Visual FX Evolution
My early years out of art college were spent illustrating comic books, magazines, advertisements, and a few billboards. I also composed and performed music for some CBC radio series.
In 1979, an award-winning sci-fi poster was brought to the people making Carl Sagan's Cosmos. I was commissioned to paint nebulae for the PBS series. After months of detailed airbrush painting hundreds of oversized multi-plane cells, and several production problems, I was bumped up to visual effects supervisor and spent the next year finishing all of the effects cinematography for the series, overseeing eight motion control stages and all of the opticals and prints. All the Cosmos artists won Emmy awards for outstanding individual achievement in visual effects in 1980.
After Cosmos, composed the music for the KCET logo, working with Triple-I, the earliest CG company. Then, for a small production company in San Diego, commisioned to design visual effects for a pilot called The Neuron Suite with James Burke. It was a quirky show that explained the workings of the brain in terms of a hotel operation. I also composed and performed the music and sound FX soundtrack -- and played the part of the Bellhop.
Too bad it didn't go to series, because it was great working with James Burke. The Neuron Suite aired as a special.
That caught the attention of producers in New York preparing another PBS series called The Brain. For the eight-part series, worked closely with the producers and science experts to design the look of the visual effects. Assembled a team of model builders and directed construction of a custom motion-control rig to film the models with an endoscopic lens. This resulted in a very distinctive and original look. Won a second Emmy award in 1985 for outstanding visual effects.
Sketch for the Neural Net model, shooting the model on stage.
The final look.
Planet Earth, another PBS series was the next big thing. I designed and directed the look, which had a diverse mix of styles in the models and artwork. Another custom motion-control rig was built to shoot everything. Planet Earth won an Emmy for best information series.
For a few years after that, I worked in New York doing effects for commercials and games, combining motion control rigs with models and Quantel Paintbox and the first version of the Harry, and did odd jobs like storyboarding the opening sequence for PeeWee's Playhouse for Broadcast Arts.
For a game entrepreneur, I directed and shot two live-action interactive shooter prototypes that played on laserdisc. These were big motion control model shoots and helicopter plates shot in Monument Valley.
Returned to Los Angeles in 1987 to work on WQED Pittsburg's The Infinite Voyage, a 26-part PBS series, each on a different science topic. I set up and directed the effects unit with a crew of 13 -- artists, model builders, camera operators.
Designed and worked with Pat Tiffen on a distinctive motion control rig. During production, the science effects unit gave great visual effects support (including titles) to the series, employing all aspects of state of the art fx at the time: motion-control, rear projection, tank work, matte painting, cel animation, and eventually early computer-generated imagery. Honored with another Emmy nomination for episode 4 of The Infinite Voyage.
Explaining designs and techniques to Ed Stone, chief of JPL
planetary impact
accretion disk of a black hole
Next up was "Space Age," a 6-part PBS series also done at WQED science effects unit in L.A. The first episode opened with a segment dramatizing a future mission to Mars. We were responsible for the research as well as the full production shoot on our stage and on location in Death Valley. Here's how we integrated CGI with motion control back then: We shot our CG elements off of a high resolution monitor using long exposures bi-packed with models and artwork.
The first shot I did incorporating motion-control models combined with CG rendered elements. The articulated Mars orbiter arm was CG. All were bi-packed in the camera.
An in-camera matte. We took the model to Death Valley and set up on a forced perspective ground miniature.
On location at Mars Hill in Death Valley
volcano on Jupiter's moon Io
1995 marked the beginning of full scale digital production in the studio. This was the beginning of the Windows workstation era and the winding down of SGI, as well as improvements in the software and hardware of Mac systems. Three projects were in the house and production continued 24 hours a day, at some points employing 10 operators.
The first commission was 26 episodes of The Secret World of Alex Mack. Asked by the producers to assemble a dedicated team to expand the effects capabilities for the series, we rose to the occasion by innovating techniques for tracking and integration of the CG elements. The results were beyond the producers' expectations in terms of cost savings and quality, which resulted in a long and happy working relationship to the last episode.
The third project in the mix was a sci-fi/fantasy video game that incorporated live action called Sacred Pools or sometimes Amazonia. The live-action clips used a choice-based system of play so each outcome had to be filmed and the production was as large as a television series. The effects package was in the neighborhood of 300 shots ranging from simple composites to a detailed asteroid city that was fully realized in 3D CGI.
This game got a big rollout by Sega when it was nearing completion, but because of coding problems or something it was never released. The effects came in on time and budget and looking good, but can only be seen these days on a long section of my DVD demo.
Many diverse projects since have ranged from a few shots on individual shows like The Big Easy and Cupid to VFX supervision and design for Paramount Digital Design on a UPN made-for-TV movie (I Married a Monster), even secret special effects for UPN hoax-umentary Alien Abduction.
Some of what has been mentioned above can be seen on my 1999 Demo.