor, should you also be involved in projects outside of the editing room?

Maryann Brandon: It’s always important to gain as much experience as possible from all areas of filming – that’s the only way to understand the complexity and potential stumbling blocks of the different steps. And only when you see that – at least in my opinion – do you realise what makes a scene special or how you have to shoot the scene so that it “works”. There is no substitute for practical experience.

DP: A question of taste: what is your favourite scene in “Star Trek Into Darkness”?

Maryann Brandon: (Spoilers!) That’s hard to say. The film is a series of cuts that are all equally good for me. I think the rhythm turned out particularly well. Good editing is best when it’s not even noticeable. But the way the scene in the conference room turned out, just before Pike dies – we arranged it so that Kirk only finds out after the fight with Harrison/Benedict Cumberbatch. That makes the shock for Kirk much clearer. And I also think the opening scene is very well done – a great introduction of all the important characters.

DP: And now the most obvious question: were you already a Trekkie before working on “Star Trek”?

Maryann Brandon: I wouldn’t call myself a hardcore aficionado, but I did watch the original series as a kid, of course – along with “Twilight Zone”, “Outer Limits”, “Lost In Space”, “Night Gallery” and “Chiller Theatre”. Still, I enjoyed working on “Star Trek” – it may not be the “Final Frontier”, but it’s still a universe you enjoy being in.

Julian Smirke: I was more of a fan of the “Next Generation”, so of course I was familiar with the world. And of course I’ve seen all the films. After such a template, it’s an honour to work on the latest iteration of the Star Trek films.

The post Maljaʼ tayʼ Avid first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

In nuce: Three fun facts about the absolute person of contemporary history David Bowie: He made a guest appearance in the game The Nomad Soul, Quantic Dream’s first film. His son is the Hollywood director Duncan Jones (including Moon, Source Code, Warcraft: The Beginning). The third fun fact… will we get to that in a moment? Firstly: Cinesite has published a VFX breakdown reel for the CBS series The Man Who Fell to Earth. The series is a sequel to the novel by author Walter Tevis (including Sharks of the Big City and The Colour of Money) and the 70s film starring David Bowie. That’s the third fun fact out of the way. Incidentally, the book and original film are also called The Man Who Fell to Earth.

Cast & crew: The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Faraday, Naomie Harris as Justin, Bill Nighy as Newton and Kate Mulgrew as Finch – the latter also known as Captain Kathryn Janeway from the 90s series Star Trek: Voyager. Behind the camera, Jenny Lumet (the Stark Trek series Strange New Worlds, Discovery and Picard) and Alex Kurtzman (co-creator of the Star Trek franchise since 2009) were responsible as writers and executive producers.

The Man Who Fell To Earth, Cinesite VFX Breakdown Reel

The post The Man Who Fell to Earth | VFX Breakdown first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: Mehdi Hadi – concept artist, 3D designer and director based in Paris – guides you through this 50-minute tutorial. The tutorial was published as part of Maxon’s “The 3D and Motion Design Show”.

Who is Mehdi Hadi? Over the course of his career, Mehdi has supplied numerous clients from the film, TV and gaming industries. However, Mehdi describes his true passion as being the realisation of his own creative projects – one of which is the dystopian short film “No Mankind”, in which humanity is on the brink of its own annihilation. In the film, robots threaten to become the dominant species on the planet. You can visit the freelance artist Mehdi Hadi on Instagram, Behance or on his homepage.

What do you learn in the tutorial? Mehdi uses his ambitious short film as a template to explain the finer points of character design and to show you how to create realistic portraits of people. In his video tutorial, the Parisian artist focuses in particular on the topics of skin textures and lighting moods. The full-length video is linked below. We wish you every success with your creative endeavours!

Mehdi Hadi @ The 3D and Motion Design Show

The post Create this 3D character with Cinema 4D! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: In this VFX breakdown, the girls and boys from Territory Studio show you the design and visual effects work they brought to the streaming flicker boxes for the film “Swan Song”. incidentally, “Swan Song” was realised by director Benjamin Cleary, who was awarded an Oscar for his cinematic work. Incidentally, Cleary won the most coveted film award in the western world in 2016 for his 12-minute short film “Stutterer” – which is about a man with a speech impediment who falls in love with a deaf-mute.

