A blog begins…
I thought I’d document my journey of discovery into the digital realm.
I have a back history as a film director (television commercials and Special effects technician on films during the highly productive eighties period of Australian feature films). I am hoping to fuse old knowledge and skills with the new. Is there a place in the new digital realm for the likes of me?
To illustrate what I am talking about compare the early editions of Cinefex magzine where Don Shay would interview people like Mark Stetson about the superb model work he supervised for “Bladerunner”. Physical artefacts were built, modeled and molded. Miniatures were shot in smoke rooms and lit with fiberoptics, halogens and “grain-of-wheat” bulbs”.
These days the same type of work is being conducted largely in the “box”. Smoke is replaced with volumetric lighting and fluid dynamics. Lights and lens flares are c.g not practical.
Current day issues of Cinefex frequently refer to which renderer was used, which compositor, which in-house software tools and production pipelines were employed. As Mark once said to me, “Gone are the days where it was a bunch of guys stting in a circle in a garage cranking out amazing models”. Now it’s a bunch of guys (and girls) in chairs connected by ethernet! He said a large part of his job these days is to get guys out of their chairs and get them to actually talk to their compatriots rather than resorting to communication by email.
For me it is the merging of old and new techniques which manages to evoke that sense of wonder - it’s that magic of film effects which I believe will both raise the standards and inspire newcomers to the fold.
Just because you can do anything in the box is no reason why you should.