Cade-Mason
- Jan 16, 2021
- 12 min read

There are other words than these essay

Updated: Feb 11, 2021

The VFX industry and technology is always evolving, rising, and reaching new horizons for visual and special effects. As the industry explores new ways to create sparking, empowering or aesthetically pleasing visual effects to entertain the average film watcher, movie buffs. The end goal to create VFX is to be as eye candy, realistically and visually pleasing presenting your project to the audience itself. What should the audience see? What does the audience desire and want to see? What should the audience feel? What does a VFX artist or director envision into the audience’s eyes?

Before the era of modern VFX methods, where we have the advanced technologies we see today, the use of digital techniques and tools. VFX industries, artists, and small studios during the 30s-late 80s used traditional techniques. They did not have the green screens, editing software like we have today. The way VFX was used during those times were resorting to using techniques such as green screens were front screen projections. Traditionally based techniques involved using animatronics, vehicle/ship models, stop motion animations, matte paintings, prop on scene materials (wood). We still use traditional techniques (matte paintings) to this day although, digital methods have become much more relevant, reliable, and convenient.

Why have digital methods become much more relevant and utilised compared to traditional based VFX techniques in this modern-day? Digital is more efficient (in terms of time) and you can go back and change out the mistakes on computers. On the other hand, for traditional methods, if there are any mistakes or it does not fit in with the overall composition of the movie. It will get scrapped 99% of the time, therefore not only is time wasted but the materials are wasted.

Part 1 - Historical developments in VFX and traditional to digital.

So before digital-based methods what were the go-to method - what methods, skills or tricks would be used for traditional based techniques?

Traditional methods:

- Stop-frame/motion animation

- Matte paintings (on glass)

- Full-sized on-stage sets

Stop-frame/motion animation

What is a stop-frame/motion animation? To summarise stop frame/motion animations you take photos (one picture = one frame) of a model/figure and is "changed in a very small way and then taking another picture and change it" (Stop Motion, 2014) by using hand 'manipulation' of minuscule and "constant adjustments" (Shaun the Sheep, 2017) to adapt the poses or action for figures or models (these can range from plastic to clays). Which raises the question, how many frames per second is used in stop motion videos? 24 Frames per second is the ideal number of frames to use for stop motion/frame-based videos. Movies or TV series such as the original King Kong, Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep (though the last two series are done in Claymation and produced by an animation company, Aardman Animations.) So, is stop-frame/motion animation still used to this day? Yes, it is still used although its main purpose is for animation. I cannot see stop motion animations being used in live shots for VFX as there are "smoother", consistent, budget-friendly and computer-generated methods for animations.

Matte paintings

Matte paintings are a traditional technique/method that is still heavily used to this day and this technique has evolved into both a traditional and digital-based technique/method. In the early days of matte paintings, professional matte painter, Peter Ellenshaw, his famous works are Mary Poppins, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Peter produced his matte paintings on glass. When Peter Ellenshaw was working on the film, Mary Poppins he produced "hundreds of drawings and sketches" (Peter Ellenshaw - Under Glass (best quality), 2020) before shooting the film. Furthermore, creating drawings and sketches for a scene "helps envision what a matte painter and the director desires." Presenting sketches is a great way of communicating the ideas across. Are sketches and drawings still used to this day? Yes, I would say they are. Sketches of matte paintings help boast the ideas you are trying to envision. Often a traditional technique, they can also be done digitally by using software such as Photoshop to create your matte painting composition(s). Sketches can be done digitally or traditionally and the reason why there are two choices in the matter is that we have evolved from traditional to digital. When and where did the traditional methods evolve into digital? We all know that technology moves at a fast pace, technology itself evolves every day.

Peter Ellenshaw Painting the Concept Map of Disney World

There are new or efficient methods as to how to deal with a problem. The starting point of the evolution was around the 80s when a CGI element was implemented into a movie. The first computer-generated image (aka 3D computer Graphics) was implemented in the live-action movie, Young Sherlock Holmes. The CGI was produced by ILM (Industrial Light and Magic). In the 90s was the start for the digital age. We would see digital techniques such as digital face and body replacements, CGI de-ageing, volume techniques shot in VFX studios. These are advance techniques that are exclusive to digital.

The volume method is the most recent technique in VFX industries. To explain the volume method, it is a real-time rendering method that is used to create VFX shots on the monitors. The volume method requires certain equipment for it to operate. As of 2020, it is very expensive (in terms of resources) and a digital-only method to set up. The requirements needed to operate the volume method is that you will need plenty of monitors, a tablet to operate the lighting, colour, contrast and composition, high-end PCs that use real-time rendering software (I.e., Unreal Engine) and any of the rendering editors (i.e., Multiuser and LiveLink.)

To summarise, Peter Ellenshaw is the matte painter who revolutionised the matte painting technique. As this technique went onto evolving and become a digital-based technique. Matte painting is a great way of creating an illusion of the reality we live in. Essentially matte painting is faking it and creating illusions.

