Visual Effects Companies in NY and Elsewhere 123
Meghan Eckman asks: "I am wondering what Visual Effects companies there are which strive to bring filmmaking up to the cutting edge of technology. Particularly, I am interested in the visual effects similar to those used in 'The Matrix' (such as the virtual camera set-up). I am a fourth year University student with Linux, programming, and digital media experience, but with a strong desire to go into the filmmaking industry, particularly in New York. I'd like to combine my technical and media skills to create stunning visual effects for the next generation of filmmaking. Where should I look?"
Pixar... (Score:1)
The word "woman" is no longer politically correct.
Nice (Score:1)
Try video production houses (Score:1)
Not in NY but (Score:1)
... on the elsewhere bit... (Score:2)
Australia's a nice place too - I don't know about NY, never been there.
Wow, Linux, Programming and Digital Media... (Score:1)
-W.W.
try these (Score:1)
Visual-Effects (Score:1)
The Visual Effects companies has had an impact on the video industry for decades. One of the earlier DIGITAL visual-effects was shown to the world, at least in US, when EXXON advertises its gasoline as "Tiger in a car" by MORPHING a speeding car into a leaping tiger.
If I am not mistaken, that ad was run on US teevee back in the 80's.
As for Linux, the movie "Titanic" comes to mind.
Crazy moderation (Score:1)
Re:OFFTOPIC: wait a minute... (Score:1)
Re:Visual-Effects (Score:2)
And it was the oil in the car, which was done in the 90s. But it may have been done in the 80s.
Vfx (Score:2)
Some I know of...
Image G [imageg.com] - They did most of Star Trek.
ILM [ilm.com] - I'll give you 2 guesses as to what they did. And they're pretty big.
Most places like this will be out in california, probably because the movie studios are out there. But don't think just in New York. Or much less just the US. Like a poster above said, the FX for The Matrix were done in
Re:Pixar... (Score:2)
so you want to be in pixels? (Score:3)
Ahhh... I too want to be an effects animator. The primary Special Effects house that was called into service for The Matrix was Manex, formerly MVFX. The special effects team was headed by the mighty master John Gaeta.
In New York, which is where I believe you said you wanted to work you will find Click 3x, among a host of others. They are the fellows who worked on Breakfast of Champions.
The best resource on the internet to find out about Special Effects is www.VFXpro.com
There are job postings, articles on techniques and tools, locations of major houses, and interviews with famous artists.
Good Luck! It's a harsh and challenging world out there!
VisualFX in NY area (Score:2)
Well, probably the 2 most famous are Blue Sky Studios [blueskystudios.com] and R/GA Digital [rga.com]. Blue Sky has worked on "Joe's Apartement", "Alien 4", "Star Trek: Insurrection", "Armageddon", and many others. R/GA mainly does commercials now, but they were responsible for the FX of the Predator movies. Another one on the East coast is Kleiser-Walczak Construction Company [kwcc.com] who worked on things like "Clear and Present Danger", "Stargate", and the Spiderman ride at Universal Studios.
Also check out http://www.ecdc.org/ [ecdc.org] for a list of companies. Other good places are VFXPro [vfxpro.com], Visual FX [visualfx.com], and VFXHQ [vfxhq.com].
Keep in mind that most companies in the US are in California, after all they have to be close where the business is. And if you are thinking about jobs, better start saving and planning for SIGGRAPH 2000 [siggraph.org].
what about ad agencies? (Score:3)
From all I understand, getting into the big time movie houses requires a lot. Joining a smaller group, and doing well with something like tv ads, should allow you to advance into other genres a few years down the road. People watch tv everyday. Imagine walking into an interview and having your future boss say, "you did that? wow."
Maybe ad agency's don't do the work themselves, but sub contract. So find out who they subcontract too, and apply.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Re:Nice (Score:1)
Re:Pixar... (Score:3)
Of course Houdini costs about $17,000. But this does mark the beginning of a graphics industry that's migrating towards a top quality and affordable OS.
There's an article about this in the October issue of Linux Journal.
Re:Crazy moderation (Score:1)
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Re:Visual-Effects (Score:1)
It was mostly Linux on Alpha workstations, which were doing the rendering. But the interactive work was probably allmost all SGI gear. Anyway here is the link to the article referencing their renderfarm setup Titanic and Linux [linuxjournal.com].
Re:Visual-Effects (Score:1)
-Warren
other ways to get information (Score:1)
Better yet, there's the ACM SIGGRAPH organization, with local professional chapters, and annual convention held each August. Check out www.siggraph.org [siggraph.org], and contact someone in the NY chapter for more information about work in the area.
