F3 Visual Effects at FSU - Week 1
First off, I'd like to say that this weeks title was completely stolen from my friend Collin, who titled his blog post the same thing. But then again, the title is originally from Chapter 6 of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, so I'm just stealing what Collin stole first. It's my way of a not-so-silent protest.
This week we started visual effects on out F3s, our third student films at FSU. For the zero people out there that actually keep up with my blog and are wondering about what happened to the F2, maybe someday I did briefly gloss over it it posts here and here. I probably won't ever go into a detailed BTS of it like I did with the F1, but going behind the scenes of the F1 was more of a reflective exercise for me in my spare time and I've kind of changed how I do that now. Now I keep a small journal and sometimes I'll go outside and noodle some thoughts in it or something. Our workload at school has also changed dramatically: new city, new professors, new curriculum - essentially a new life. I think it's important to change how you do things as your world around you is changing. I had an English teacher in eighth grade who made sure he made at least one big change in his life every couple of years. For example, one day he decided to start brushing his teeth left handed and he's been doing it ever since. Likewise, a couple years later he decided to start tying his shoes backwards. Never went back. I've never tried doing something like that on the minor scale that he did, but I think that the concept would apply in the macro to our lives as a whole. But what the heck do I know, right?
For the F3 visual effects cycle, the faculty are giving us eight weeks. I got scheduled as an artist on four films, including my own. So this comes out to roughly two weeks per film, but that's not how I got scheduled. I'm spending three weeks each on two live actions films as a matte painter and compositor and one week each on two animated films as a lighting artist. I couldn't be more excited.
For the entirety of film school so far everything I have done has been on a Mac, but for this cycle we were moved to a lab colloquially called "The Production Pit" - all PC's. The adjustment has taken a little time to get used to - mainly I keep hitting alt instead of control because that's where the command key is on a Mac - but the machines are much faster and more powerful and I haven't run into any issues. We also have dual 35" monitors and HUGE tablets. Sometimes I have to pinch myself.
We've only been in the VFX process now for two days but already I have been incredibly productive and am super excited about my results. This year I am tackling all my composite shots in Nuke instead of After Effects, and while I will always love After Effects - and still firmly believe it is a better program for 2D motion content creation - Nuke is an absolute dream. I am able to achieve better results faster, and that's something that just doesn't happen every day. So far I have completed one matte painting asset and almost completed one shot composition, and I believe that they are on the photo-real level which makes me unbelievably satisfied. I have been working towards the goal of photo-real set extension for years now and this shot might be the first time I have ever accomplished that. Years of practice from middle school up is really starting to pay off... at least I think it is.
One reason I believe I have been able to complete a matte painting asset and photo-real composite in just two days is because of an incredibly efficient time management workflow really stressed on me by my professors Jason and Ken. They have pushed taking a 5-10 minute break every couple of hours, not working over time, timing yourself while you work, and meticulously logging all of my hours. Additionally, my professor Jonathan helped all of our shows set up incredibly detailed shot breakdowns using a management solution called Shotgun. This workflow has kept me laser focused in the lab. I built a playlist in the glorious Spotify of some of my favorite music and some new music, made an account at www.toggl.com to start timing myself while I work, put my headphones on and have been powering through tons of work at a high speed and still had time to relax and play basketball in the afternoons. This new schedule really excites me because if this pace continues, not only will I be getting more work done but I will also have more time to myself to get back in physical and spiritual shape. In the F2 VFX cycle, I worked close to 16 hours a day for two weeks straight, and by the end I looked horrible, felt horrible, ate horribly, and each day dragged on and I got less and less work done. If I really can get much more work done in this much more reasonable F3 schedule, I will have discovered possibly the greatest thing in the history of mankind...
I'm really looking forward to continuing through the visual effects cycle and becoming a better artist, while having more time to myself to develop thesis and other short film ideas. I've also freed up a lot more time to play basketball, which is great especially considering I'm out of shape right now and my intramural team needs me more than ever as we move into the playoffs. Tonight we played our first playoff game and won by 1 point with 2 seconds left. It was awesome. Hopefully and can keep winning and extend our season by another five weeks - that championship t-shirt really would look great hanging up in my closet.
For the F3 visual effects cycle, the faculty are giving us eight weeks. I got scheduled as an artist on four films, including my own. So this comes out to roughly two weeks per film, but that's not how I got scheduled. I'm spending three weeks each on two live actions films as a matte painter and compositor and one week each on two animated films as a lighting artist. I couldn't be more excited.
For the entirety of film school so far everything I have done has been on a Mac, but for this cycle we were moved to a lab colloquially called "The Production Pit" - all PC's. The adjustment has taken a little time to get used to - mainly I keep hitting alt instead of control because that's where the command key is on a Mac - but the machines are much faster and more powerful and I haven't run into any issues. We also have dual 35" monitors and HUGE tablets. Sometimes I have to pinch myself.
We've only been in the VFX process now for two days but already I have been incredibly productive and am super excited about my results. This year I am tackling all my composite shots in Nuke instead of After Effects, and while I will always love After Effects - and still firmly believe it is a better program for 2D motion content creation - Nuke is an absolute dream. I am able to achieve better results faster, and that's something that just doesn't happen every day. So far I have completed one matte painting asset and almost completed one shot composition, and I believe that they are on the photo-real level which makes me unbelievably satisfied. I have been working towards the goal of photo-real set extension for years now and this shot might be the first time I have ever accomplished that. Years of practice from middle school up is really starting to pay off... at least I think it is.
One reason I believe I have been able to complete a matte painting asset and photo-real composite in just two days is because of an incredibly efficient time management workflow really stressed on me by my professors Jason and Ken. They have pushed taking a 5-10 minute break every couple of hours, not working over time, timing yourself while you work, and meticulously logging all of my hours. Additionally, my professor Jonathan helped all of our shows set up incredibly detailed shot breakdowns using a management solution called Shotgun. This workflow has kept me laser focused in the lab. I built a playlist in the glorious Spotify of some of my favorite music and some new music, made an account at www.toggl.com to start timing myself while I work, put my headphones on and have been powering through tons of work at a high speed and still had time to relax and play basketball in the afternoons. This new schedule really excites me because if this pace continues, not only will I be getting more work done but I will also have more time to myself to get back in physical and spiritual shape. In the F2 VFX cycle, I worked close to 16 hours a day for two weeks straight, and by the end I looked horrible, felt horrible, ate horribly, and each day dragged on and I got less and less work done. If I really can get much more work done in this much more reasonable F3 schedule, I will have discovered possibly the greatest thing in the history of mankind...
I'm really looking forward to continuing through the visual effects cycle and becoming a better artist, while having more time to myself to develop thesis and other short film ideas. I've also freed up a lot more time to play basketball, which is great especially considering I'm out of shape right now and my intramural team needs me more than ever as we move into the playoffs. Tonight we played our first playoff game and won by 1 point with 2 seconds left. It was awesome. Hopefully and can keep winning and extend our season by another five weeks - that championship t-shirt really would look great hanging up in my closet.