Posters

Regarding posters; how are they made, what compositions go into posters, how can a poster attract the viewers’ attention and pique their interest, what style or presentation does an artist go for?

Posters are an industry technique to advertise a movie, TV show or video game. Posters are seen around cinemas, buses and train stations, billboards etc. They branch out their posters anywhere possible to advertise. This way, they can try to grab a person's attention and pique their interest. It also comes to the use of composition and how unique that poster is. Poster sizes are important for the composition and commercial business the standard list of poster sizes consist of:

- A4 Paper (8.5” x 11”) (21 x 29.7cm)

- Small (11” x 17”) (28 x 43cm)

- Medium (18” x 24”) (46 x 61cm)

- Large (24” x 36”) (61 x 91cm)

We will be looking over at Drew Struzan’s artwork for movie posters.

Blade Runner the Original (1982) poster by Drew Struzan

Star Wars Episodes 1-6 Movie Posters by Drew Struzan

Drew Struzan is an industry professional and has created multiple posters for films over the years. Blade Runner, Star Wars, Back to the Future and Indiana Jones are his most famous works. How does Drew attract the audience's attention with his composition techniques? Drew uses bright light colours with multiple glow effects, this is an effective method that can attract the audience’s attention. Furthermore, the characters in their perspective movies are often at the centre of the poster being the main attention. Drew uses size to create emphasis on the character itself, this can be how big their role is of a character. Although in some case, the characters could be the same size as other characters on the poster.

Posters are still very relevant to this day these posters are also branched out on the internet and can be promoted onto social media sites. Posters are perfect material for promoting a working title.

The creation behind the famous works of art

From Peter Ellenshaws matte paintings to Drew Struzans posters and the virtual production stage set technique used in Mandalorian, I will be identifying the best, most utilised and crafted practices in the VFX industry. How does a VFX professional create an industry-standard level type of VFX work? How do they present themselves and their works? What techniques, dedication, passion go into that work?

Part 2 - Industry professionalism, inspirations and skills.

Billing block

Let's talk about billing block on posters. A poster is required to have a billing block when distributing the posters out to cinemas. You might be questioning yourself: "What is a billing block?" To define a billing block, it's a different form of credentials in the form of a movie poster. The billing block mentions the big or important roles on a movie poster that consists of:

- Director

- Screenplay

- Cast

- The company that produced the film/movie

- Executive producer

- Cinematographers

- Other producers

Including the following roles into the billing, the block shows who has worked on what and what company had produced that film in the first place.

In my case, I would write my billing block:

"Paramount Pictures presents An Industrial Light and Magic production: The Tower That Never Was. Keanu Reeves, Josh Brolin, Directed by Jon Favreau and Cade Mason, Visual Effects Supervisor: Tim Webber, Music by John Williams, Modeller and Props: Cade Mason Written by Stephen King

The billing block itself is essential to the movie poster when advertising them on billboards, cinemas etc. It’s knowing who has done what and what key role they participated in to create the film/movie.

This image represents what a billing block looks like for a movie poster:

there are different variations of a billing block song look like this:

And others look like this:

Regarding the last billing block, however, that is represented on a piece of film or media. The billing block is not exclusively to just movie posters, it can also be represented on any kind of promotional material that promotes from a film to a TV show.

Now let’s talk about one of the industry professionals: Tim Webber. From the second image on the billing block, Tim Webber.

Tim Webber is a Welsh visual effects supervisor who has worked with frame store. His first work was the TV movie, smashie and nicey, the end of an era in 1994.

Tim's most famous works (as a visual effects supervisor) consist of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), the Dark Knight (2008), James Cameron, Avatar (2009) and Gravity (2013).

What sort of assets or techniques was used in the films he partakes in his VFX career?

In the film the Dark Knight, the Batmobile is a 3D asset that was used in the 'Batmobile' chase scene generated as CGI in the live-action scene as part of a VFX sequence.

Avatar used CG characters for the Avatars themselves using motion capture. According to James Cameron, The Avatar is ‘animated’. The Avatar used motion capture to use real actors as the avatars themselves.

The creation of the Razor Crest ship from Mandalorian

the Razor Crest ship comes from the Star Wars spin-off series, the Mandalorian. The ship itself is a miniature-based model and was used for motion tracking with a custom-designed and machined motion control camera system.

Essentially, the Razor Crest is like a 3D asset that can be used in a TV program or a movie. The Razor Crest was used for the Mandalorian TV series.

Who made the Razor Crest ship? The people who created the ship are:

Doug Chiang (Design Supervisor), Ryan Church (Concept Design Supervisor), Rene Garcia (Concept Modelling Supervisor).

The inspirations that came to mind when creating this ship was something along the lines of World War 2, a surplus, 8-10 Warthog (Ryan Church's favourite ship), military-style aircraft. They wanted the aircraft to be intimidating and strong quoted by Ryan Church.