What is “Swan Song” about? The film is a mixture of science fiction and drama, telling the story of a family man who finds a way to stay with his family even after his own death. How? By having himself cloned. We think so: Anyone who wants to rethink Dolly the cloned sheep or the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park as an emotional drama should put “Swan Song”, which is really worth seeing, on their watch list.

Click further: If you want to know how Territory Studio helped to enrich the sci-fi drama with brilliant film images, click on the VFX breakdown below.

Swan Song Breakdown Reel

The post Swan Song | VFX Breakdown first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: In this VFX breakdown, the Moving Picture Company (MPC for short) presents its robotic visual effects, created as part of the third and final season of the successful sci-fi series Lost in Space. The series season has already been released on Netflix in December 2021 – so MPC is giving you a look behind the scenes.

In which episode can you see the VFXs? The visual effects you can see below were all created for episode seven of the third season, which is entitled “Contigencies on Contigencies”. Three different branches of MPC were involved in these VFXs, namely those in London, Paris and Bengaluru.

Lost in Space – Season Two: If you can’t get enough of the wonderful effects of the exciting sci-fi series, click back to 6 October 2020 , when the Important Looking Pirates showed you that it didn’t take Charlton Heston as Moses to part the sea. So: Important Looking Pirates parted the sea – we share with you the corresponding VFX breakdown.

We recommend: Before clicking play, put on your water wings and a life belt! It’s time for an emergency dip!

MPC – Lost In Space VFX Breakdown

The post Lost in Space | VFX Breakdown first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: In a detailed, illustrated breakdown posted on Artstation, 3D artist and art director Rasmus Poulsen explains the techniques he uses to texture and shade his sci-fi spaceships. The breakdown is appropriately entitled “Texturing & Shading Process Breakdown”. The whole thing is aimed at Blender users.

What can you expect in the breakdown? Step by step and always with plenty of illustrations, Rasmus shows you what his approach looks like – starting with “Research & Reference”, then continuing with “Texturing”, “Texture Map Applied”, “A.O. & Edge Detect Shading”, “Shader A.O. Setup”, “Shader Edge Detect Setup”, “Proper Tex-Mapping”, “Complete Material” and finally ending with “Complete Shader”. You can click through the complete, highly recommended Blender Breakdown on Artstation.

Click further: To keep up to date with Rasmus Poulsen’s work, we recommend following the talented 3D artist and art director on Artstation, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook .

The post How does texturing and shading work for spaceships? first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: In this latest VFX breakdown from Rodeo FX, the VFXers show what they’ve done to get their pipelines smoking to bring the space saga Foundation to Apple TV screens. For many enthusiasts of the legendary science fiction author Isaac Asimov, Foundation is a definite series highlight. As Rodeo FX has informed us, VFX Supervisor Arnaud Brisebois and FX Supervisor Omar Meradi will be talking about their work on Foundation during a panel at this year’s FMX conference.

More about Foundation (at FMX 2022): Asimov fans will rejoice as the Apple series will be represented this FMX with another programme item, when Overall VFX Supervisor Chris MacLean (formerly of MR. X) will talk about how the series’ bombastic visual language was developed. For more information, click back to 17.12.2021 with a body part of your choice.

What can you expect at FMX 2022? If you want to find out early on what other event highlights await you at FMX, which takes place from 3 to 6 May, click back to 09.03.2022 , where we introduced you to further programme items (spoiler alert: lots of Marvel stuff!), or click back to 01.02.2022 to watch the eye-catching FMX trailer called “Burned”.

Foundation VFX Breakdown by Rodeo FX

The post Foundation | VFX Breakdown first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: This VFX breakdown takes you back to where the Matrix writes its source code on the brains of human Duracell batteries to reanimate the Wachowski siblings’ world-famous sci-fi dystopia. What sounds cryptic is simply the latest VFX breakdown from Digital Domain (stylised spelling: DD), in which the battle of man versus machine, Mister Anderson versus Agent Smith, simulacres versus simulation continues.

We think: Anyone who has their Jean Baudrillard ready to hand on their bookshelf will down this VFX breakdown with a lukewarm glass of simulacra. And anyone who has understood this pun is a regular at Starbucks, or has already seen Matrix Resurrections in the cinema.

