Activ8
Worklife
Joining the dots for Hollywood .
Joining the dots for Hollywood.One of them works with some of Hollywood's hottest stars. One of them creates graphics for TV3 and C4 programmes on a daily basis. And one of them is bringing Jeff da Maori and the rest of the bro'Town crew to life. They all love their jobs. So what's a girl - or guy - got to do to get a job like that?
by Melanie Cooper.
King Kong, The Lord of the Rings and I, Robot are all massive blockbuster movies with one thing in common: without advanced computer graphics they wouldn't be possible. To bring the gigantic gorilla to life and to make audiences believe in the powerful hold greed had over Gollum in Peter Jackson's Rings trilogy required sophisticated technology
As a motion capture production assistant with Weta Digital, Emily helped to bring Gollum, King Kong and the robots to life on the big screen.Motion capture - a sort of shortcut for the traditional animation process - involves a group of cameras being positioned around a studio to capture data from reflective markers stuck all over an actor.
Each marker is a coordinate to a joint or facial muscle and when the coordinates are sent back to the computer a dotted image of the actor is created. So, the actor acts out the scene and the computer can accurately record how his body moves and what his face does in each situation.
Emily likens it to a dot-to-dot puzzle - only it's in 3D. "Initially the dots appear to be floating in space but once you draw in the lines you can see the image starting to appear."Her job is to convert the raw motion capture information into readable data in a 3D format.
Then it's passed over to the motion editor and the animators who build in the skeleton, the skin and the details to produce the final image.Because motion capture uses actors, the argument is that it can recreate more realistic facial expressions and body movements. The upside for Emily is that - unlike some other computer-based effects jobs - she gets to work with the actors as well.
"I love the eclecticness of it all. Getting to work with the actors on set one day and then working in the studio and seeing the character coming togeth- er there. Most effects artists don't get to see both sides like that: that's unique to motion capture." So far the job has seen Emily rubbing shoulders with the likes of Andy Serkis (who played Gollum and King Kong), Peter Jackson, Viggo Mortenson, Naomi Watts and Jack Black.
Motion capture isn't just used in film, either. The animated television series Jane and the Dragon uses the technology and, because of the time and money savings, games companies are increasing turning to the technique as well. Emily is currently working on a new PlayStation game, Heavenly Sword. All of this is a long way from where Emily originally imagined her computer editing skills would take her. After leaving school, Emily completed a Bachelor of Broadcasting Communications at the CPIT New Zealand Broadcasting School in Christchurch where she learned how to use editing software programs along with skills like directing, producing and how to talk to actors.
"When I finished the degree I was looking at using my skills to get into news editing but when I saw Weta was advertising for a production assist- ant I decided to go for it."
Once Emily had proved herself as a production assistant, Weta Digital offered her inhouse motion capture training.
"Because I was familiar with editing software and other computer programs it wasn't an impos- sible leap. I had to learn the inhouse programs and I needed to have the ability to work in a 3D space but with the basics in place it was just a matter of working through it."
And now Emily's options are wide open. Motion capture technology is being used all over the world in large movie studios, in dedicated motion capture studios and by video game publishers as well.
"As far as motion capture studios, Weta is still very small in relation to the rest of the world but in my opinion it is one of the best. The skills I am learning here really could take me anywhere."
Picture This.
If you've spent time hanging out in front of C4 or watching the news on TV3, you've probably seen Genevieve Collier's work. She's one of the team in TV3's graphics department that creates the picture boxes, maps and promos that pop up on screen so you know where in the world the story is taking place, which music show is on next or just so there's a nifty graphic to make it look good.
"It's a really fun job. There's always something different, for instance we get to do some pretty silly stuff for Campbell Live like putting Prime Minister Helen Clark in a bathing suit."
When she finished the diploma, one of her lecturers put her in touch with TV3 and she was offered a job. Since then she's worked on graphics for the news, 60 Minutes, Campbell Live and C4."I love the job because I love being creative. I also like the idea of being able to communicate with people through images. Motion graphics can be a powerful art form in themselves."Creativity and design talent isn't all that's required for the job though. Genevieve, who's 21, reckons the ability not to panic is useful when you're working to the daily deadlines involved in creating programmes like 3News.
"You need to be quite a calm person under pressure, especially when we are working in an on-air environment. This is when you need to be able to listen and make quick decisions when problem solving.""There are challenges like there are with any job, like the pressure of getting it right in an on-air [live] situation, but I see difficulties as a way to learn more." And the skills she's learning on the job could take her into heaps of different jobs in New Zealand and overseas."In the future I would like to be involved in the making of documentaries and move more into editing.
The great thing about this industry is that there are so many areas you can move into. Most roles are creative and that was the initial attraction for me."
Painting the streets of Morningside
Before Vale, Valea, Mack, Sione and Jeff da Maori can make it to your TV screen to utter that timeless line "Morningside for life" in the next series of bro'Town, there's a lot that has to happen. Oscar Kightley and the crew have to come up with the witty dialogue, scores of animators have to painstakingly draw each sequence one frame at a time and then somebody has to colour it all in.
Alicia Callahan, 24, and Roxy Bowden, 25, are part of the five-person team that takes the pencil-drawn images from the animators and converts them to digital images that can then be coloured and made to move. The old-fashioned method of colouring animated images involved hand-painting each part of the drawing but now it's all down to sophisticated software and the people with the skills to use it.
With the ink-and-paint programs now available, Alicia and Roxy can drop-fill (single-click paint an entire enclosed area) or use a digital paintbrush to colour the Morningside crew. Alicia also does backgrounds and sorts out the model sheets. The model sheets show different views of each character so all the different animators that work on the show end up creating a Vale that actually looks Vale.
Alicia has only been working on bro'Town for three months but she was handpicked by one of the show's producers before she'd even finished her Diploma of 3D Computer Animation at Media Design School last year.
"I met the producer while I was studying - he was actually doing the same course. He saw some of my work and liked it and basically offered me a job. The skills I got through my course have been really useful and even though I'm working with some different programs it's meant I can pick them up quickly." Alicia says while this is her first paid gig she's been involved in animation for a lot longer than that.
"At about 15 or 16 I got hooked on video games and I really loved looking at the graphics and animation. Then I started to think 'I could do that'. Before working here I hadn't done any paid work but I would do it for my mates," says Alicia.
"I love what I am doing here. I'm doing what I like and I'm learning skills that I can take home with me and use to create my own stuff." Eventually Alicia would like to work as a conceptual artist in the gaming industry, coming up with original imagery to set the scene for a game, preferably in the UK. Roxy also has an idea about where she wants to go after bro'Town. Roxy trained at Freelance Art School where she learned about classic character animation and graphic design. She put her skills to work with a company called Slightly Offbeat, then started freelancing before she scored the job on bro'Town. After initially just working on the colouring, Roxy is now also working on the animation for the show.
"I've been drawing ever since I can remember. I really enjoyed art at school and I also watched a lot of cartoons and loved the animation. Now I get paid to do what I enjoy every day."
Ultimately Roxy would like to work as a graphic designer, creating things like CD covers and book illustrations. But she's in no rush.
"It is a really relaxed, fun atmosphere. The three guys we work with in the digital department are great and with [bro'Town scriptwriters] the Naked Samoans around there are always lots of laughs." Piow! Piow!
Links
www.cpit.ac.nz
www.freelanceanimation.com
www.mediadesign.school.nz
top of page °
