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eDIT/VES 2003 Report
Copyright © 2003
So this year I went back to Germany, Frankfurt for the second eDIT/VES show, and staying 2 days away from school. I I saw a lot of interesting presentations and I took some pictures. Only thing you're going to have to live with if you read this report is that you're going to have to see my happy face on every picture I'll show you here.
Sunday, September 28
11am - Terminator 3
So first to start was Pablo Helman for T3. The presentation was really interesting and they showed some cool behind the scenes VFX stuff. What I saw is that ILM also makes some really cool preview reels to start the presentation with some good music and editing in it. They showed the miniature work, the dynamic simulations, the digital stunt doubles and some digital vehicle shots. What was great was the miniature work they done on the opening shot of the skulls underwater, with digital water and a bottle falling into the water. There was also some cool liquid metal shots that were done now done with dynamic simulations.
The digital doubles were really realistically looking with some good cloth simulation. The shot of the terminator putting his head back on was almost invisible while the whole body, except the legs, were CG. There was also some great compositing as Arnold swung the Terminatrix into the bathroom. Arnold was shot in a blue screen room throwing a blue dummy around. So they composited him into an empty set with stalls trashing themselves. And finally they composited a digital double of Kristanna Loken into Arnold's arms so it looked like Arnold really smashed the Terminatrix against the wall and then threw her away. Almost a complete invisible shot. All this made T3 an interesting presentation and project. So you saw that this was a project that still had some traditional VFX techniques instead of just everything being digital. So they used the VFX in a good way.
After the presentation my dad took a picture of me and Helman and I had my AOTC Cinefex signed.
1pm - Dennis Muren: About Storytelling
So after Pablo Helman's great presentation "THE" great VFX master on our planet appeared on stage in front of my eyes. It was a moment of disbelief for a quick moment. But after a few minutes I got used to it at started listening with great attention. So he got interviewed by Harrison Ellenshaw and then Muren started talking how he got interested in movies and VFX. He said that he didn't really know how movies were made but that it came from watching TV. Then they showed some super 8 movies he made with some friends. With great wonder some of it looked actually really good and I even still didn't know how he did it. I don't think that I can do something like that with my camera. He really spent a lot of time experimenting and developing his shots. He explained some of it, how he did it. The video showed a rocket taking off from the moon. He just pulled it up with wires. And a stop motion film with a dinosaur getting stuck in the power lines and also something with a volcano. Really cute. Then they showed a scene of his student work that actually got released and distributed. It involved a big ape looking man in a suit that came out of nothing and attacked 4 teenagers.
Then Muren talked about how he got involved in the STAR WARS team . He first talked with John Dykstra who worked for Douglas Trumbull on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Dennis was looking around for projects while already working on commercials but there was just nothing around to do. He explained that there were 2 groups of FX people. The first was the one he was in, which didn't have any technology so they tried to do FX with what was around and traditional stuff. The second group was those who had motion control cameras and other technology which was created by people like Ray Harryhausen or Doug Trumbull. On a certain moment Muren heard about a project about a story that took place in space. Everyone just thought that it was ridiculous and would never happen. But Muren believed in the project. So he contacted Doug Trumbull via John Dykstra who he had met before, cause Muren wanted to meet George Lucas. Trumbull agreed and Muren became part of the team at ILM. That's how everything got started with Muren. Then when he was done on STAR WARS, Trumbull invited Muren to work on the mother ship sequence at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind which was a great pleasure for him.
He then talked a little about THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK where they started working first on the asteroid chase. After that they showed the chase through the woods scene from RETURN OF THE JEDI and the animatics they made for that sequence which were hilarious. Then they started talking about all the projects that followed. and showed several scenes from projects he worked on like T2, JP, TPM and AI . So it ended as being an interesting biographical interview. Last, he told the audience that if you keep trying and if you are very motivated you'll get into the VFX business.
First I didn't waned to put this image online cause it was kinda a failure. But after I saw it it was kind of a funny situation. I asked for a picture but the people there were so friendly, enough to really take Muren's attention away from me, and my dad kinda pushed the *click* button a little to fast. After the presentation I got my JP cinefex signed.