Click further: Sci-fi fans click back to 02/02/2018 , when DD convinced us with an eight-minute VFX breakdown that Blade Runner could do 2049, or stop off at 14/07/2020 , because that’s when DD knew what robots were up to in Westworld (apart from murdering people, of course).

Matrix: Reloaded: For a nostalgic look back to 2003, when the first Matrix sequel hit the screens, we recommend 29 December 2021, because that’s when you’ll come across our retro article, where Neo takes on a whole bunch of Agent Smith’s human dumplings in the epic Burly Brawl. In our opinion: This early crowd simulation is still worth watching today.

The Matrix Resurrections | VFX Breakdown | DD

The post Matrix Resurrections | VFX Breakdown first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

After looking at Framestore Canada in issue O2/14 , this time we take a look at London. This is where the effects for the alien time-travelling shooter “Edge of Tomorrow”, in which Tom Cruise often dies, were produced. We spoke to Isabell Mayrhofer, VFX Production Coordinator and SAE graduate, about her career, training and how she applies what she has learnt today.

Studio Framestore, founded in 1986, is located near the famous Oxford Street in London. To this day, there are few major films in which Framestore is not at least partially involved. From “Avatar” to “Harry Potter” and “James Bond” to “X-Men” – plus Oscars for “The Golden Compass” and most recently “Gravity” as well as nominations for “Dark Knight” and “Superman Returns”, BAFTAs and much more. The latest project in cinemas is “Edge of Tomorrow”, in which director Doug Liman – together with Framestore and Cinesite, SPI, Nvizible, PeanutFX and Prime Focus – has Europe annexed by aliens.

DP: Isabell, you were involved in “Edge of Tomorrow” for Framestore as VFX Production Coordinator. What were your tasks and what experiences do you take with you to “Paddington”?

Isabell Mayrhofer: I was mainly responsible for animation and FX on “Edge of Tomorrow”, but I also supervised rigging, CFX and, towards the end, stereo conversion. Compared to my previous projects, the main difference was probably the size of the team. You have to spread the work over several people to cover everything. As a coordinator, this means limiting yourself to just a few departments instead of paying attention to all of them, which was the case with “Wolfblood”, for example. This clear demarcation of tasks is in turn very helpful for “Paddington”, as I can concentrate on my area right from the start and therefore get involved in the daily tasks more quickly.

DP: Shots from Cinesite, SPI, Nvizible, PeanutFX and Prime Focus were also used in the film. How do you coordinate with the artists from the other studios and what is the best way to pass this on to your own team?

Isabell Mayrhofer: The coordination between all the different studios is the sole responsibility of the client. In the case of “Edge of Tomorrow”, this means Warner Bros. We are generally only responsible for our own shots and assets. Only in the case of direct collaboration with other studios do I have to make sure that everything goes according to plan. For example, there are certain assets, such as the aliens, that are designed and built by one studio and then made available to the other studios. But certain technical requirements also have to be met for the stereo conversion at the end to enable the subsequent conversion.

DP: What were your shots for “Edge of Tomorrow” and what were the challenges?

Isabell Mayrhofer: First of all, a little spoiler warning for anyone who hasn’t seen the film yet. Our sequences actually span the entire duration of the film. One of our biggest sequences in London was the so-called “dropship crash” scene, in which Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt drive (no, not fly) a kind of helicopter along the Champs-Élysées, chase it through the Arc de Triomphe and steer it straight into the Louvre. That was also one of the most extensive sequences, I would say. But as with any other project, the challenge lies more in getting everything up and running at the beginning. I’m thinking, for example, of Doug Liman, the director, who expressed the wish that the aliens should move in a way that had never been seen before in a creature. So, if you have any idea about animation, you will know that the main thing at the beginning is to collect templates and references. So we were a bit clueless at first. But with the help of Nick Davis, the VFX supervisor, we were finally able to impress with our animation.

DP: How big was your team and what was your workflow like?

