"Rocketscience Design is situated in the bucolic, leafy suburb
of Mount Eden, only a 5 minute stroll to 27 different
varieties of Chinese food outlets. It was created in 2004,
after cost analysis and some judicious customer research
showed that we would be much happier removing the yoke of
servitude that is the inevitability of salaried employment and
waving goodbye to the daily commute.
The studio is
situated within the palatial grounds of 91 Grange Road and has
most of those necessary things required to make your
tvc/reality show/corporate video look fabulous. We offer a
great service, complete with heated pool*, a well stocked
fridge, comfortable sofa to lay around on while avoiding
returning to the office and a pumping stereo system with music
you may or may not like. Our rates are very competitive. This
is achieved by the owners paying themselves a small monthly
stipend, renting their own premises and income splitting to
stay below the 39% tax bracket - so they can generously pass
on those savings to you.
The serious bit: Equipment.
No, we DON'T have a Flame. I mean, really, what would be the
point? What we do have is some very clever animation software
that will run on most Windows systems. Well, not any old x486.
We run an industry standard HP dual processor workstation,
with an external EonStor 4Tb disc array capable of full HD
uncompressed playback. The studio includes a playback monitor
so you can sit back and relax on the aforementioned comfy
sofa, sipping on your Seabreeze while watching the pretty
pictures unfold. We also have a 2mb broadband connection. Our
compositing software of choice is eyeon Fusion, a
fully-featured, node-based compositing system, including 3d
compositing, 3d particles and a host of funky effects plugins.
Does this sound like your cup of vanilla chai tea?
Well, there's the phone…
*(heated pool may or may not
exist)." ~ Jules Clark
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| Q: Tell me about your
studio and your team.
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Do two people constitute a team? There is myself and
my wife, who does marketing/admin and advises me when she
thinks my work isn't up to scratch - or I've made a spelling
mistake. I set up Rocketscience Design in 2004 while working
for a local post house 4 days a week. I had the only NZ paytv
operator as a substantial client and was working evenings on
their projects. The hours were getting unmanageable and I was
feeling increasingly disillusioned with working 9-5 at the
whim of an employer's needs, so at the end of 2004 we parted
ways and I set up my own studio from home. The decision was
driven by the creed "work to live, not live to work". That and
the Ibis Cycling Advisory "ride more, work less".
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| Q: What artist/event/person
inspires you and your team?
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I don't believe I draw inspiration from any one place,
though I will say MK12 has always left a big impression with
their quirky humour and off the wall motion graphics and I
love the design aesthetics of House Industries. There are so
many varied and fascinating things in the world and I tend to
be a bit of a Magpie (that's a bird) in that I have a very
disparate range of interests I draw inspiration from. I am
inspired by nature and have a very big interest in
environmental issues. Oh, and my wife is great at kicking my
arse when I'm feeling flat. Not quite inspiration, but it gets
results!
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| Q: How long has Fusion been
your software of
choice? | |
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When did Fusion have those funny bronze-coloured joining
pipes in their flows? Back then. Man, it was a bit awful, but
it had the seeds of something great. I got started back in
what now seems like the dark ages of CG. Ampex AVA paint
systems, 80Mb of storage, Quantel Harriet. I don't think
anyone back then could imagine that software like Fusion would
be available off the shelf.
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| Q: What projects
are you working on at present?
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I don't know why exactly, but I seem to be doing a lot
more corporate presentations lately. I'm currently putting
together a mix of footage and animated graphics for a large
health supplements company for an export dvd. After that I
have a motion graphics tvc for a well known juice product
being released in the NZ market, then some work for a
pharmaceutical company in Australia. And after that I'm going
for a bike ride.
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| Q: Can you tell
me your favorite Fusion
tool? | |
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I don't think there are any that I think are the best of
them all. If it was for usage I would have to say the good old
transform tool. Most exciting would have to be the 3D tools.
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| Q: What trends do you see
emerging in visual Effects? How do you see the role of
the VFX artist
changing? | |
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I really have very little idea. It seems that visual
effects is a very generic term for a vast range of disciplines
in use across many areas. The advent of 3DTVs now available on
the consumer market is the most glaringly obvious trend and
it's a matter of time before more clients start demanding it
for tv commercials, which will have a lot of us scrambling to
up skill to meet this challenge. I do wonder how popular it
will become for mainstream television due to the fact that
fooling the human brain into thinking it sees something in 3D
can leave some viewers with sore eyes and headaches.
Personally I think a great story more than surpasses the
thrill of watching 3D. As far as VFX artists' roles, there can
only be more crossover of 3D within the compositing
environment, which is being driven by faster processing
technology. I'm also interested to see how visual effects will
move into the interactive areas of the internet. I spend far
more time now browsing the internet than sitting passively in
front of tv so it is a natural progression.
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| Q: Generally, visual effects
projects are complicated and involved. Tight deadlines
and large shot counts put a lot of pressure on the
artistic team. How does Fusion help you achieve your
deadlines? | |
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I find it's a combination of the software and hardware.
Having a slow machine can make the best software annoying to
use. What I personally find with Fusion is that it is
versatile. It is very fast to knock something together,
especially with motion graphics, yet it is just as adaptable
working with complex visual effects. I've looked at other
animation software and in comparison I find the flow UI of
Fusion very intuitive. 95% of my work is quick turnaround and
I find the Fusion layout definitely helps to keep the workflow
manageable. A lot of it also comes down to planning,
understanding how your client thinks so you can be prepared to
make changes quickly without having to re-invent your
workflow.
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| Q: Do you make use of
Fusion's 3D environment and, if so, how?
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How could you not make use of the 3D environment? I find
myself using it more and more, even when I could probably do
what's required with the transform or dve tool. I feel like I
am barely scratching the surface of what is available. Most of
my use of 3D is with layering 2D graphics and importing the
odd FBX file. Its use is mainly driven by the kind of job I'm
working on.
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| Q: How important is 3D
compositing to how you
work? | |
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The addition of Fusion's 3D environment has been the icing
on the cake with using Fusion. Being able to import a 3D
model, change the lighting, textures, or create particle
effects within a 3D scene is invaluable. I think 3D
compositing can only become more integrated into the general
visual effects workflow.
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| Q: What's coming up next for
your team? | |
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The long-awaited Summer, that's what's coming up next!
Yes, I am being flippant, but I figure you're a long time
dead. My aim is for my worklife to dictate less as to how much
time I spend in front of a computer and I think Fusion somehow
fits into that "ethos" quite nicely. If any of my clients are
reading this, it doesn't mean I don't want to do your work!
I'm particularly interested in applying my animation
skills to environmental causes, so perhaps I may end up doing
volunteer work for Greenpeace or a similar organization? There
seems to be a trend with NGO's putting more viral messages and
videos online because it's a great way to get a story or idea
across, especially with animation. I think people really
respond to it.
Visit the Rocketscience Design
website here.
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