• New Lyft animated short comes from great artists

    It’s pretty cool when great animators and artists combine their talents – that’s what Paperman director John Kahrs and Chromosphere’s Kevin Dart have done for this Lyft animated short, which I talked to them about for Cartoon Brew.

  • Miniatures to CG – how Rogue One kept a familiar look

    Inverse asked me to check out the transition from miniatures to digital in Rogue One and ILM’s John Knoll had made some awesome comments about what they were doing with the Death Star and spaceships. Check it out here.

  • Behind the ILM Mars Attacks! tests that convinced Tim Burton to go CG

    1996 was a break-out year for digital visual effects, with advancements in front and centre CG characters (Dragonheart), heavy environments and digital compositing (Independence Day), and photoreal CG simulations (Twister). Another film that took advantage of the the state of VFX was Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!, a quirky off-shoot of the 1960s Topps trading cards.…

  • Battle of the Bastards, and digital crowds

    The Battle of the Bastards episode of Game of Thrones had some incredible fighting action, much of it orchestrated by Iloura. They used Massive for some of the CG army and horses work too, and I wrote this project profile about the work.

  • When morphing was cool

    I still think it’s pretty cool, but perhaps an abundance of bad morphs ruined the appeal of the effect in the late 90s. I revisited some of the best morphs in this top 10 list for Cartoon Brew, as a follow-up to the Michael Jackson Black or White oral history.

  • Rob Sitch and Working Dog’s Pacific Heat

    In Australia I’ve grown up with productions from Working Dog – they’re behind The Castle, Frontline, Utopia, and the members were part of the D-Generation and The Late Show. Now they’ve just done an animated series called Pacific Heat for Foxtel and Netflix. So I have to say it was a bit of dream talking…

  • The story behind Hook’s innovative projected matte painting – 25 years ago

    Steven Spielberg’s Hook was released 25 years ago this week (it opened on December 11th, 1991) and at the time was one of ILM’s most intensive visual effects projects. VFX supe Eric Brevig oversaw a raft of flying scenes, matte paintings, models and even Go-Motion animation for Tinkerbell’s wings. A major innovation on the show…

  • Checking in on virtual filmmaking with Dreamspace

    While attending FMX in the past few years, I’ve been checking in on the Dreamspace project. It was an European Commission project that brought together several entities in computer graphics, VFX and filmmaking to look at virtual production techniques. These entities included The Foundry, ncam, Stargate Studios, CreW, Saarland University, iMinds and Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg –…

  • The struggles – and successes – of Spawn

    After pioneering the development of CG characters at ILM on The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park, Mark Dippé took on the directing duties for Spawn, based on the comic by Todd McFarlane. He was joined on the production by vfx supervisor and ILM ‘partner-in-crime’ Steve ‘Spaz’ Williams. The New Line film was…

  • Fantastic Beasts found: on Cartoon Brew

    I had a chance to chat to the vfx supes, animation supervisor and other vfx artists on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Here’s my breakdown for Cartoon Brew. Sorry but I just love the Niffler so much.