3pm - Highend VFX for High Class Commercials
I decided to go to that presentation as well cause it simply looked interesting. There were 4 presenters for this presentation. First Christoph Zapletal (Ach-frankfurt) who talked about a commercial which involved people mis-forming. I don't know for what product the commercial was. Nice work they did there. Then came Markus Degen (tvt postproduction) who presented a commercial about a radio channel. It involved invisible bodies putting clothes on. Some cool removing work. Then Andrew Daffy (Framestore/CFC) came and discussed the mosquito commercial for Xbox that won the VES award, the commercial for water about the t-rexes chasing a man, fish swimming through the streets of London and a commercial for jeans which involved a girl and a boy running through walls. Really great FX. I loved the mosquito animation and rendering. Finally Darren Christie (Moving Picture Company) presented the commercial with people having the same face. This was probably the best and funniest commercial of the whole presentation. They just shot all the people and then the lead actor did a blue screen shot and performed all the actors movements and expressions. His head was composited onto the other actors' head that were on location. The first two presentations were in German so I didn't really understand much. Although I recognized some Dutch words in German. Really interesting presentation.
5pm - The Hulk
So, up next was Gerald Gutschmidt. He was born in Germany and went to study to the Netherlands. He has lived in the US for 9 years now. He joined ILM in 1995 working on CASPER as a TD. Projects after that were JACK FROST and SPEED II. Then projects came like PERFECT STORM and HULK were he had a great time on. For the HULK he discussed the technical aspects. Like the subsurface scattering system. He showed several layers of lighting and texturing. Really cool.
They showed some muscle and animation tests and how they filmed bodybuilders or fights that Colin Brady and Ang Lee filmed. They also showed Ang Lee showing the performance for the animators which were really funny. They also showed an animation test where they copied the performance of a muscled guy getting mad and roaring. Another one was where an animator copied the performance of Jennifer Connelly crying which gave a really hilarious effect seeing Hulk crying and sniffing. They showed also some dessert stuff like Hulk throwing the tank with the digital sand and tank and Hulk smashing the tank with the tank canon. It was a interesting presentation.
It was a nice presentation and I have more respect for the project now after the presentation. I like the animation and FX more than when I saw the movie for the first time.
After the presentation I got my Hulk article in cinefex signed and my dad took a picture while he was doing that. He looks a really nice guy.The picture looks a little blurry.
9pm - eDIT GALA
First we didn't plan to the gala. We thought it was late and it only was for the adult people and special guests. But we decided to go anyway. When we got there at 8:30pm I felt quite embarrassed. Everyone was smoking and was drinking a glass of wine. My dad and I just walked there in our ordinary clothes between all these politicians from Frankfurt and the rest of Germany and other important people. Kinda felt like I was involved in a Academy award ceremony. Really cool. Pablo Helman was there. I felt the happiest person in me. First they showed the eDIT/VES intro. Then some politicians talked to me and and I didn't know much German. Sometimes I was clapping my hands for something I didn't know what was for.
After almost half an hour or so Tom Atkin got on stage and talked in English. Quite funny to look at. He and Dennis Muren were the only people that spoke English there. Then they started honoring the 3 veterans. First Michael Ballhaus. They first showed an edited clip of all his work. That gave me the goosebumps. And when they gave him the VES festival honor he gave a great speech which my dad translated for me after the whole thing was done. Then came Dennis Muren. The clip gave me more goosebumps. His speech was really beautiful. I was happy at that moment that I really could witness a Muren speech. That moment was like witnessing Muren winning an oscar. At the end the gave some edit/VES awards for best commercial. There were some nice commercials that got nominated and the one that won for Amnesty International was very original. So, I was really happy I got there and I had a great time.
After the gala I succeeded to take a serious picture of me and Muren. But as you see this is not a normal picture. I don't know what went wrong. But I take it as a sign. More proof that Muren is GOD! No seriously, first I was about to rip my hair out but after a little while I just realized it was the coolest picture I ever have of myself This is in my eyes the perfect picture. Muren in his smocking, just received an award. After the picture my dad told him that I admire his work very much and that I always followed his latest work on ILMfan.com which he amazingly seemed to recognize.
Monday, September 29
First I did a little schoolwork to catch up all the things I missed at school while I was in Germany. Then we got back to the theatres to start a new day at eDIT/VES 2003
11:30am - eDIT: eDucation - Visual Effects and Film Production
This was the first and only time I took part of eDIT:eDucation. Cause this presentation was in English and presented by Dennis Muren and Gerald Gutschmidt. I waned to see Gerald Gutschmidt and especially Dennis Muren one last time. Cause I don't know if I'll ever see them again in real life. First they showed the audience yet another ILM reels of their past and latest work. For their latest work, they showed in a little more detail how some shots from Harry Potter were made. Then Gerald started asking the audience if someone had a problem if he didn't speak in German. After that it was luckily in English. He went on talking how he got to the VFX business and finally to ILM.
