Australian Effects & Animation Festival program

AEAF is your window on the creative and technical innovations from VFX, games, animation and visualisation experts working on exciting projects from around the world. Leading personalities present top productions, demonstrate their techniques and talk directly to you in a vibrant, engaging environment.

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DAY ONE

Tuesday 13 NOVEMBER

THE WATER HORSE: LEGEND OF THE DEEP – WETA DIGITAL 9AM

Richard Frances-Moore, animation supervisor

Due out in Australian cinemas on January 1, 2008, The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep is the latest stunning achievement in on-screen CGI animation from Weta Digital. This family-friendly fantasy film is based on the novel The Water Horse by Dick King-Smith. It tells of a a young Scottish boy named Angus who discovers a mysterious egg that soon hatches a bizzare reptilian type creature. Soon after it grows too big to be hidden within his home, it's placed in Loch Ness, where it becomes the famous Loch Ness Monster.
Animation supervisor Richard Frances-Moore, who led the pre-visualisation and animation for The Waterhorse: Legend of the Deep, says the task of creating the on-screen character “Crusoe,” as the creature is known, was one of the most challenging he has undertaken. Crusoe occupies nearly every single shot in the film and must be shown to grow as a believable character throughout the movie. Its creation required Weta to develop new approaches to skin dynamics and muscle dynamics. Richard Frances-Moore joined Weta Digital in 2001 to work on The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Richard began at Weta Digital as a character animator working on Gollum then moving onto the role of senior animator, helping design and create the climactic battle sequence in The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King. He then continued in this role for King Kong where he led the pre-visualisation and animation of several sequences in the film.  Previously Richard has worked for the Lord of the Rings production company Three Foot Six Ltd as a Previs Artist creating pre-visualisations for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and as a character animator for New Zealand television productions.

CREDITS (Richard Frances-Moore):

• The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (2007) (animation supervisor)
• Bridge to Terabithia (2007) (animation lead)
• X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) (animation supervisor: Weta Digital)
• King Kong (2005) (animation sequence lead)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) (senior animator: Weta Digital)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) (animator)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) (pre-visualisation artist)

THE MOVING PICTURE CO MPANY (UK) 10.30am

Michael Elson

The Moving Picture Company, one of the world’s leading digital FX houses, takes you through an array of exciting work it has produced in 2007 for features such as Sunshine, The Golden Age, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. MPC is also working on an exciting slate of upcoming titles such as 10,000 BC, Narnia: Prince Caspian and Incendiary. As Chief Operating Officer of MPC, Michael runs MPC's feature film business and markets the company's services to the international film industry. He has personally produced shots for a diverse portfolio of projects and is currently overseeing numerous projects including Narnia: Prince Caspian. Under Michael's lead, the MPC team has worked on numerous high profile visual effects projects, most recently providing all the VFX for Danny Boyle's Sunshine and Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth: The Golden Age and key sequences for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. MPC is also sole facility for Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd and leading the effects efforts on Fred Claus, 10 000 BC and The Other Boleyn Girl. Last year saw an Academy Award VFX nomination for Poseidon.  The team have recently worked as lead facility for Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven. They also provided ground breaking effects work for X-Men: the Last Stand and Yimou Zhang's Curse of the Golden Flower. MPC was the sole effects vendor for the Oscar winning Wallace and Gromit, Curse of the Were-rabbit movie and the Oscar nominated 'Corpse Bride.'

KEYNOTE SESSION: DUNCAN BRINSMEAD 12pm

One of Autodesk's principal scientists and creator of Maya Paint Effects, Maya Hair, and Maya Toon, Duncan Brinsmead has also worked extensively on Maya Fluids and Maya Cloth. Gain a privileged insight into the challenges of computer graphics and the future of 3D in this special presentation. Duncan Brinsmead is a principal scientist with Autodesk. He is the creator of Maya Paint Effects and Maya Hair, and worked extensively on Maya Fluids. Duncan holds an MA in Music Performance and enjoy playing piano as well as creating digital realisations of symphonic works in his spare time. The nuances and sensibilities from a musical background certainly find expression in all aspects of his work.

LUNCH BREAK 1pm

ANIMAL LOGIC TRIUMPHS WITH THE 300 2pm

Lindsay Adams,  2D Technical Director, Animal Logic

Animal Logic provided visual effects art direction for the stylised look of Zack Snyder's feature film 300, a ferocious retelling of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae in which King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes and his massive Persian army. Find out how the Animal Logic crew created all of the shots for an epic, eight-minute battle scene in which the 300 Spartans first battle the Persians. The entire sequence was shot on blue screen. Only two shots out of 176 had practical sets, and those were rotoscoped out and replaced with CG sets. For most shots, the team created CG sets and added in digital doubles and crowds, skies, water, blood splatters and spurts, wounds, CG arrows and spear tips. Lindsay Adams is a Senior Compositor in the Film Visual Effects team at Animal Logic. Lindsay joined the company in 2003 and has since worked on feature films such as Stealth, World Trade Center, The Great Raid and House of Flying Daggers. During his career, Lindsay has also worked at Photon VFX, Rising Sun Pictures and Weta Digital as a compositor on films including Ghost Ship, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Lindsay was also responsible for redesigning the 2D pipeline to support the company’s feature film projects. Most recently, Lindsay served as a Senior Compositor on Zack Snyder’s blockbuster film 300. In this role, he was responsible for setting up a workflow for a crew of 20 artists who were involved in creating all of the shots for the epic, eight-minute battle scene in which the 300 Spartans first battle the Persians. Lindsay is currently working on Baz Luhrmann's Australia.Originally from Canberra, Lindsay started out with a Video8 Handycam and began non-linear editing and desktop compositing in 1995 with a Powermac 7200. He graduated with a BA in Television Production from Charles Sturt University in 2000, where he completed many visual effects based music videos, short films and commercials. He also directs music videos in his spare time and has shot clips for bands such as Thirsty Merc and ClevaFam.

