FLASHBACK: Madagascar 2 Halfway Party

Entering the party grounds

So I believe it's been about 10 years since this occurred.  PDI was an amazing place.  It sounds like a cliche' but it really was like a family there.  I only had one brief year before I transferred down to the Glendale campus - but one of the surreal highlights was definately the Madagascar 2 "halfway party" they threw for us for hitting the 50% mark on the film that spring.  It was also one of my first experiences seeing the fun and crazy parties the company likes to throw.  And it was a heck of a party...

There was a petting zoo with zebras.  They brought in lemurs (to "move it move it").  There was a fake volcano that erupted after a few words from the co-directors of the film.  They had a golf cart that took guests on a safari.  It was all held in the beautiful outdoor common area of Redwood Shores behind the studio.  And of course tons of food, drinks, and friends. 

Directors Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell

Look - crowd characters printed out life size!

A younger me petting a zebra

So damn cute

My first "real" job involves a confetti volcano

FLASHBACK: DreamWorks B.O.O.

I really wish DreamWorks B.O.O. had made it over the finish line.  DreamWorks killed the project, and that (along with the very recently also canned Monkeys of Mumbia) started a chain reaction that changed DreamWorks as I knew it.  Long the refuge for artists wanting stability, ownership, and believing in the studio (something in very short supply in the freelancing vfx world) - now DreamWorks would cut a third of it's Glendale studio, close the northern branch at PDI, and usher in an era of uncertainty that led many other artists (including myself) to leave on their own accord.  Eventually this leads to the company being sold to Universal and the shuttering or selling of the India and China branches as well.

But for a moment, I was animating on B.O.O.  I'm still credited for it on IMDB.  I initially did some under the table help with hand animating some midground characters that weren't holding up in crowds.  The Head of Anim and the Anim Supervisor were impressed with my work and wanted to start handing me full character shots.  So I was doing cycle work for Home during the day, but over lunch and staying a bit late I was handed some full shots.  In order to make the release date, the Anim Dept was going to have to ramp up and I was going to be brought out of Crowds and into Animation proper.  They were just waiting for one last screening to get the green light on the third act - but alas that screening didn't fare well (with even Spielberg rumored to have watched it and pondered it over the weekend).  Then word came that they were scrapping it.  Some folks had spent years on it and by some estimations over a third of it was already animated.

I ran across this Viz Dev reel by an artist from the studio Danny Williams - it's the best look out there at what the movie would have been like.

It was a really great concept, one that I personally loved involving amateur ghost hunters, a dad by Seth Rogen, a ghost cop by Melissa McCarthy and the big bad was none other than Bill Murray himself.  It seemed like a great setup and the production design was pretty wild.  You can google and find some of the toy concepts and tie ins that were going to launch with the film.

What could have been, both for the film and my tenure at DreamWorks.  Somewhere I still have my B.O.O Crew Patch....

FLASHBACK: PDI/DreamWorks Siggraph Interview

The annual Siggraph convention was this past week, and as I saw posts from lots of friends and former co-workers who were there I realized it has been 10 years since I last attended...

I'm often asked about how I got the job at DreamWorks.  Well it starts at Siggraph 2007 with one of my worst interviews ever. I had just graduated from the Academy of Art University that summer (literally turning in our thesis mere weeks before).  Heather stayed behind to keep working for a gig at Matte World Digital.  A bunch of us from the graduating class all planned to head down to San Diego and hit the convention floor - schmoozing with every recruiting booth we could manage.

Look at us - freshly graduated, slightly desperate, excited folks venturing forth into the "real world" for the first time.  They recruiting booths were busy and the convention floor hectic.  Luckily, I had a friend in Adam Ely who was already at PDI/DreamWorks in Redwood City.  He talked to one of the head recruiters, Debra O'Keefe, about me and I was able to get an interview during Siggraph.  DreamWorks wasn't officially taking reels/applications, but they had a giant interview suite built up on a balcony of the convention hall.

Excited and nervous I walk up to the interview suite and sign in - I even get a swag bag (with a shrek journal and Flushed Away dvd).  I was trying to become an effects artist at the time, so I interviewed with the FX Supe of Madagascar 2 along with one of the fx leads.  It was...a disaster.  The FX Supe - who would eventually turn out to sit behind me for about a year - liked to be blunt and kept asking about all the problems with my student reel.  For about half their questions I had no answer and admitted as much.  By the time I left (swag bag in hand) I called up Heather and just had to laugh.  "It was horrible" I told her on my cell phone from the second floor balcony, "There's no way I'm getting hired there"

About a month after Siggraph, I get a call that DreamWorks would like to do a followup interview at their PDI campus.  I'm beyond excited and terrified at the same time - I stayed up late the night before googling the answers (level-sets!) to everything I failed to answer in my first interview about effects work.  But I wasn't that nervous - I figured the interview couldn't go any worse than the first one.  So they day comes and I drive the hour south to Redwood City and arrive at the very silicon-valley style campus.  