Or come to Los Angeles! Plenty of visual effects companies out here...
Hehe.. (Score:1)
In other news, I'm interested in this myself.. Matrix had some rockin fx in it. Hope more people are too =D
The Man said "Movies" (Score:2)
L.A. is actually where the majority of special-effects producers for the motion picture industry exist. Think about it for a second--where are the studio headquarters located? Where would you expect post-production facilities to be located? Even after location shooting in some cheaper place like Canada or Florida (no slam intende to either place--it's expensive to shoot in LA), the studios like to bring things back to L.A. for post-production. It's a fact of life, however sad that might be for you. There are areas of Culver City, Burbank, and (yes) Hollywood with block after block of such companies, including literally dozens of digital effects houses.
Pixar and ILM are the exceptions (though still on the Left Coast), along with the Video producers in NYC. But if you want to do motion pictures, I'm afraid that L.A. is still the place, much as the above AC may try to deny it.
THRID POST!!!! (Score:1)
Yeah, I misspelled the subject on pirpose. I'm trying to make a point here...
Re:... on the elsewhere bit... (Score:2)
Unfortunately (Score:2)
Cineon was a very cool piece of software.
New York is passe (Score:1)
Can't believe I didn't 'ask /.' re: this sooner... (Score:1)
Anyone putzed around with Radiance or is that 'so last week?'
RSVP.
john k.
Don't limit yourself to film (Score:2)
The company that I work for has a wonderful graphics department full of lots of toys. They've done some stuff with basic animation tools that just blows my mind. Who ever thought animating engineering designs was so sexy.
Using 3D Studio Max, they downloaded a 3D map of an area they want to build a bridge on. Then they imported the bridge design from AutoCAD, slapped some cars on there and flew the camera around the bridge for snicks. They do this stuff all the time to show clients what a finished product will look like.
The beautiful thing for graphic designers, especially the ones with some animation in their background, is that dozens of companies are doing this. I'd suggest trying to find a company that makes 3D anims for business development and soak some experience.
Filmmaking in NY (Score:1)
Re:Don't limit yourself to film (Score:1)
RSVP...
Location of FX firms. (Score:3)
IMHO I think this is because the governments of these smaller coutries are realising how to get ahead in the ever changing world and are promtoing technology and so there are a lot of talented people coming through with new ideas - and these are being noticed by film companies.
Re:Crazy moderation (Score:1)
See VFXPro.com, with job listings & Matrix clips (Score:1)
The questioner would probably like to take a look at those job listings.
As for the rest of you, many would probably be interested in this spotlight on The Matrix [vfxpro.com], as it contains several hi-res quicktime clips of various cool scenes in the movie.
Here are the direct links to those clips, for those of you too lazy to look around:
Neo Dodging Bullets [vfxpro.com]
Agent Dodging Bullets [vfxpro.com]
Helicopter Crash [vfxpro.com]
The Tunnel [vfxpro.com]
The Sentinels [vfxpro.com]
Melting Mirror [vfxpro.com]
Re:Don't limit yourself to film (Score:1)
Canada? Toronto has Alias, Montreal has Softimage (Score:1)
Montreal has Softimage [softimage.com].
Both of these "near" New York...
Re:... on the elsewhere bit... (Score:1)
NY??? Try London (Score:1)
but, i have never heard of any big names from NY doing special effects. maybe i just dont listen hard enough... but most come from London.
cheers
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Cinafex (Score:1)
Re:what about ad agencies? (Score:2)
Disclaimer: I work at an ad agency.
Re:Filmmaking in NY (Score:1)
Re:... on the elsewhere bit... (Score:1)
I'm sure there is a technical name for the above, but I don't know it.
Also there are a lot of FX companies in London, and this is set to grow as the British film industry seems to be making a comeback
Go indie... (Score:1)
I say this not as an expert on the film industry, BTW, but as an accidental expert on publishing, in which talented newbies face a similar set of problems.
Re:Location of FX firms. (Score:1)
Its a tough market (Score:2)
I looked for a long time for an interesting position at companies like that, but in the places you tend to find them (SF, LA, NYC) cost of living is so high, the $25k they're likely to pay won't get you a place to live.
I saw someone else suggest ad agencies, that's a good place to think about, or find smaller unknown companies, you're a lot more likely to make a livable wage.
Not a computer graphics company, but... (Score:1)
Re:Crazy moderation (Score:1)
If the first post merely restated the content of the news item, that would be redundant.
