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Do you love old school practical visual effects and their artists? Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, Tom Savini…

By on September 17, 2012 in SFX

I was just pondering on how really extraordinary Rob Bottin’s work was in the John Carpenter remake of The Thing when I came across the fantastic one hour documentary… If like me you love visual effects, the practical ones… if you loved those movies, especially from the 70’s and 80’s (The Thing, American Werewolf, Dawn [...]

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Back when visual effects were created by magicians and not programmers…

By on March 5, 2012 in SFX, VFX

Following the tragic news over the weekend, about the passing of Ralph McQuarrie, I thought I would repost this documentary about the genesis of ILM (Horizon – How To Film The Impossible) – I posted this a year or so ago but at the time I didn’t have a YouTube account that could upload clips [...]

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Final DVD – death and resurrection!

Final DVD – death and resurrection!

By on February 20, 2008 in DVD, Rocketboy, SFX

I had just about mastered the final DVD’s for Gone Fishing, in both PAL and NTSC, with both Dolby Digital and DTS sound, with perfect picture (even the NTSC thanks to a great system trascoder called Canopus Procoder 3)… And then I got the dreaded email. We had missed a person off the credits. And [...]

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Grading – The First Day…

Grading – The First Day…

By on December 21, 2007 in Grading, Post Production, SFX

I spent today at Midnight Transfer, with senior colourist John Claude, and ‘Gone Fishing’ DP, Vernon Layton, conforming the movie and colour grading it. During the day we had a few visitors, other director and producer friends of mine, and some of the GF contributors – and everyone commented ‘Wow! It looks amazing!’ The first [...]

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Bringing it all together…

Bringing it all together…

By on December 20, 2007 in HD in post, Post Production, SFX

I have been frantically dashing around, making sure everything is ready for the final picture conform / picture grade tomorrow at Midnight Transfer. Thankfully I have been pretty organised through the whole process, so while it’s a long haul, so far there have been very few unforeseen hitches. Let’s hope it stays that way. (pictured [...]

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Matte Painting Complete!

Matte Painting Complete!

By on December 19, 2007 in Post Production, SFX

Blimey! I really mean it. Blimey! How amazing is that!? Top right is the original image, shot by second unit director Simon Cox, and the image below is the final matte painting, Audrius Urbonavicius did for us, and comped into place. Above the new mountains are some whispy clouds which will be animated to enhance [...]

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Worm Shot Completed by Russ Wharton

Worm Shot Completed by Russ Wharton

By on November 23, 2007 in Post Production, SFX, Software

Russ Wharton, VFX whizz in Wales, has just completed three shots for Gone Fishing. Two were kind of image fixes, removing small cosmetic problems from the shot, but the third was a full blow VFX shot with a worm enlargement. In the story, Old Bill recounts the tale of how he needed the biggest worms [...]

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Making A Bigger Worm…

Making A Bigger Worm…

By on November 12, 2007 in Post Production, SFX, Software

I asked Russ Wharton to detail exactly how he has gone about increasing the size of the worm in one shot from Gone Fishing. Here’s what he has said… Interesting if you are into digital VFX…Anyway, here are his words… If you know you need a bigger worm before you film, then film the actor [...]

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How big is your worm?

How big is your worm?

By on November 6, 2007 in Post Production, SFX

Sometimes, I reflect on what I do, and I really have to pinch myself. Most people have real jobs! Sure, what I do means I live in a famine and hope for a feast, but every day is different. And today, I was presented with the very serious question of ‘how big should the worm [...]

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The waiting game…

The waiting game…

By on November 2, 2007 in Post Production, SFX, Sound

Now that the picture edit has been locked, we have entered a waiting game for the final picture mastering, sound edit & mix, and the visual effects. We have got top people and companies working on all three aspects, but as they are all at the top of their game, and as we are not [...]

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Gone Fishing Locks Picture Edit at 1.45am!

Gone Fishing Locks Picture Edit at 1.45am!

By on October 26, 2007 in BluRay, DVD, Offline Edit, SFX

So we locked the picture edit at 1.45am last night. Editor Eddie Hamilton and I made a huge number of tweaks that at first glance, are fairly minimal in impact, but we both know that they made a big difference holistically. At one point Eddie stopped and looked at me grinning and commenting that ‘it’s [...]

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Compiling Clips for the Gone Fishing Course

Compiling Clips for the Gone Fishing Course

By on October 25, 2007 in SFX, Training

I have been working on the one day course for the contributors of Gone Fishing today, and building the DVD with the clips. I have lots of video goodies, including this one here, which illustrates different slow motion frame rates. For some scenes we used an electronic High Speed camera which came in a van [...]

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VFX starts

VFX starts

By on October 19, 2007 in Post Production, SFX

We have begun the visual effects stage for Gone Fishing! Hoorah! Yesterday, Midnight Transfer took the 35mm film and scanned selected shots on their Northlight scanner. The shots were outlined in a EDL supplied by Eddie Hamilton (Editor) and are just the shots that need visual effects work. We shot both 3perf and 4perf 35mm [...]

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So the plot thickens…

So the plot thickens…

By on October 17, 2007 in Offline Edit, Screenings, SFX

We have been editing, testing, editing, testing… and getting great results and feedback in these screenings. In some ways we are now slipping into analysis paralysis on some points, but on others, we are really having to fine tune the edit. For me, great movies stretch the credible right to the very edge. You take [...]

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Test Screening 3 and final roller

Test Screening 3 and final roller

By on October 15, 2007 in Screenings, SFX

Last night, after a small re-edit, we held another test screening. Results were as usual very interesting. No revelations this time, just amplifications on what we already knew, and a few more ideas to integrate into final picture grading. At some point, screenings like these start slipping into opinion – which isn’t much use. Analysis [...]

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