Isabell Mayrhofer: This question is difficult to answer as the size of the team changed on an almost monthly basis, depending on the requirements at the time. Roughly speaking, I would say we had around 100 artists working on the project in London. At the same time, Framestore Montreal was also involved, and the team there was even bigger. The workflow of a standard 3D shot begins with sorting the plates (the film material) and entering all the shot-specific data into the database (camera information, cut length, etc.). From there it’s on to tracking, then layout and on to animation. Then come the CFX and FX team, who in turn pass on their work to lighting and rendering. Finally, compositing puts everything together and at the end we, the production team, send the whole thing to the customer. As a rule, many of these steps take place at the same time and production has its fingers in the pie right from the start in order to maintain a good overview of the project. Although we have usually done all of this before, it is always a challenge because new technical and artistic tasks arise each time and the customers increase their demands with each new collaboration.

DP: How many iterations did you have on average and which shot did you spend a particularly long time on?

Isabell Mayrhofer: We generally have a lot of iterations, as all departments build on each other and the versions are therefore constantly increasing. The “dropship crash” sequence described above was a particular challenge to ensure that everything finally meshed together perfectly.

DP: In your experience, how much does traditional project management and its structures need to be adapted to make it work for film projects?

Isabell Mayrhofer: Basically, I would say that the structure of film productions is very similar to traditional project management. You have a certain amount of work that has to be realised with the available resources in a given time. Of course, you need the specific expertise of film production to be able to plan the project realistically and get it off the ground, but the basis itself is the same.

DP: You work with Shotgun – what are your experiences with it?

Isabell Mayrhofer: Shotgun is great, but also challenging at times. It took me a while to get used to the structure. But I quickly realised the advantages of Shotgun and how much it can make everyday production easier. Best of all, although Framestore has an in-house Shotgun support team that is always available for questions and comments, Shotgun developers still come in person to offer further training on request, answer questions or generally give tips on day-to-day working methods. I also had a 1:1 session with one of the Shotgun employees and was able to make suggestions for improvements and discuss new ideas with him that he would like to incorporate into future updates.

DP: What other tools do you “always have with you” – and is there a tip that you think everyone should know?

Isabell Mayrhofer: We use a number of additional tools that are integrated directly into Shotgun by our developers. These are, for example, delivery tools that help us to send the finished shots to the customer. This means I don’t have to constantly switch between different programmes, but can control everything conveniently from Shotgun. In addition, programmes such as Filemaker Pro and RV (= Media Player from Tweak Software) are also part of our daily work. These can also be connected to Shotgun. For example, Filemaker files can be easily imported and Shotgun data can be exported in a Filemaker-specific way. The best tip I can give is probably this: Buy Directory Opus (= file manager). I love this thing! It makes life in production so much easier, especially if you have to deal with moving, copying or renaming files in any way. I even use it privately.

DP: What personal qualities should a coordinator have?

Isabell Mayrhofer : First of all,you should have a technical understanding of the programmes that the artists use. These are, for example, Maya, Nuke and others. You also need to understand the basic principles of film production, such as the workflow. As a Coordinator, you will work closely with the artists and the production team and should therefore have a social, open-minded but also reliable manner. A certain talent for organisation and flexibility are also needed to survive on a day-to-day basis. Ultimately, however, you need to enjoy your work, because in production in particular, you are usually the first to come into the office and the last to go home.

DP: You completed a degree at the SAE Institute – how well did that prepare you for your current tasks?

Isabell Mayrhofer: My studies at the SAE Institute helped me above all in terms of technical understanding. My knowledge of Maya, Nuke & Co. helped me progress quickly. It’s a great advantage if you know what the artists are talking about as a producer, especially when they are trying to get out of a rather awkward situation. Especially as a woman, it’s not always easy to assert yourself in the male-dominated film world. It can be an advantage to show an animator how to change the camera angle in Maya, for example. True Story. Not only is it helpful for the project in question if you can quickly help out with something without keeping other artists from their work. I’ve also won many a bet with it. Of course, you have to convey the whole thing with a certain charm so as not to scratch the ego of other – usually older – colleagues. What professional artist wants to be reprimanded by a production coordinator in their own programme? But some take it with humour and think it’s great if they can express themselves technically without immediately receiving questioning looks. Of course, my knowledge only goes up to a certain limit, but you learn something new every day and most artists are even enthusiastic when they can teach you something new.