Re:Location of FX firms. (Score:1)
One of the things you might want to do is try to find a relatively new company with good ideas but that haven't had the time to realise all of them. I don't know about NY, but here in Montréal, softimage [softimage.com] (their software did Jurassic Park and Titanic among others). It was founded in 1986 and is now one of the industry leader, but they're still young enough to try new cool stuff, instead of only perfecting the old.
Some advice (Score:1)
Your next step after graduating is to enroll in a two year professional program. That will help you get your portfolio together, and also start to make you realize that you don't know anything yet. Research this well, and put all of your effort into getting into the best program you can find (which again, will be difficult without some kind of portfolio). For example, for computer animation, the best program in the world is Sheradon College in Canada. You graduate from that program with a job wherever you want it.
Once you are in, it's a very lucrative industry, which is why you'll be competing against a million other kids with a similar background. But you have to realize the nature of the business. When I hand out a piece of work, I know it has get turned around in two days, even though it really is about 4 days worth of work, and it needs to be perfect and stunning! There might be my next $200 K project riding on it. So you work with who you know, and long-standing relationships are very common. As for NY or LA, there are a million post houses in either city so take your pick. NY is the media capital of the world, people who don't live here don't comprehend the amount of work that gets done here. On the other hand, if you're really into the idea of film, you'll have to live in LA at some point. Good luck!
Re:Pixar... (Score:1)
negative and incorrect info on the biz... (Score:1)
check-out the pages i have compiled on the subject at:
http://media.berkeley.edu/~mrehrer/vfx/
and a good list of vfx houses andpost houses:
http://media.berkeley.edu/~mrehrer/vfxlinks.html
btw manex still refers to itself as mvfx (manex visual effects) what they formerly were is mass illusions....much more impressive than the matrix was their work on what dreams may come...
matthew
The Matrix special effects are lacking (Score:1)
How could they miss this?
Well, no shit, Sherlock. (Score:2)
-A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Re:... on the elsewhere bit... (Score:1)
Re:Nice (Score:2)
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Job Listing (Score:1)
---
Re:VisualFX in NY area (Score:3)
In the late 70's and through much of the 80's, it was one of the premiere facilities in the world for computer graphics research, development, and production. At one time or another, we had Ed Catmull, Tom Duff, Alvy Ray Smith, (who went to Lucasfilm to found the computer division, and later became Pixar) Pat Hanrahan, Paul Heckbert, and Rebecca Allen (now leading professors) Lance WIlliams, me, and a whole bunch of other people now working in Visual FX, and Jim Clark (who needs no introduction).
We were located in the most serene environment you can imagine, an old mansion on acres of gardens, in the hills of Old Westbury, Long Island. We were all working our hearts out, but having a great time, exploring a field that didn't yet exist.
The Big Project that we had was something called The Works, a story written by Lance Williams. It was to be the first fully CG film. Sadly, while we knew quite a bit of computer graphics theory, we knew very little about the process and structure of moviemaking. When the story of the not-making of the works is written, it will be a tragedy of unrealized hope and expectations.
Anyway, the Lab finally foundered for a number of reasons, but the biggest one is that once the research had proved itself, people left to found companies to actually make money in the field. A former employee went by the facility many years ago; and saw the entire library of 2 inch videotapes we had made in the trash bin...
No help now, but it's interesting to know that NY was once the center of the field.
thad
How to get into post production (Score:2)
Re:VisualFX in NY area (Score:2)
There are a lot of good reasons that visual effects will remain here. The most important one is that the studios are here, and they want to keep control of the post production. We are located in Studio City, a few miles from the studios, and during post (when fx are done) we are always going over to Warner Bros. or Universal or Fox, and showing what we're working on -- or having the director come to our facility to work with us. This kind of one-on-one interaction is hard to acheive remotely.
The most successful company in FX by far, of course, is ILM, and they are located now in Northern California; quite a ways from the studios. They have advantages that most remote facilities will never have, though. Most important, they have such extraordinary artists that the studios are confident to let them work on their own; and trust that the work will be first-rate.
So -- I think that at least for the next five or ten years, California, and more specifically Los Angeles, is the place to be for FX. And hey, it's 75 degrees and sunny here today!
thad
640x480 24fps (Score:2)
Re:Pushing for Linux in visual effects (Score:2)
Fortunately, the new PCs are blisteringly fast, and Linux is a wonderful development environment. My company has a slight advantage, when moving to Linux, in that we write all of our own tools; and it's been quite easy to port them to Linux for the most part. SGI has some wonderful hardware and software integration (particularly for multimedia) that I can't match yet; but I'm sure it's coming. In house tools are a slight advantage because Side Effects is porting Houdini to Linux; and I'm sure that Alias and Softimage will follow soon.
