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Q: What was your role on the project? How many artists/studios worked on the project?
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I was the
film's overall visual effects designer and supervisor. We had
eight vendors:
Digital Domain
MPC
London
Framestore
CIS
Frantic Films/Prime
Focus
Pixel Playground
V-Dome (in-house
group)
Pacific Title
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| Q: Could you supply a bit of
background on how and when the project was started? |
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The picture has been in development
for over five years. I got started in September of 2007. From
what I'm told, it was originally supposed to be made before
the first Transformers movie but it didn't happen that early.
We were rushed into production just ahead of the writer's
strike without a completed script.
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| Q. Can you approximate the amount of shots that you completed for the project? Why
did you choose Fusion to accomplish the shots? |
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We completed over 1650 shots for the film. Actually more but the edit changed and a few
hundred hit the cutting room floor...
I don't personally get to choose Fusion for a given project. However, I do choose
to work with facilities which use Fusion. I do so because I have confidence that
these facilities, using Fusion, are knowledgeable and capable of making good decisions about the
work we're doing.
I personally choose to use Fusion in my toolset because it's fast, intuitive, and let's me
get to where I need to go quickly and without complication.
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| Q: What were some of the biggest challenges you faced on this project?
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There were so many challenges on G.I. Joe, it would honestly be hard to list
them here. Amongst those which gave us pause, creating virtual environments from scratch
was probably the hardest things we had to do. Prime Focus (formerly Frantic Films),
for example, was charged with creating an aerial chase running at Mach 5 (in theory).
We couldn't shoot background plates at those speeds or with the kinds of kinetic
flight patterns we had envisioned. It all had to be fabricated in the digital realm; earth,
clouds, sky, jet, missile, exhaust....Washington D.C., etc.
Hundreds of layers of 3D elements combined in Fusion to create the illusion of supersonic
flight.
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| Q: G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra is effects heavy. How does Fusion help you achieve
your deadlines? |
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For me, personally, Fusion is a tool
that I use to evaluate the work of facilities. For example, I
use it to check final renders against raw scans. I use it to
look for grain patterns in final composites. I use Fusion to
create QuickTimes from DPX files with matching color
corrections.
I know that for the facilities with whom I work that use Fusion, they rely
on Fusion's massive toolset, simple workflow, open plug-in architecture, strong render
management tools, and overall stability to get them through difficult post schedules.
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| Q: Was there a particular shot that was more complex than usual or turned out better
than you hoped? |
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There were several shots that were above the norm for complexity. There is the shot of
a battery of missiles being fired at Duke and Ripcord as they chase the bad guy's vehicle. The
camera starts by chasing the forward-moving vehicle, dollying from one side of the car
to the other, as the missiles are deployed. The camera then momentarily pauses in a
closeup as the missiles ignite, at which time the camera then races back toward the Joes
following the missiles at high speed.
And of course there were several shots of the Eiffel Tower falling down, never an easy
thing to accomplish....
Not many shots come out better than I hope, as I usually hope for the best, but Snake
Eyes climbing up over the top of a flying car is one shot I'm very pleased with. Scarlett
traversing the l'Etoile in traffic worked out quite well.
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| Q: What are some of your favourite tools in Fusion? |
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I love the new shader/render tools in
Fusion 6. I think this will revolutionize post production in
that it will cut down on 3D render times and allow 2D artists
to accomplish very complicated rendering techniques in far
less time with far less resources. I love the array of Colour
Correction tools and the power of each to accomplish certain
things. I love the scripting capabilities. And frankly, I love
the support from the company (eyeon) and the community of
users, each of whom can be counted on to help solve a problem
in a pinch.
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| Q: Anything you would like to say to the artists who worked on G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra? |
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It was an amazing assembly of talent;
across several facilities, continents, and cultures. A truly
inspiring effort to complete a massive amount of difficult
work, all in a relatively short period of time.
These artists are my heroes, really. I'd be nothing
without them. So I say a heartfelt “Thank you. You Rock!”
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Boyd Shermis is the owner and
operator of FXTC. He provides services to Direct, Design, and
Supervise all types of Visual Effects for the Motion Picture,
Television, and Advertising industries.
His goal is to provide producers of major
motion pictures and television content with the very best Visual
Effects possible.
Boyd had this to say about the
artists who worked on G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra, "The Visual
Effects challenges in G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra required the very
top levels of skill, talent, artistry, and, of course,
technical ability. Artists of this caliber were able to meet our
challenges head on using eyeon's Fusion compositing software. Whether it
was combining Live Action film footage with multiple layers of
HDRI imagery, tracking and reconstructing backgrounds,
utilizing Fusion's powerful 3D environments, or simply taking advantage of the
vast array of available plug-ins, accomplishing the aforementioned with
Fusion's 64-bit compositing platform was incredibly effective."
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