• Space Jam’s tech breakthroughs

    In 1996 it was still REALLY tricky to shoot something against greenscreen, track the footage and track in any virtual sets, let alone add 2D animated characters. But Space Jam pulled it off, thanks to the animation team and the vfx artists at Cinesite. Here’s the 2nd part of the Space Jam oral history at…

  • How’d they do that Hong Kong reverse destruction in Doctor Strange?

    Near the end of Doctor Strange, the characters rush to Hong Kong to save the precious Sanctum there from the Dark Dimension. But the Sanctum is already destroyed. In order to stop the whole world being swallowed up into the Dark Dimension, Strange uses the Eye of Agamotto to reverse time. The entire street that…

  • A visual guide to Doctor Strange’s magical mystery tour

    When Doctor Strange first gets plunged into multiple dimensions by the Ancient One, we see him travel through several psychedelic realms. It was a sequence dubbed the ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ by the filmmakers, and in this vfxblog article we look at how specific pieces of the incredible imagery were produced, thanks to overall vfx supervisor…

  • Jammin’

    It’s 20 years since Space Jam, which captured a lot of people’s attention via its hybrid animation and vfx process thanks to Warner Bros., Cinesite and a lot of external studios and artists. Read part 1 of my oral history at Cartoon Brew.

  • Arrival effects supe on holding back on vfx

    Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival is almost an anti-alien invasion film. It’s subtle and purposeful use of visual effects was orchestrated by vfx supe Louis Morin, who enlisted vendors including Hybride, Oblique FX, Rodeo FX, Framestore, Raynault VFX, Folks FX and Alchemy FX to render everything from odd-shaped spacecraft to even odder-shaped aliens. In this interview with…

  • Why Creating Doctor Strange’s Dark Dimension Was So Damn Hard

    The thrilling climax of Doctor Strange sees the titular character travel into the Dark Dimension to confront the evil Dormammu. Crafting a CG creature and a suitably alien-like dimension was challenging enough for the vfx team, but director Scott Derrickson also wanted the shots to reflect the surrealist and psychedelic blacklight look by famed comic…

  • It’s black, it’s white

    Michael Jackson’s Black or White had a HUGE influence on my interest in visual effects. So it was an absolute blast asking former PDI crew members about working on the morphing sequence, for this article at Cartoon Brew.

  • The language of Arrival

    Arrival is the best movie of 2016. I was lucky enough to speak to production designer Patrice Vermette about how he designed the alien language logograms, which are fantastic. Read the story at Thrillist.

  • SIGGRAPH Asia 2016 preview: facial and speech animation for VR HMDs

    I’ve been to a couple of amazing SIGGRAPH conferences now, and I’m the first to admit that most of the research presented in the Technical Papers is way beyond me. But I always remain fascinated by this part of the proceedings, and every now and then something you see at SIGGRAPH finds it way into…

  • The Trip

    Thrillist asked me to look back at some psychedelic visual effects in movie history, in honour of Doctor Strange’s incredible shots. Here’s my list.