I'm desparately trying to promote the use of Linux in the visual effects community -- to the point of giving away free year-long licenses of our in-house tools to anybody who wants them. So far, though, the penetration of Linux in the FX field is so small that I've had relatively few takers.
The next big thing, of course, is the release of the DRI/XFree86 4.0. This will give us hardware-accelerated OpenGL for everybody; and at that point I expect Linux to take off (or crash and burn with conviction :)) in the FX arena.
thad
NY is one thing, but take Canada in consideration. (Score:1)
Montreal is also a stone's throw from the NY state border so you wouldn't be living far from home. Don't worry, you don't *need* to know French to get by in Montreal... but it's useful.
Of course, if this is *really* what you want to do, you'll probably want to go to California. NYC gets a lot of film work, but most of these companies get the 3D art done in California (since it's next to home) or outside of the US (Canada or Europe... maybe a few other places too) because it's cheaper.
Animal Logic? (Score:1)
ILM and others. (Score:1)
I've found that startups are always a much more fun and dynamic way to work in technology, as well as allowing you to take a big place even if you're young.
Re:... on the elsewhere bit... (Score:1)
Re:so you want to be in pixels? (Score:1)
Re:Unfortunately (Score:1)
Can we convince effects houses to (Score:1)
Comments, suggestions
LetterRip
WETA (Score:1)
For the trilogy, at least, I've read that the special fx are not really Matrixish, but still damn cool. They have a software program called MASSIVE which will be largely responsible for creating and animating in a true-to-life manner armies of 400,000+ orcs in complex battle scenes. WETA is also creating a character for the movie -- Gollum -- and all reports say that Gollum is the most lifelike, unfake pure fx character yet. Furthermore, they're using CGI to shrink the actors playing hobbits to half their normal size or so. Finally, they're altering the filmed landscape in subtle ways to make it more magical.
For more info, see:
Ringbearer.org [fandom.com]
The Official Movie Site with preview stills [lordoftherings.net]
EFX in NYC (Score:1)
Good Luck
VFX Programs (Score:1)
-BF
Re:Cinafex (Score:1)
i think they might have derived it from cinema...
normally i wouldnt pick on a spelling error but when you are citing a source...i mean come on...
matthew [berkeley.edu]
Re:Can't believe I didn't 'ask /.' re: this sooner (Score:1)
you should check out some of the stuff that has been done in my research group...
http://www.CS.Berkeley.EDU/~debevec/ [berkeley.edu]
matthew [berkeley.edu]
Yes, a suggestion. (Score:2)
I would like to see a movie studio dedicated to open content, so people could focus on the stories they are telling. Desktop movie production is coming so soon, and it will be as much a revolution as the cassette multitrack home studio- and there are so many people working on things (such as computer game design and graphic effects) that could easily be applied to home moviemaking. There are GIF animation tools and computer image compositing tools available that do the same thing as the multimillion dollar Disney Multiplane camera used for Disney's greatest animated features.
Rather than going begging to effects houses, why don't we just arrange it so they end up coming to us? If I'm not mistaken, my terrain generation trick is markedly less demanding on CPU than the techniques used, say, for the pod racer scenes in Star Wars TPM. Cutting down modelling and render times is incredibly important in professional work, there's never enough time so it's always a balance being struck between vision and reality. I've GPLed my terrain generator program, meaning that anyone who either uses a Mac, or can port a Python-like syntax to another platform, can use it in movies for nothing. Anyone who really wants that industry's technology to open up would be well advised to do their level best to accomplish _something_ cool, GPL it, and then simply let it be known as such- other stuff that wants to incorporate this can do so by going GPL itself, and we don't need to beg or pressure anybody. Really, IP on these sorts of tools is a bit like IP on brushes or pencils- you don't copyright the brush, you copyright the painting you do with it. The brush is not important compared with what's being done with it...
Re:what about ad agencies? (Score:1)
Re:Nice (Score:1)
matthew [berkeley.edu]
Re:Location of FX firms. (Score:1)
Well, just reading the local (ie New Zealand) Business news there are many complaints how our government isn't helping industry and there is such a massive brain drain.
New Zealand has such a wide variety of scenery - deep fjords, snowy peaks, deserts, scrub, forests, water - that a filmmakers travelling costs will be very low.
The IMDB Locations [imdb.com] can tell you which countries get films done in.
And as an aside, Lord of the Rings is being filmed in NZ, and Xena shops at the same supermarket as me.
Re:hope you have your PhD (Score:1)
The only thing that matters, is what you can do
and what you have done. I have been working
in the CGI and special effects industry for
about 7 years now and I have no college degree,
I'm actually a physics drop out. Most of my friends who are working don't have degrees.