As Muren started talking they showed the footage of Muren's old super8 films again. He explained to the audience once again how he got in the VFX biz. He was talking about some possibilities in the VFX industry. More I don't really remember. After the presentation I asked about how Lucas Animation is going along. He said that probably there will be some artists from ILM to get everything started. But he wasn't really interested in doing an animated feature cause he likes looking at an actor's face. He also answered a question from my dad where he said that once someone waned to let them do a rape scene and they just didn't wanted to do it cause it went too far. So VFX industries just don't take on every project given to them.
2pm - Bad Boys II
For this presentation it was Carey Villegas, who has some good projects under his name. He comes from a compositing background and worked on projects such as TITANIC, FIFTH ELEMENT and CAST AWAY. He first showed the animatics for the car chase and then the final film version of it. He showed a CG test of the Jaguar which turned out very well. He showed some on the set footage of cars being catapulted on the road and stuff blowing up and some camera's getting trashed. He then showed all the CG cars that they had to put in and some stuff that they had to paint out. He showed the different layers: light pass, reflection pass, and final composite. Almost invisible and great FX work on that.
Next sequence was a slow-motion shot of a bullet shooting through bottles of water or whatever, which was probably my favorite VFX sequence he showed. They shot the bullets shooting through the object with a special camera that could shoot very fast events and play it very slowly and smooth. There was also some compositing work in it. There were also some other tricky camera stuff and a 3D matte painting shots. I kinda enjoyed this presentation. SPI has done some amazing stuff for this movie. Carey Villegas was a smooth talking guy who wasn't shy of a big public.
After the presentation we went back to the hotel for a couple hours and slept.
6pm - eDIT: Salon - Michael Ballhaus: about storytelling
For this presentation, which was in German, we had a translation radio that translated in English. It was very irritating that way. I'm happy that Michael Ballhaus gave a great presentation cause those women who translated everything that Ballhaus said got me pretty bored after a little while. Michael Ballhaus is one of the finest DOPs around. He grew up in Germany and worked there for a long time. He is also a teacher in a German school. He taught Wolfgang Peterson. Later he moved to the US where he worked with directors like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese on projects such as DRACULA and GOODFELLAS. He also worked on AIR FORCE ONE, WILD WILD WEST and recently got nominated for his work on GANGS OF NEW YORK. He did a lot of fine work. I was really fascinated by the wisdom that this man had. He said some amazing things where I could learn a lot of things from.
It was a very good and interesting presentation and probably one of the best along with the one from Dennis Muren.
I was just so amazed by this man's work, wisdom and all the things that he has done in the past that I really couldn't go without asking for a picture. But when the pictures were developed there were a few photographs that failed and the picture of Ballhaus was one of them. A big disappointment for me but I'm glad I witnessed the presentation.
Tuesday, September 30
13:30am - Dogville
Peter Hjorth comes from Sweden and has worked on many dogma films. At the beginning of this presentation he explained what dogma movies are and what they look like and how others are shot. Dogma films even seem to have 10 rules. I can remember a few. Like you cannot change the light on set of how it originally was. Or you do not use any artificial lights. Really interesting. Peter Hjorth told that he was an editor in the past and that he after a while he went to Visual Effects. At a certain moment he got contacted by Lars Von Trier to work on DANCER IN THE DARK. He explained what cameras they used for that movie and what shots were a challenge for the crew.
After that he started talking about DOGVILLE. He showed some tests and told about the challenging camera moves that Von Trier wanted to do. For the shots that were filmed from above, they painted the floor of the set green. So in post they had to put all the elements plus the floor. Even for one shot with some mist FX. He worked with a very small crew of between 3 to 5 people for like a year or so. The movie looked a really interesting project to work on and a film that I should see.
2pm - Pirates of the Caribbean
For this presentation, I waited a very long time. Hal T. Hickel is a really nice and smooth guy. He's very funny as well. He brought his wife and his little son with him. He struggled a little with the presentation software and felt very embarrassed about it. When everything was set right he started his presentation.