I sit down for my interviews with Justin Onstine, Jono Gibbs, and Kevin Vassey (all who would eventually become my boss).  The first question comes from Justin who asks "So, why do you want to be a Crowds Artist?"

Crowds?  At no point did I realize this was an interview for crowds - I thought I was still going for an effects TD role.  Now crowds...I didn't even know there was a job just creating digital crowds.  And crowds work I knew - I had lucked into doing some crowds work for element fx, which led me to implementing crowds into our thesis.  I even wrote a MEL crowd script.  So I had a LOT of ideas and insight into crowds work.  It was a fantastic interview and within a week I was accepting a contract at PDI/DreamWorks.  

So you never know where life will take you.

FLASHBACK: Ray Harryhausen

From left:  Phil Tippet, Ray Harryhausen, Craig Barron

Enjoying the start of summer, today I finally cracked open my DVD of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.  I love this movie and can still remember the first time I saw it - actually, it's among my earliest movie-watching memories...along with Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  It was a summer night and my family had just returned to the house at night.  Coming up from the garage, my dad and I stayed in the basement and when we turned on the TV "The Beast" had just begun.  I was instantly sucked in and stayed in the basement glued to that television set till the last minute of the movie.  It was such impactful film for me that I even referenced it and showed a clip during my initial interview/lecture at APSU.

So naturally, one of the more amazing moments I've had in my career was being able to meet Ray Harryhausen, the man responsible for animating the stop-motion Beast along with dozens and dozen of classic movie creatures.  Back in 2006 Heather's boss at the time was Craig Barron at Matte World Digital.  He was friends with Harry and hosted a night with him at the San Rafael Theater screening The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.  Joining the two of them on stage was Phil Tippet, the also-legendary stop-motion animator from ILM and owner of Tippet Studios.  It was a great night - Ray brought one of the famous and original skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts and afterwards we got to meet him and get his autograph.

That's one of the biggest advantages of living in a big city where (at least at that time) a thriving vfx/animation industry is happening.  There's many opportunities to meet people who helped shape your history to the movies.  Being able to see them in person and shake their hand really brings the movies home.  You feel part of the history.

Ray with a stop-motion puppet

Meeting Ray and having Art of book signed

FLASHBACK: Hans Zimmer Parking Garage Concert

One of the more surreal and amazing nights while I was working at DreamWorks was the Hans Zimmer Parking Garage Rooftop Concert.  It's a strange setup, so a bit of backstory to what led to this crazy circumstance....

At the time, 2009, DreamWorks was expanding like crazy.  We were trying to go from releasing 2 films a year to 3.  We were still working on DVD bonus shorts and even some holiday specials.  It was busy.  And we were running out of space...especially parking space.  The solution was to expand our 5 story parking garage (complete with helipad) over onto the neighboring surface lot.  For most of a year, this made parking even more crazy during construction.  By the end they had to enlist valet parking to fit everyone into the remaining space.  You can see the new addition in the google-map view below (it has different colored concrete and no ivy growing up the sides).

So, Katzenburg wanted a way to celebrate the completion of the parking garage expansion, as a way to make up for all the inconvenience to the employees over the past year.  For some glorious reason I can't imagine they thought up - they held a rooftop concert after work one summer night.  Leading the charge was the film composer Hans Zimmer (who scored Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar for us).  Joining him was fellow composers (also for DreamWorks films) Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell.  Also, a bunch of other musicians covering everything from drums, winds, to ancient chinese instruments.  And a host of extra singers, including the gentleman who does the voice of King Julien now for the TV series.

So we all spent a night, sitting at tables drinking beer and wine, watching the summer sun set behind The Valley, listening to a greatest hits of DreamWorks music on the roof of a parking garage.  They played the DreamWorks intro music (also the opening to Shrek), Hallelujah, themes from KFP and Madagascar, and of course finished with a group dance to "I Like To Move-It Move-It"

An epic once-in-a-lifetime night.

