Category: vfxblog

  • Interested in supporting vfxblog?

    Get in touch with Ian Failes at beforesandafters@gmail.com.

  • The week that was at FMX 2018

    I’m now back in Sydney but last week I had an extraordinary time at FMX in Stuttgart. There I was lucky enough to introduce several killer VFX and animation presentations, and host my own track – ‘Then & Now’ – with Chris Wedge from Blue Sky Studios and Phil Tippett. Another highlight was moderating an…

  • Heads up: the oral history of Iron Man’s original HUD

    Several members of the original Iron Man HUD team – John Nelson, Wesley Sewell, Jonathan Rothbart, Kent Seki, Dav Rauch and Kyle McCulloch – weigh in on how the HUD was imagined, in this oral history at vfxblog. Read it at www.vfxblog.com/ironman.

  • Rampage: vfxblog’s long read

    I recently got the chance to visit Weta Digital and sit down with some of the team on Rampage. Here’s vfxblog’s special coverage of the film at vfxblog.com/rampage, looking at Weta Digital’s creature work and destruction sims.

  • What retro stories are you interested in seeing on vfxblog?

    There’s a whole bunch of retro stories coming soon to vfxblog. You can read past ones here, but I’d also love to know if vfxblog readers have any ideas for fun vfx retrospectives. Drop me a line at beforesandafters@gmail.com.

  • Insta-ventures

    Did you know I’m also on Instagram? Check out @vfxblog for pics and postings from my travels, some vfx-related, others not.

  • Inside the mind of Pacific Rim: Uprising’s animation director

    Pacific Rim: Uprising might just be an animator’s dream project; giant Jaeger robots fighting giant alien Kaiju. Whenever I watch a film like that, I always wonder, where do the animators start? Notwithstanding the fact that there’s already a Pacific Rim film out there, and perhaps plenty of other giant fighting robot films, something about…

  • Phil Tippett is speaking at FMX: a look back at his visual effects highlights

    Star Wars, RoboCop, Jurassic Park and Starship Troopers are just some of the projects Phil Tippett has left his indelible mark on. The visual effects supervisor famously navigated a major transition in the visual effects industry from practical effects – in which he had specialised in stop-motion animation – to the digital world we are…

  • 2001: a 50 year space odyssey

    When I wrote Masters of FX, one of the many highlights was speaking to visual effects supervisor Doug Trumbull. He, of course, was the pioneer behind several of the effects sequences in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which celebrates its 50th anniversary today. 2001 is still one of those films effects practitioners refer to…

  • From live-action to final shots: a Weta Digital case study on Maze Runner: The Death Cure

    “We have a tonne of data, we actually went a bit nuts on the film and we just over-covered.” – Chris White, Weta Digital visual effects supervisor When I watched some of the b-roll footage for Wes Ball’s latest Maze Runner film, The Death Cure – releasing soon on home entertainment – I was really struck…