Category: retro

  • ‘The Prince of Egypt’: Henry LaBounta reflects on parting the Red Sea

    These days, Henry LaBounta is Studio Art Director at EA Ghost Games. But before his career in games, LaBounta was at the forefront of effects simulation at Industrial Light & Magic, where he helped generate the tornadoes in Twister. Later he worked on The Prince of Egypt at DreamWorks Animation, in particular, on the parting…

  • Going back to ‘Pleasantville’: when doing a DI wasn’t so easy

    In 1998, Gary Ross’ Pleasantville became the first major Hollywood feature to go through what’s now known as the digital intermediate, or DI, process. The film needed that process because its characters, stuck in a 1950s black and white existence, would slowly start to escape their repressive world as they begin experiencing colour. Getting there…

  • The CGI tidal wave in Snake Eyes that no one got to see

    The CGI tidal wave in Snake Eyes that no one got to see

    This week is the 20th anniversary of Brian De Palma’s Snake Eyes, a film perhaps not thought of for any major VFX moments. But, in fact, the movie nearly did feature a key CG water sequence in what was still the early days of fluid sims. This was for the original ending, which involved a…

  • The made-in-Maya short that’s now more than 20 years old

    Do you remember Mel the cowboy? Then you’ll hopefully remember Ruby’s Saloon, a fun Alias|Wavefront demo short produced around the time that Maya was being made and released. I tracked down some of the ‘product specialists’ behind the film for this new oral history. (And if you also remember Chris Landreth’s Bingo, stay tuned for…

  • Super Mario Bros.: the other huge VFX film from 1993

    Three members of the VFX team behind 1993’s Super Mario Bros. tell vfxblog about the more-than-slightly chaotic production and shoot, the advent of Flame for VFX production, getting their heads around scanning film, and that time they weren’t meant to see some Jurassic Park VFX dailies. www.vfxblog.com/supermariobros

  • On the 20th anniversary of The X-Files Movie: ‘splosions!

    In my book, Masters of FX, I profiled 16 visual and special effects supervisors about their bodies of work. One of those was Ian Hunter, who, through Hunter/Gratzner Industries and New Deal Studios, has contributed a wealth of practical, miniature, and other effects work for large scale films and other projects. Hunter supervised the miniature…

  • Jurassic Week: mocap’ing dinos

    vfxblog’s Jurassic Week coverage continues with this look at a few innovations introduced by ILM in Jurassic World; an iPad app for visualising the dinos during on-set photography, and a workflow for motion capturing raptors and the scariest dinosaur so far. Check it out below. https://atomic-temporary-105830471.wpcomstaging.com/jurassicmocap/

  • Jurassic Week: JP3 shines

    Jurassic Week continues with this in-depth look at the several tech breakthroughs made by ILM in Jurassic Park III, including with ambient occlusion, virtual sets, flesh sims and simulated plants. Read the dedicated page, below. https://atomic-temporary-105830471.wpcomstaging.com/jurassicpark3/

  • Jurassic Week: the Dinosaur Input Device

    Next up in vfxblog’s Jurassic Week is a brand new oral history on the making of the Dinosaur Input Device. It was this dinosaur-shaped stop-motion armature fitted with special encoders that kept Tippett Studio in the game during the making of Jurassic Park, after its original stop-motion dinos were scrapped in favour of ILM’s CG.…

  • Jurassic Week: the history of Viewpaint

    This week vfxblog is celebrating Jurassic Week, a whole week of Jurassic Park-inspired articles to celebrate the imminent 25th anniversary of Jurassic Park and the upcoming release of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. First up, a look at ILM’s secret weapon in bringing its photoreal dinosaurs to life: Viewpaint, a 3D texturing tool that let artists…