Year: 2018

  • Making memories with BUF

    When Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 came out, I remember thinking one of the coolest scenes was Dr. Ana Stelline (Carla Juri) designing replicant memories – you see her scrubbing through moments and making slight tweaks and adjustments. One part of that scene features a children’s birthday, which was achieved by shooting real kids on…

  • Woh, a VFX event on Last Jedi, Apes, Blade Runner, Paddington 2, Star Trek and Neill Blomkamp shorts

    Check out that list again in the heading – those are some of the biggest visual effects  projects around, and they’re all going to be discussed by the studios behind the work at the upcoming SPARK FX 2018 in Vancouver. It’s on Saturday 10th February at the VIFF Vancity Theatre, a neat cinema venue which will…

  • Character and performance in Paddington 2

    In this new article for Cartoon Brew, I go through with Framestore animation supervisor Pablo Grillo how the studio crafted Paddington.

  • Old-school Star Wars and the path of innovation

    For VFX Voice magazine, I looked back at some of the big ticket innovations ILM introduced with each Star Wars film. Loved the history here.

  • VFX Voice on The Last Jedi

    What a thrill to chat to ILM vfx supe Ben Morris about The Last Jedi (we did this a few months before the film was out – it was tough!). VFX Voice magazine has the story.

  • Re-visiting Jumanji

    Anyone who saw Jumanji in the 90s knew that CG and VFX was already changing films forever. I got to chat to former ILM animation supervisor and now director Kyle Balda about his work on it, for VFX Voice magazine.

  • The VFX magic of ‘The Shape of Water’

    Recently, I was able to interview several of the effects filmmakers behind Guillermo del Toro’s amazing The Shape of Water. You can check those pieces out at VFX Voice and Cartoon Brew. The film has also been shortlisted in the final 10 movies for consideration for the visual effects Oscar, and will be at the VFX…

  • Ten things I learned from ILM about ‘The Last Jedi’s’ space battles

    Space battles are synonymous with Star Wars films. The original trilogy is fondly remembered for ILM’s use of motion control and miniatures. These days, like on The Last Jedi, digital ship models, photorealistic rendering and simulated crashes and explosions are of course the norm. But to ensure the space battles in this latest Star Wars adventure…

  • The Shape of Water, amazing

    One of my favourite articles to write this year: a look at The Shape of Water effects with Legacy and Mr. X, for VFX Voice magazine.

  • Blade Runner 2049: going deep with DNEG

    Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 is one of the 10 films short-listed for the VFX Oscar. I’ve covered several aspects of the film so far including with overall visual effects supervisor John Nelson, but here is a brand new interview with Double Negative visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert. DNEG was responsible for views of future…