FLASHBACK: Invincible

Today I saw that Invincible, or as I refer to it "the-Mark-Wahlberg-football-movie" is on Netfllix.  This was my first paying job in the VFX industry.  It was with a small boutique in San Rafael that I had done a summer internship with called ElementFX.  I got a call from the founder Marjo that they would like to bring me in to help with a big 3D establishing shot they had been awarded.  It's also a special movie for me because my wife was working on the same film over at Matte World Digital - marking the only time we both worked on the same film.  We would both commute up to the North Bay together, driving across the Golden Gate Bridge and the amazing Marin Headlands.  We were both still students but getting our first real industry experience at some great companies.  It was an exciting time.

ElementFX originally brought me on to do backups and watch the renderfarm.  Not a glamorous job, but of course I took it.  Starting out in this industry you take the entry level jobs and prove yourself.  I saw too many fellow students who waited for more impressive jobs (that never came).  My wife was doing rotoscoping and I was going to be a render wrangler.  And we were successful because we took those and it lead to bigger and better roles at each company.

In fact, ElementFX ended up needing more help.  It was a small team - 3 people other than me, plus one person who came in after hours - more on him in a second.  They needed someone to take on creating the digital crowd inside the stadium.  We had a bunch of footage of spectators on cards, but needed to populate the stadium with all this footage.  They asked me if I wanted to take that on in my role as Assistant Technical Director, to which I of course said yes.  I would work up a method and the head TD Alex would write up some code for me to run.  We were using XSI, which was interesting to learn on the fly.  It was a great time and I learned tons from the team.  ElementFX was a great, albiet short lived company.  There's a great write up about them from CGSociety HERE

ElementFX:  Alex, Marjo, and Yannick

So, a funny story from my time on Invincible.  When I left at the end of the work day, this guy would come in and use my workstation.  We never crossed paths more than a few minutes and I just knew he was Yannick, this buddy of theirs from ILM.  We needed a matte painting for our shot, so I offered to Alex that I could take that on - after all, I had just taken an intro matte painting class at college that semester.  Alex assured me that Yannick was doing it and could handle it.  I tried to make the case, but they stayed with Yannick.  Turns out, he is a huge art director at ILM and was spending his workdays doing matte paintings for the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels.  So, at least once, I tried to steal a matte painting from a big shot.

On the right:  Heather, me, and Craig Barron

Another nice moment was that Craig Barron, the owner of Matte World Digital invited the entire crew to a screening at the Rafael Theater.  It was a great afternoon, and afterwards he took everyone out to lunch.  I sat between him and Heather and we had a great time.  He shared a bunch of crazy stories from his time at ILM in the 80s.  I did embarrassingly get my car stuck in the parking garage afterwards in front of everyone, but still a great afternoon.

This little football film has so many firsts for me.  Watching it again years later takes me back to a very special time, when the career/life Heather and I were starting was getting momentum and this giant world was opening up to us.

FLASHBACK: Me & My Shadow

Today on Cartoon Brew they posted some leaked test shots from an abandoned DreamWorks film called Me & My Shadow - which of course got pulled down by Universal almost immediately.

I got to spend a very brief amount of time on this show helping the crowd head, Allen Stetson, do some cycle animation tests.  We were timing how long it took to keyframe a typical cycle animation.  Then we compared this to having to clean up mo-cap, and adding in face/hand animation on top of that.  It was only a few weeks of work, but it let me peek into the world they were making of Shadows.

It was....awesome.  I saw as much as one initial sequence that went through all the way to lighting and paint fix.  I think it would have been an amazing combination of 2D and 3D - and would have developed a fan base amongst those who love Roger Rabbit, etc.  Sadly, as was too often the case at DreamWorks, they couldn't nail down the story.  And an higher price tag for all the cool hybrid tech became the nail in the coffin for Shadows.  There's rumors of Edgar Wright coming in to revist this...so hopefully it'll see the light of day eventually.

Oh, and here's some leaked GIFs that have been floating around online for a few years to give you an idea of the film.  The shadows were all 2D hand drawn animation, then were cleaned up on the computer and projected into the 3D scene.  It wasn't just as simple as that of course, and I remember seeing a great and complicated demo explaining the processes they developed.

FLASHBACK: Zombie Prom & Skywalker Ranch

Today I ran across THIS article in Variety, about a full-length feature film version of Zombie Prom being developed.  Which is the first news of Zombie Prom in a loooong time, ever since I worked on the proof-of-concept short back in 2006.