I do know some PhDs who are doing very well in the
industry and I know some people who barely made it through high school doing amazing visuals and programming.
What matters is your demo reel, what you know and
what potential the people looking at your code and your reel think you are capable of. Also helps to know someone who is already working in the industry, but not necessarily. Also not being an arrogant butt-head helps.. though the industry is filled with those guys.
Also some of the best work is not necessarily done by ILM, or the other big boys. Alot of cool development and visuals is done by alot of small companies.
but right now the industry is somewhat slow, and
there are alot of artists, looking for work now. Programmers and system engineers are still in demand though...
artist or programmer? (Score:1)
Re:so you want to be in pixels? (Score:1)
"...Enter the Gaeta Zone..."
I likes how is talked about on the DVD about Bullet time as "being as revolutary as when cameras left cranes and went on steady cams."
Has BT it been used in any other films yet?
I loved video toaster/Lightwave 3d on the Amiga...(Oops, I said the "A" word!)
Re:Animal Logic? (Score:1)
How about the Berkshires? (Score:1)
Kleizer Walczak [kwcc.com] in North Adams, MA, did special effects for "The Rage: Carrie 2" and "Judge Dredd". It's four hours from New York City.
Effects (Score:1)
Re:EFX in NYC (Score:1)
Not cheap. Last year's often is, if you know folks at a place with an old one.
Re:Can't believe I didn't 'ask /.' re: this sooner (Score:1)
What? Check out Blue Sky Studios [blueskystudios.com]. They only use raytracing.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:2)
That means absolutely nothing. Cinesite had Flame and Flint licenses as well. They had licenses for every other major post production and compositing software on the market as well. They were a post production house first, and a Cineon promotion and demonstration house way, way, way second.
All (all?) you need is a demo reel (Score:1)
Fortunately, the equipment necessary to cut CG shots to video is pretty cheap these days, so all you really need to put in is the talent and hard work. (easier said than done, of course)
My advice to you (and this will likely raise howls of protest from many) is to warez (or, if youre extraordinarily rich, buy) whatever package will do the job for you and get as much quality work onto tape as you can. As one poster pointed out previously, its unlikely any individual is going to be able to shell out the $17,000 for a legal seat of Houdini, but one more skilled operator means at least one more sale in the future for Side Effects, those that the software is useless to would never buy it anyway... so i don't see the 'revenue loss' there. Please no flames, i don't want to start any piracy wars.
If youre not already in the industry, its probably harder to put together a lengthy demo tape, since you can't put a 3 minute sequence on there and note that you painted out the wires attached to the actor or whatever.
Still, the idea is to show off your abilities as much as possible, so it might be an idea to put down 'process-related' stuff, i.e. how you worked an idea from concept through to completion. i.e when you do an animation sequence, put your final rendered sequence at the beginning of the tape, then put on your animatics, your concept sketches, your set models etc. This gives a prospective emplyer a better view of not just what you can produce (lets face it, its bloody hard to do film-quality f/x on a desktop PC), but how much work you did to achieve your result, how you solved production problems etc. These things are just as important as your ability to produce a good looking result.
Although, in most large film f/x houses, the workflow is pretty compartmentalised - that is, if you want to do 'everything' - script, model, animate, production, post-production, direction, scoring and anything else you have time for, then you might find life difficult.
That is, in most cases you'll get a job doing one thing, one thing only, and that one thing is what will dominate your life for the duration of production.
The games industry might be more interesting, i know it is for me. Personally, i don't really 'get' movies.. Games are so much more interesting and immersive to me. YMMV.
I do a lot of stuff with Lightwave (www.newtek.com), and a little bit of Hash's Animation Master, which is the one package in the 3D animation arena that is actually affordable (Blender (www.blender.nl) is of course completely free, and deserves special mention). mainly as a hobby but i have been approached by a film f/x house, who said they were impressed but were worried that i might not enjoy doing just one task... (my background spans many areas, from 3D AutoCAD operation, to CGI programming)
i agreed with them, and frankly, my skills aren't quite honed enough for me to command a lead animator's position, or high-level TD, which might afford me the ability to work in a number of areas within the film production pipeline.
So, I just keep plugging away, modelling, animating and rendering stuff, which is a lot of fun. I pay the bills by doing CGI programming, teaching at a design school and working on te production crew for multimedia exhibitions.
I am 100% confident that i will be easily good enough to get a job 'in pixels', or to start my own games/fx company one day, but be aware that the only way to get there is to put in 150% effort, since making quality CG artwork is not as easy as it looks.
my 2c
Re:Unfortunately (Score:1)