DP: In hindsight, which courses could you have used?

Isabell Mayrhofer: A course on production itself would have been beneficial. It’s not just people like me who actually work in the field afterwards who could benefit from it. I explain far too often what the tasks of the various people in production actually are and where the differences lie. Many artists also lack an understanding of why exactly they have to carry out certain tasks within the given time frame, etcetera. Of course, it’s the same the other way round. In other words: there are far too many producers who don’t know what effort is behind all the tasks. A course could include topics such as: What is a schedule and how does it actually work? What does the daily routine in production look like? What are the tasks of a production assistant/coordinator/line producer/producer et cetera? Shortly before I went to London, I even gave such a presentation at the SAE Institute in Munich and received nothing but positive feedback. So if such an opportunity should arise again, I would definitely do it again or recommend it to others.

DP: What did you gain most from your studies and what would you recommend to prospective students who want to get the most out of their time?

Isabell Mayrhofer: Quite simply, you should try out as much as possible. There are so many different opportunities at the SAE Institute that you simply won’t get them again later in your career. It’s not easy to find exactly what you enjoy doing professionally. Especially when there are so many different career paths, as there are in the industry. Where else can you learn how to write a script, direct, hold the camera, position the lights, hold the sound bar, process the data correctly, design / model / texture / rig / animate / render a character, add effects, bring everything together in the comp, colour the picture and set the cut – only to realise at the end that the punchline is missing?

I wish I was joking, but unfortunately it’s part of our everyday lives and it happens from time to time that completely finished shots that have taken months of hard work simply don’t end up in the film.

So, where was I? Oh yes: having done everything once – that should be the attitude when you decide to study SAE. You never really go into the depths of the individual areas, but you get a good insight into everything and therefore have a better understanding of other departments, especially if they are connected as they are in the film. After all, without a story there is no filming, without filming there is no material for VFX, without rigging there is no animation et cetera. As soon as you have decided on something, the thematised knowledge comes naturally anyway. And after a short time, you’ll wish you had the variety of your studies back.

The post Framestore kills Tom Cruise first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

In nuce: In this almost two-hour sci-fi feature film by director Miguel Sapochnik (“Repo Man”, “Game of Thrones”, “Altered Carbon”), the eponymous Finch (played by Tom Hanks) assembles a robot to keep him and his dog company in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Click further: The featurette just below offers an outline of how the robot Jeff (played by Caleb Landry Jones) was created using performance capturing. We think: Sci-fi fodder worth seeing for fans of Tom “Everyman” Hanks and niche sci-fi gems like “Annihilation” or “Ex Machina”.

 

The post Finch | Featurette first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

Image Engine, Embassy FX and Weta Digital skilfully created the invisible effects for District 9. The special effects in this low-budget production, in which Lord of the Rings man Peter Jackson was also involved, are as well done as if the aliens were being played by real actors. Just like the main character, a large green cross between a shrimp and a grasshopper, the other aliens are also pure CG. A good mocap and the post-production of the studios involved bring them all to life in a frighteningly real way.

After a time of spaceships, transforming robots, magical high school kids, guinea pig secret agents and the destruction of Earth, who would have thought that a low-budget sci-fi film in the style of a fictional documentary could be the surprise of the cinema year? What’s more, this is the director’s first film and the actors are anything but well-known Hollywood celebrities. What’s more, the majority of the special effects were created in a relatively small studio. Skilful viral marketing and rave reviews have already brought Neill Blomkamp’s debut film District 9, with a budget of 30 million US dollars, box office takings of over 170 million US dollars. And the end is not yet in sight.

The story, which is set in Blomkamp’s home country of South Africa, centres on two main characters: the alien Christopher Johnson and the human Wikus van der Merwe, played by Sharlto Copley. Christopher Johnson came to Earth 28 years ago in a spaceship that ran out of fuel over Johannesburg. At the beginning of the film, the spaceship can still be seen hovering over the city. At the time of the involuntary arrival, the aliens inside had almost starved to death. But then the humans were brave enough to fly to the spaceship, open it and free the occupants.