The guy in charge of wrangling the vfx for the short was David Manos Morris, who I was introduced to by my current boss at the time Marjolaine Tremblay at elementFX.  They were old friends and co-workers from ILM.  David was putting together volunteers to work on the film, and it was that stage of my career where you have to take a leap or two to start getting work experience.  Plus, David is a huge musical theater nerd and we were going to trade early versions of some musicals we geeked out over.  Fair enough.  I did only a couple of shots - one matte painting and comp of Johnny driving up to the nuclear power plant and extending a shot of balloons for a wipe transition effect.

The best part was attending the screening.  David used his contacts as ILM to secure the big screening room at Skywalker Ranch for the night.  Ever since I was little and had the George Lucas: The Creative Impulse book, I had known about the Ranch.  The secluded pastoral patch of land nestled around wine country that was Lucas' artist enclave.  The place where pre and post production on everything from Star Wars to ET to Indiana Jones happened.

Heather and I dressed up nice and headed across the Golden Gate Bridge for Skywalker Ranch, ironically located on Lucas Road.  It's just as stunning as you would think.  Heck, even the parking lot is next to the vineyard - which is the only point I was willing to take a quick photo, less I seem too starstruck.  The main building and screening room were also gorgeous - an arts and crafts style comfy environment that felt just perfect.  It was a unique night and a great chance to experience Skywalker Ranch.

The Skywalker Ranch parking lot vineyard

FLASHBACK: PDI Closing

PDI tombstone on San Francisco Bay shoreline. Notice the Shrek ears.

Today is one year since the all-company meeting was held at DreamWorks that announced the closing of the PDI office in Redwood City (where I had started at the company) and estimated layoffs of about 20% across the company.  We all knew things were going bad, and something had to give.  But we never thought that PDI - the studio that saved fledgling parent DreamWorks with Shrek, that built all the pipeline and tools used at the company, one of the pioneering CG companies that dated back to the 80s, would be on the chopping block.

Well, we had a slight idea.  Those few months at the company was rumor mill central.  Every day someone would have heard something from a supervisor, or an old friend in the Starbucks line, about films moving around, being put on hold, etc.  All things that would lead to a change in staffing.  The biggest one going around was that Spielberg himself was weighing in on one of the films - one that was just about to ramp up and need a massive staff.  Everyone felt like that was the saving grace, if that movie stayed green-lit we would all be spared this rough patch and hopefully the company could course correct in time.  Unfortunately, the rumor I heard is Steven stewed on it over a whole week and weekend, and came back with a solitary note that he couldn't solve the problem of that film.

Within about a week, an all-studio company meeting was set up on our calendars.  Everyone knew it wasn't good.  To ease the tension we all started taking bets on how many of us would be fired by the end of a given day.  But the day before the meeting, word started going around in Glendale that they might shutter PDI.  It was hard to believe, and I don't think anyone dared to reach out to our PDI friends to share the rumor.  Why stress out if it wasn't even possibly true?  But about 1 minute into his speech, Katzenberg dropped the news: PDI would close.  They would offer some of that workforce the chance to relocate to Glendale, the rest would be let go.  Glendale would also have the largest layoff in company history.  Two problematic and weak films were cut from the production schedule entirely.  To his credit, Jeffery took the blame, said he had turned his attention to other aspects of the company, and took too long to start course correcting it when he saw it going south.  But it's hard when that hindsight still means 500 employees being let go from one of the rare "safe" companies in the industry.

Eventually our Crowds Department, which had numbered 23 during production on Dragons 2, would be cut down to 11.  And we weren't even as badly hit as lighting and fx were.

I took this photo leaving the studio that week.  The near empty courtyard and the moody weather seemed to sum it all up.

FLASHBACK: Finding The Story

I first saw this screened over the lunch hour at DreamWorks several years ago.  We were all amazed that this even existed - the originally movie being many years released by this point.  I think all the employees were also so excited to see something that captured the creative process behind our movies.  It's always a struggle to describe to folks outside the industry how these things work - the last minute changes, the moments when the film comes together, the amazing number of people that it takes to get this off the ground.

As I prep my next semester of animation classes, I make this required viewing.  One of the best aspects of this documentary is how much time it focuses on getting the story right.  Usually these behind the scenes videos are all about the technology, or the hollywood voice talent.  But for us boots on the ground, all that is for nothing without a solid story.  All the tech in the world won't matter if you don't care about the characters.  It will also impact your enjoyment of working on the movie - when everyone is working on a common goal, it will be one of the most fun jobs in the world.  When everyone is scrambling to catch up to insane last minute story changes, and entire sequences are getting cut left and right, it will show in the crew.

