Gnomon's having a Ratatouille FX Presentation

I'll be there... you gotta RSVP at the address below...
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http://www.gnomon3d.com/gnews/2007/fall/2007_10_01.html

Gnomon School of Visual Effects and the VES Presents: "Ratatouille" : Shot-Breakdown Series with Special Guest: Apurva Shah, Effects Supervisor for Ratatouille

Thursday, November 15th, 2007 6:00pm - 9:00pm

Join Gnomon School of Visual Effects and the VES in welcoming Apurva Shah, Effects Supervisor at Pixar Animation Studios. Apurva will give an in-depth discussion on the creation of the visual effects magic used in one of this year’s biggest animated features, Ratatouille.
About this evenings presentation:
Creating visual effects for feature animated films poses some interesting challenges. This is especially true if they are tightly coupled to the story and performances, as is the case with the cooking in Ratatouille. Apurva will describe what some of these challenges were and how the effects team addressed them. In the process he will also describe some of the technical underpinnings of Pixar’s effects pipeline and shot specific techniques.
Event Details:
DATE: Thursday, November 15, 2007
MEET & GREET: 6:00PM
PRESENTATION: 7:00PM – 9:00PM
PLACE: Gnomon School of Visual Effects – Stage 15 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90038
RSVP: reserve at gnomon3d.com
FEES: This event is FREE of charge!

Nickelodeon CG Department Positions

So if you asked "Hey there Josh Book, is Nickelodeon Animation Studios CG Department looking for Technical Directors?" I'd have to say Yes, and check out http://www.creativeheads.net/jobdetails.aspx?jobID=5016&jsOrigin=12&Blast=1491

We're also looking for Lighter/Compositors/FX Artists
http://www.creativeheads.net/jobdetails.aspx?jobID=4368&jsOrigin=12&Blast=1491

More info at the above links...

Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival

For those of you in the Bay Area, there's a new film festival taking place soon. Info here via my Aunt Teresa:

Complete programming information for the first Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival is up on our website, and tickets are now on sale! Check it out at www.SebastopolFilmFestival.org.

Please forward this email to anyone who may be interested. The festival runs from Thursday evening, November 8th, through Sunday afternoon, November 11th. Monday, the 12th, is a holiday (Veteran’s Day), making the festival a perfect getaway weekend to Sonoma County!

My Interview with Animation Magazine

As I mentioned here previously, I was interviewed for Animation Magazine's October 2007 issue, for an article on "Tak and the Power of Juju". It's hit the stands, and you can see it here.


Here's part of my interview, if it's hard to read the images:

Josh Book, Creative Director of Nick's CG department, was also involved with Tak from that early pilot stage. "We took the project as far as we could within the time frame," he says. "We saw the things that we wanted to tweak, so, when we had the time to take it further, we did our best to make it look spectacular."

According to Book, the CG team used the original premises and characters from Avalanche Software's Tak game as a springboard. "The characters' texture mapping is painted and very stylized," he notes. "The environments are also hand-painted, so that puts the burden on the texture artist."

A self-taught animator with a B.A. in Fine Arts from U.C. Santa Cruz, Book worked at Electronic Arts in the mid '90s, then gravitated toward commercials and game cinematics work and had his first CG series experience at Film Roman on Tripping the Rift. "We spend a lot of time on the performances and aimed for getting lots of subtleties out of them," he notes. "What makes the show stand apart from other TV shows is that you don't get quick and snappy movements. Typically, you get a lot of over-the-top animation in TV shows. What makes Tak stand out is the fact that it's more sophisticated."

Of course, the show's organic tribal setting and magical elements can sound like a CG animator's nightmare. "It's set in a jungle and you can ask anyone who worked on DreamWorks' Madagascar how CG-unfriendly that can be," admits Book. "Then there are all the magical effects and the huge cast of characters - we have 180 characters - lots of villagers, lots of magical beings. They are a lot of fun, but they each have their own complexities."

In addition to India's DQ Entertainment, Nick also gets service help from CGCG Inc. in Taiwan and Cinepix in Korea to produce the 26 half-hours required in the first season of the show. Regardless of the complexity of the animation or the numbers of studios involved, Book believes that after all is said and done, CG is simply another tool. "It's just like picking up a paintbrush or pencil, however, it's much more challenging to bring CG up to the quality level we all expect from professional projects these days. What you have to be conscious of is that CG isn't right for all kinds of projects. For example, I know SpongeBob wouldn't work the same way in CG. Complex doesn't always equal funny. When you want to sell a funny drawing, you can work for months and months to make it work in 3D."

*** One small note, on the part where I was talking about animation style, it said that on the show you "don't get quick and snappy movements". What I was actually saying was that it's not all quick and snappy, and that we have lots of subtlety and quiet moments. Considering I blabbed on for 20 minutes, I was suprised to see me quoted this well!