The South Africans then locked all the aliens in a segregated area and treated the inhabitants of these slums, those yellow creatures that are a mixture of shrimps over two metres tall and insects, with contempt. Tentacles attached to the aliens’ mouths wriggle when they speak. This was a delight for the animators involved with the aliens’ movements: No lip-syncing was needed. Some humans seem to have learnt the aliens’ language in recent years.

Originally, Peter Jackson and Blomkamp, a former visual effects supervisor, had Weta Workshop and Weta Digital in mind for the special effects on this film project. But the passage of time and the US screenwriters’ strike resulted in a new schedule for the film. When Weta Digital was due to start work on District 9, there were other commitments that the effects studio from New Zealand had to fulfil.

Instead, production was split between two smaller studios: Image Engine and Embassy FX from Vancouver, Canada, Bloomkamp’s new hometown. In the end, Image Engine took care of the aliens, Embassy FX realised the mech-suit combat robot and some other effects. Weta Digital came in later and contributed the mothership, a smaller side ship and the display inside the mech suit. Weta also did the previs for the battle scenes and the Hero model for the battle robot.

“Image Engine did the lion’s share of the work,” says Matt Aitken, Visual Effects Supervisor at Weta. “We are very pleased that we were able to be involved in the end. Where we had to pass at the beginning.”

On set in South Africa

Peter Muyzers was one of the visual effects supervisors for Image Engine on set for almost six months. Dan Kaufman was the visual effects supervisor for post-production, who, among other things, built the aliens into the existing film material.

Obviously, with a production like this, it’s difficult to gather enough material,” explains Muyzers, adding: “You’re always limited. Neill wanted to move very quickly. He didn’t want the traditional burden of a large crew on set to get in the way. But because of his VFX background, he understood our requirements. That made it easier for the team overall.”

Because the aliens were in so many scenes, Muyzers had to constantly take HDRI shots as the lighting changed. “In the beginning, when the assistant director shouted ‘It’s HDRI time again!’, almost everyone responded with ‘HD what? “But after a few weeks of work, the calls for the HDRIs became routine. I always had my tripod and camera to hand.” The crew working with Muyzers collected camera data, information about the lenses and all kinds of measurement data about the set. This allowed CG objects to be created afterwards that correctly cast shadows on other creatures and elements. They could also be added to backgrounds.

Typically, productions use lidar data similar to radar to determine where the ground is not flat, as in the case of South Africa. This makes it easy to create accurate backgrounds for CG characters that later need to be built into the landscape.

The only problem was that the companies collecting the Lidar data in South Africa had never worked with film companies before. Image Engine was therefore unable to convert this data into the correct format.

“All we could do was convert the data into point clouds that were not connected to each other,” says Muyzers. “We had a good representation of the environment but no interface to render or work with. So we did it the hard way and worked with that representation, like a large amount of photographs.”

For tracking, Image Engine used Boujou, PF Track and 3D Equaliser. “None of the packages did everything we needed,” Muyzers concludes. “Some of the shots were really long, with the camera panning left to right and to the centre. Some of the shots were stock footage from a South African TV channel about unrest in South Africa. That’s where Neill wanted to put the aliens. We didn’t know where these shots came from or what format they were in. We could only roughly recognise which direction the sunlight was coming from. So we sent the material to Yannix Technologies. They did the match – moving incredibly well without having any set data.”

Meanwhile, Kaufman, a freelance visual effects supervisor, took over post-production responsibilities at Image Engine. By this point, most of the film was already in the can. Creature supervisor James Stewart had started to create the aliens by this time, having Alien Maquette scanned by Weta Workshop. “We adapted the data by lengthening the limbs and making the faces more insect-like,” says Stewart.

In the film, the aliens behave more like gang members in a slum than creatures from another planet. They rummage around in the rubbish looking for cat food, which acts like a narcotic for them. They are violent and fight with Nigerians to get food and drugs. They are easily injured and therefore mortal. “This film conveys many different impressions,” says Steve Nichols, Head of Animation, “and that was the whole point.”

On set, actor Jason Cope, who played the main alien, wore a grey suit with patterns on it. This suit allowed the camera to capture his movements for motion tracking. Unfortunately, the documentary style of the film meant that the crew had to place the cameras in many locations for triangulation. The visual effects team tried to capture the aliens with motion capture, but the aliens were too big for that. So that didn’t work out well either.