I applaud co-director Dean DeBois took the time to record the process as it was happening, and props to DreamWorks for letting them assemble it all together into an insightful documentary.

FLASHBACK: KFP2 Press Day

There's been many chances for some celebrity sightings on campus.  From walking past Paul Giamatti before learning he was cast in Turbo, to seeing Prince and his huge entourage led around campus by Katzenberg himself.  My favorite still is walking past Steven Spielberg as he got himself a soft-serve ice cream cone in the commissary. 

But the most epic had to be the Kung Fu Panda 2 press day on campus.  Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, and Gary Oldman spent the entire day in and around our building.  Walking outside to go get a soda, I saw a crowd of employees starting to look down at the lagoon area, only to see these to starting the meet and greet with reporters.  Later in the day, while walking out of the building, I stepped aside to let Jack Black and his DW guide walk past to another press event (taller than I imagined).  My lunch group also held the door open for Oldman.  The best story was my boss, Allen, who went to use the restroom before lunch, and was at the urinal next to Oldman.  Not everyday you get to pee next to Sirius Black himself....

FLASHBACK: Graduate Thesis Film

Today marks 7 years since Heather and I presented our Final Thesis Project at the Academy of Art University.  It was a crazy rush to the finish, as expected.  It turned out great, our advisors seemed thrilled, and we were officially done with grad school!  Memories of the following 48 hours are a hazy mix of sleep, take-out food, and both reading the final Harry Potter book that had just been released :)

"The Tempest"
Short film, 35mm, 2007
Co-created with Heather Abels
Premiered at Siggraph 2008 Space/Time Exhibition

Behind-the-scenes stills:

FLASHBACK: Shrek

An article ran in today's LA Times about a Shrek attraction opening up in London in 2015.  The image accompanying the article was a fun blast from the past.  This crowd shot I worked on ended up as one of the main publicity stills from the movie...and it keeps popping up from time to time.

I'm really proud to have worked on a Shrek film.  For most folks, the big CG revolution to them was Toy Story.  Hate to admit it, but that movie never did much for me.  Shrek however...

In the summer of 2001 I worked the summer as part of the Walt Disney World College Program.  Specifically, I got to work the gift shops for Star Tours and the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular.  I was a theatre design major back then, and most of my colleagues were doing internships in summer Shakespeare and touring shows.  I wore Indy hats and fought little kids with lightsabers for minimum wage.  I was in heaven.  Now, I worked all day at the parks, had dinner with friends at Downtown Disney, and then went home to Disney owned apartments.  It was Disney day in and day out.  And everyone in the College Program are crazed Disney fans already.

Now, in the middle of this summer, Shrek was released.  I remember seeing it at the brand new all digital projection system at the big Downtown Disney cineplex.  Seeing this movie, digitally projected, blew me away.  And all the subtle and especially the not-so-subtle stabs at Disney was therapeutic after a long day working the "magic" in the parks.  I remember cheers in the audience as birds exploded and Shrek crashed through queue lines outside Duloc.  Not a single employee I met that summer hadn't seen it and had the same reaction.

So, when I began working up at PDI - the actual folks behind the first Shrek, it really felt like I had started to come full circle with the first true impression CG animation ever had on me.  In the lobby at PDI they have the original model of Shrek's swamp house.  Walking past that on orientation day really sent chills down my back.  So in 2008 my wife got an offer down in Los Angeles, where I knew they were ramping up production on Shrek Forever After (the poor PDI folks had worked on movies 1, 2, and 3 as well as a 4d attraction at Universal park and a christmas special in only six years - the Shrek spell had worn off).  I was the first crowds artist on the film (other than my awesome boss), and really got to own the first couple of sequences out of the gate.  One of which is the shot above.  "Shreks Perfect Day" was the sequence title.  I just loved getting to open a shot in our animation program and seeing good ol' Shrek staring back at me.  It'd be a long time coming....

FLASHBACK: DreamWorks Company Photo

 

Well, this picture is from quite a few months back, but I just ran across it on the DreamWorks tumblr blog.  Its actually a pretty interesting blog - lots of great concept art and designs get posted up on it.

This picture is the entire company getting together up at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal Studios last October.  It was the first time both Redwood City and Glendale campuses got together in one place at one time. This was way back before all the layoffs - so this is probably the largest picture of DreamWorkers that there'll ever be.