Mockups were made on 3D printers to get to know the process and how the Razor Crest miniature model would be made. This model needed to work with the show itself. Support structures were also added to attach to the ship itself. They put the parts together by using traditional arts and craft methods. Back in the old ILM days, they were constructing ships even to this day.

In the late 70s when Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope was in production. According to Lorne Peterson (ILM Model Shop Supervisor), George didn't want anything 'too slick or rail painted' it needed to be 'aged'. Computer methods didn't exist therefore they used 'camera tricks' and miniature models to shoot the film. Having said there are limitations when using traditional based methods.

They used the miniature model and motion devices to have the razor crest flying. The film set was up and running.

To summarise, 3D assets such as the Razor Crest have the utilisation VFX workers can use for their respective working projects. Going from the traditional to digital technique.

CG characters and motion capture acted by real-life actors

CG characters and motion capture are techniques used for real-life actors when they act as the CG character. A prime example of this is the character Thanos from the hit movie series based on comic books, Marvel Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. Thanos is acted by Josh Brolin. The CG character acting is done all in motion capping. Motion capping is acting as an unrealistic character whilst the real actor is put into play. Motion capping relies on synchronisation and consistency throughout the entire scene.

Motion capping was done on Keanu Reeves for when he acted as a character called Johnny Silverhand for the game, Cyberpunk 2077. Cyberpunk's acting was done in good synchronisation (with all of the game-breaking glitches such as game physics aside of course though CD project is making sure Cyberpunk gets plenty of updates and patches) The motion capping helps synchronises the movement of the real actor in real-time and this is done on computer-generated imagery.

Motion capture has been a useful method to synchronise impossible or out of this world characters to act in either live-action or video games.

Jon Favreau

Jon Favreau is a well-known producer in the film and VFX industry. The first film he contributed to was Swingers (1996) and he was the co-producer. Since then, he has worked from the ground up to get to where he is today. Jon Favreau's famous works as an executive producer are The Mandalorian (2019), Avengers franchise (2012-2019), Jungle Book – live-action (2016) and the Iron Man trilogy (2008-2013).

Jon Favreau has worked with Disney on the live-action side of productions. We know Disney has the visual effects, films and animation departments and Jon also worked with Industrial Light Magic when creating The Mandalorian.

Creating the poster and assets for the tower that never was

For unit 3, the minimum viable product to pass the professional practise unit is:

1. A movie poster

With one of the standard sized movie posters (I went with the large poster sitting at 24' x 36) Ideally, I used my images for the composition.

The revolver and door asset (Mostly for unit 20 - modelling)

(Ideally, UV)

Other assets that weren’t minimum viable products that I worked on:

The tower

This is not a minimum viable product however, I wanted to create my tower in the process in Maya. The reason why I made this tower so that I could implement my design of the tower into the poster composition.

Inspirations and influences

To create a strong poster one of the essential techniques that are used to creating a piece of composition on a canvas (or in this case a movie poster) is to have inspirations and influences based on the composition you are making.

Regarding my movie poster, I have my influences on the poster based on the way I once to produce this poster.

One of the references I am taking inspiration from is this image:

the image itself belongs to the Dark Tower comic book series adapted by Marvel.

This image shows the main protagonist, Roland on the wastelands and in front of him is a silhouette of the dark tower.

The colour used for the skies and clouds for the image here will be used as a gradient in my composition. I will work on the lighting direction and shadows.

As for the tower, however, I have produced a 3D model of a tower to implement into the composition. How will I go about implementing the tower into the composition? Well, I plan on exporting the tower onto a unity engine or unreal engine software. From there get a nice screenshot of the tower with some hills in the composition by itself.

If not, I will implement a rendered shot of the tower from Maya then bring it into Adobe Photoshop.

As for other inspirations, in the composition of my poster I've decided that the main antagonist and the protagonist will have a face-off on the hills of the Tower That Never Was on the foreground. Where this inspiration draws from is the cowboy duels.

Here is the image of reference from the cowboy duel. I will draw some of its inspiration from this image:

It’s a simple stock image but it gets the idea across. Characters are duelling near the hills. In my case, the characters in my composition will duel on the hills, which overlooks the fields and tower itself. The cowboy duels take inspiration from the likes of Red Dead Redemption and the Clint Eastwood cowboy movies There will be an ally on the protagonist’s side. As for the figures and postures of our characters, I will make my antagonist look strong, broader and intimidating in comparison to that of the protagonist. I hadn’t made any official character designs. Though in the future, I should ideally create something like this again but with character concepts before creating a poster.

In terms of style and representation of the character designs I produced, the end product for the poster has a video game style to them. I also made a wolf which is the ally to the protagonist. This due to the antagonist's intimidation towards the protagonist. The protagonist needed someone with him to be on his side to fight off the antagonist.

My poster