In the end, the animators started with rotomation and then used rigs with controls for the kinematics, adjusted the legs and finally added insect-like movements through keyframing.

Image Engine used Autodesk’s Maya for modelling, rigging and animation. ZBrush was used for texturing. The riggers created a basic bipedal system that could be used regardless of whether the aliens moved on two legs or all fours.

For the faces, Stewart created a system based on a combination of Blend Shapes and Correctives. “We’re really proud of this big giant grasshopper character. Christopher puts a lot of heart and soul into it,” said Nichols. “When I first saw the design, I thought to myself, ‘Ooooh boy, and this guy is supposed to evoke an emotional response?”

The animators’ favourite character, however, was CJ, Christopher Johnson’s six-year-old son. “We motion-captured Peter Muyzer’s son for a couple of shots and at the same time watched a lot of reference video footage to familiarise ourselves with the movements of a six-year-old,” says Nichols. “But at times it didn’t work very well. It was a challenge, but in the end it turned out great.”

Grainy slime

To realise the physical appearance of the aliens, Stewart referenced photos of insects. Initially, they were given an iridescent look. However, in order for them to fit into their surroundings, their exterior had to be covered in dirt and colour.

“Grain and iridescence don’t go well together,” Stewart analysed. “Also, iridescent insects only look good when they are small. If you combine this effect with large animals, it looks like they are covered in a film of petrol. To make the aliens blend in even more with their surroundings, the crew added scraps of fabric, splashes of colour and war paint. Some had skateboard stickers on their armour, others wore hats. “We were able to get inside Neill’s head,” says Stewart. “He wanted the characters to reflect what Soweto [South Western Townships] or the south-west neighbourhood of Johannesburg is. So we incorporated artefacts everywhere.”

The painters had created textures for the surfaces using Photoshop, Bodypaint and ZBrush. “We invested a lot of time in the surfaces and decided whether they should be glossy or matt,” says Kaufman. “We ended up with a kind of turtle shell that had a matte sheen but no shine. The skin around the aliens’ faces and the tentacles are slimy, like stuff is dripping off them. And we also had different levels of encrusted dust and dirt. That makes things a little more matte.” Multiple texture map layers, bump maps and displacement maps created different patterns, controlling colour, light, highlights and roughness. For rendering, Image Engine used 3Dlight, a renderer compatible with RenderMan. Nuke and various layer colour maps were used for compositing. “The main goal was to keep control of the aliens,” says Kaufman. “To make sure they walk upright and remain photorealistic so that the viewer accepts them as actors.”

Large ships

The effects created by Weta Digital, on the other hand, are much more striking to the viewer: the mother ship has a diameter of almost five kilometres. “That was our hardest work on this production, because it required a lot of complex simulations,” recalled Aitken. During one of these scenes, Christopher Johnson climbs through the floor of his barrack. The camera pulls back and looks down on the shack. The floor arches and the ship rises from the ground.

To realise this part, Weta first animated the spaceship to control the timing and determine how much dirt should be swept up. Then, using in-house solutions, the team created different levels of the floor: the top layer of concrete, the dirt below and the rocky layer further down.

Using rigid body simulation, the tar layer was broken into pieces and these pieces triggered the particle simulation for the layer below. As the soil was in layers and could be broken up piece by piece, Aitken had control over the timing. It also meant that each stage could be processed individually before moving on to the next. “These were the first shots we started with and the last ones we finished,” adds Aitken.

“For the mothership, Image Engine did the initial work on the model and the wide shots in the sky,” explained Aitken, adding: “However, we had to rebuild it to make it detailed enough for the hero mothership shots.”

The controls of the mech suit

In the film, Wikus van der Merwe accidentally splashes some alien fluid on his face and becomes infected with alien DNA. This allows him to use the aliens’ bio-technology, including their weapons and an impressive, heavily armoured combat robot. Embassy FX created the robot, the Mech Suit. “It’s almost like a walking tank,” says Winston Helgason, who was the on-site supervisor for Embassy’s work. “He’s sitting inside, moving the suit, so in a way the suit extends his person.”