He told that when he first heard about a POTC movie he thought that making a movie based on an attraction theme park was a crazy idea and wouldn't turn out good. But just because it was a pirate movie, ILM waned to work on the film. So not much had to be discussed to make an agreement, it was just like: "a pirate movie, sure!". First there were no skeletons planed in the movie and ILM would just do the miniature ships. But Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio really waned to have skeletons in the movie so they had written that in the script. So finally ILM had to do the CG skeletons.
Hal Hickel showed some pictures of model makers building the miniature ships. Then he showed some nice and funny clips of the miniature shoot. It looked really cool and traditional. The miniature ship exploding which had some funny footage in it. Next, Hal Hickel showed some very tricky and nice compositing work for the environment work they did. Adding CG pieces to the deck or painting crew members out and little stuff like that.
The next subject was the skeletons. He showed us some nice skeleton work. First he showed us the art work some which was on the internet. Then he started talking about the animation process. He showed some of the CG monkey shots, the different steps and takes. And the motion capture shots which were really hilarious performed by the mocap guys at ILM. Finally he showed some rotoscope work of the shots of the pirates getting in and out the moonlight and transforming. Also a little of the cloth simulation but he couldn't finish that because of technical problems and his time was up. But his presentations was really great, much fun and very smooth. And Hal Hickel seems an easy guy to talk to.
4pm - Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle Of Life
Ben Shepherd from MPC was the presenter for this project. First he showed a reel from the movie which looked great. But when I saw the clip I was happy I didn't see the movie and just the presentation because the FX were all that mattered in this movie. He showed some nice matte paintings, digital and practical FX and some CG animation. Yes, MPC did some nice CG animation at the end of the movie. Ben was a really fun and happy looking guy. He was always going like: "wow! isn't it great, *sniff* really wicked". And he constantly made some jokes about the movie and production. He was a very smooth and funny guy.
6pm - eDIT: Salon - Peter Greenaway
This was the last probably the most boring presentation of the whole eDIT/VES event. Excuse me, why? Well, I simply didn't understand much of what he said. The man calls himself intelligent, self secure but is just arrogant. First I wanted to have a picture with him but in the first five minutes I knew that was the last thing that was still on my mind. I was scared he would be irritated. He just comes on stage and treats his audience as fools. He think he knows how films should be made. He just explained his whole theory about how films should look: "film repeats itself", "cinema died in 1993 when the remote control was presented to the world". Then he said that films should have more screens in one frame. Kinda like you see in HULK. After a while, even Tom Atkin seemed irritated by him. But I have to say that I like his bizarre way of art, I always liked that way. Sometimes it went a little too far for me but I still respected what he said, in a way. I was thinking why. Maybe just because he came over so self secure. I liked many clips of what he showed. But I never did understand his movies or why he made them. And I agreed with Atkin that he tried to be the head of human intelligence. So I would respect his art and ideas more if he would be more respectful to his audience.
And of course there was Masterius, with whom I had a very good time. Last year we didn't had any contact but this year I went to meet him right after the T3 event. We talked a little about the event and of course about VFX. We really clicked right away between us. I felt he also was very amazed to see Muren and I was happy I could share that with him. It was a very big moment for both of us. I thought it was kinda sad that he could be there only on Sunday because there were some great presentations on Monday and Tuesday. Not to forget the great event of Gala on Sunday. Masterius asked me if I could have some pictures from POTC of him signed by Hal Hickel. And that's what I did and I sent them to him. I wish he lived a little closer to me. So we could talk more. Who knows, maybe we'll see each other some other time. But that will not be easy cause Masterius is about to go to a VFX university in London.
So that was the event. The next last milestone in my life. I met Muren, one of my few top idols. I don't have many idols. Maybe Spielberg and John Williams and maybe just a few others. I just can't believe it. Who knows which milestone is next. But I had one of the best times of my life. I Can't thank enough people that made this possible for me. Especially my father who was good enough to pay all this and to let me stay away from school for 2 days. It's like on a normal day you going to school but just when you step out of your home to go to school a funny looking bus stops by your house and takes you to a fairytale land where dreams come true. That's how it felt. This whole event was clearly much more entertaining and interesting than last year. Still, I miss John Berton. And all who think that ILM is short for Industrial Light and Magic can put their hands down. Cause ILM is from now of on: I Love Muren!!!! Very happy.
At the end I thanked Tom for the whole great event.