During this twelve-minute sequence, Wikus, who is actually the suit, stumbles around at first. But as he learns how to move, he throws a few vehicles around, shoots rockets out of his arm, hurls a pig at soldiers and kills some of his enemies.

Robert Habros was special effects supervisor in the studio while Helgason was on set. Stephen Pepper was compositing supervisor.

Working from the basic geometry of the original model created at Weta, artists at Embassy FX textured and rigged the mech suit using Autodesk’s Softimage and Luxology’s Modo for the UV maps. “We did a lot of textures in ZBrush and Photoshop. We also animated the models in Softimage, rendered in mental ray and the compositing was done in Shake,” says Pepper. Weta Digital created a heads-up display inside the combat robot. “Neill Blomkamp had very specific ideas about what he wanted from the display,” emphasised Aitken. “The film is also very humorous at times. The joke about the situation with Wikus, our hero, is that it’s alien technology that he jumps into. The heads-up display provides him with all kinds of information, but it’s basically alien technology. He has no way of understanding it. So it was an enjoyable piece of work for us.”

In addition to the suit, Embassy also created two small alien creatures that look like a combination of a scorpion and a shrimp. “The Nigerians make them fight each other and bet on the outcome of the fight as if it were a cockfight,” says Helgason. “One of the soldiers falls into a pit and the creatures eat his brains.”

“Another interesting thing about the suit was the weaponry: there was a gun on each arm. One was like a machine gun, the other was capable of firing electric shots,” said Pepper. “To top that off, the robot could fire missiles from its shoulders. When the suit shoots at soldiers, the bodies explode and fly through the frame in many pieces. “We had so-called body bags on set. Bags that were filled with blood and guts and whose contents we could spread all over the place when they exploded,” adds Helgason. “There’s a lot of graphic stuff in this film, that’s what’s cool about it.” One reason District 9 has been well-received by 90 per cent of critics (a rarity for the sci-fi horror genre) is the fact that the special effects blend so seamlessly into the film footage. While watching this pseudo-documentary, you think it should be impossible to film aliens living in a ghetto in South Africa, foraging for food and trading weapons for narcotics.

The aim of visual effects is to support a story. And one thing is certain: the special effects in this film do an excellent job of it.

The post Adventures in the alien ghetto first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

– UPDATE –

The raffle is closed. Our lucky fairy will draw two names from the almost 300 participants. We will then notify them directly. Thanks to everyone for taking part!

All Klingons – yes, even you, Officer Worf! – have to sharpen their Bat’leth, because on 18 November the latest series highlights from the Star Trek universe enter the home entertainment room. Regardless of whether they are animated series or live-action films. What do we mean by KHAAAAANS names? Well, on the 18th of November, Star Trek fans have double reason to rejoice, because it will be released: The dramedy animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 1 and Stark Trek: Discovery – Season 3, and because we have a heart for Star Trek fandom, we are giving away one copy each of Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 1 and Stark Trek: Discovery – Season 3 (each in the Limited Edition Steelbook with Blu-ray).

All you have to do to win is answer the following question.

The winning question: What is the name of the spaceship on which the series “Star Trek: Lower Decks” is set?

About Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 1: The first animated Star Trek series in almost 50 years is about the support crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos, a rather unimportant Starfleet starship. The home entertainment release contains two hours of exclusive bonus material. One of the highlights is the “Lower Decktionary” section, which provides deeper insights into the music, design and animation process. The first season comprises ten entertaining episodes.

About Star Trek: Discovery – Season 3: At the end of the second season, the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery followed Commander Burnham into a wormhole. This has landed them in an unknown future, far from home. In a time of great uncertainty, the crew – together with new friends – fight to restore hope to the Federation. The 3rd season comes up trumps with special extras such as the “Author’s Logbook”, the exclusive featurette “Being Michael Burnham” and amusing outtakes.

How it works: Enter your answer, including your complete postal address (for the prize dispatch) in the form .

The closing date for entries is 19th November 2021 – good luck!

Your data will only be analysed within the publishing house and will not be passed on to third parties. Members of the publishing house cannot take part in the prize draw. Legal recourse is excluded. Cash payment of the prizes is not possible.

The post Star Trek | Redeeming first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.