VIDEO-BASED MOTION CAPTURE 3pm

Dominique Pouliquen, CEO, Co-founder REALVIZ S.A.

Learn how REALVIZ Movimento expands the boundaries of the traditional motion capture studio by offering the ability to take the motion capture process beyond the studio to where the action is. Movimento is a state-of-the-art video-based motion capture solution powered by 'SMART', REALVIZ’ powerful automatic 3D tracking engine. It offers users a complete and flexible solution for facial, hand, arm and full-body motion capture across a wide range of applications, from special effects, games, animation, biomechanical research, sports science, orthopedics and engineering, to behavioral analysis. Since its launch at SIGGRAPH 2006, Movimento has been firmly embraced by leading motion capture specialists, game developers and production houses worldwide, including: Activision (USA), Framestore CFC (UK), WideScreen Games (France), Glassworks (UK) & FilmAkademie Stuttgart (Germany) amongst others. Dominique Pouliquen graduated from Ecole Superieure de l'Ouest, Angers, France, and holds a Masters of Sciences in Engineering. He has more than 22 years experience in Computer Graphics. Prior to founding REALVIZ, Mr. Pouliquen headed the Visualization Department at Sogitec, a subsidiary of Dassault Aviation, one of the world's leading aircraft construction companies. Mr. Pouliquen also worked as a Senior VP for Medialab, Paris, a subsidiary of the French TV Canal +, as head of their Technology Department

RISING SUN PICTURES - THE SEEKER: THE DARK IS RISING 4pm

Gregory Yepes

Go behind Rising Sun’s VFX work on the forthcoming The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, the first film adaptation of author Susan Cooper's acclaimed series. The film tells the story of Will Stanton, a young man who learns he is the last of a group of warriors who have dedicated their lives to fighting the forces of the Dark. Traveling back and forth through time, Will discovers a series of clues leading him into a showdown with forces of unimaginable power. Rising Sun is the only Australian feature film visual effects specialist with a filmography that spans 45 features. Over half this number has been for US clients, including the hits Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 28 Weeks Later, Blood Diamond, Charlotte's Web, Superman Returns, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Batman Begins, The Last Samurai and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Gregory Yepes is Rising Sun’s VFX Supervisor on The Dark is Rising, and came to RSP after spending nine years at Rhythm & Hues, as CG Sequence & Lighting Supervisor on projects such as Superman Returns, Serenity, X-men 2, Scooby Doo, Stuart Little and Harry Potter.

GAMES CHARACTER ANIMATION : THE  CHALLENGES  OF NEXT GEN 5pm

Jake Hempson

Creating animations for video games is much different from creating animations for movies. A movie is meant simply to be viewed, while the purpose of a video game is to interact. Animations in game will also be viewed from full 360-degrees and not just from the one camera direction. This talk is an introduction to some of the challenges that character artists, animators and designers face daily, along with a discussion of next-gen concepts.
Jake Hempson is an Associate Lecturer of animation at QANTM, Brisbane. Before taking on the teaching role he was at Krome Studios in Brisbane working on a ‘next – gen’ project: Hellboy -The Science of Evil, as a senior character artist/animator. He started in 3D in 1996 using Autodesk 3ds Max 4 for DOS on the Alien versus Predator series.
Over the past 11 years, Jake has worked in many of the art roles within games development from environment modeler, front end design, concept art, cut scene animator /co-coordinator, lead artist, character modeler and animator. More recently Jake was introduced  to Mudbox  and became one of its  Beta testers (now  a Mudbox addict)  and is a  3DSMax, Zbrush and Maya user . He has recently taken on the challenge of academia - a Masters by Research degree at QUT, Brisbane working on a digital sculpture practice workflow.
CREDITS (Jake Hempson):

• Hellboy -The Science of Evil (2008), Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.
• Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 3: Night of the Quinkan (2006), Activision Asia-Pacific
• King Arthur (2004), Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.
• Starsky & Hutch (2003), Vivendi Universal Games, Inc.
• Dragon Riders: Chronicles of Pern (2001), Ubi Soft Entertainment Software
• Aliens Versus Predator (1999), Fox Interactive

DAY TWO

WEDNESDAY 14 NOVEMBER

BEOWULF: RETELLING A LEGEND 9am

Theo Bialak, CG Supervisor for Sony Pictures Imageworks

Performance capture reaches a new zenith with the release of Beowulf. Learn how Imageworks' proprietary Imagemotion technology has evolved since its first application on The Polar Express, and find out how Imageworks has continued to refine its capabilities. By utilising Imagemotion, directors are given the flexibility to fully explore their creative imagination, which may reach beyond the physical limitations of human beings. Theo Bialek recently completed work as CG supervisor on Beowulf.  He was in charge of shot production, look development and backend pipeline development for the groundbreaking film. Bialek has significant experience on projects that used cutting-edge performance capture techniques. Prior to Beowulf, he was CG supervisor on Monster House, 2007 Academy Award nominee for Best Animated Feature Film. He was also colour and lighting lead on The Polar Express. Before working on performance capture films,  Bialek was a lighting and compositing artist on Stuart Little 2, a shot set-up  and pipeline development artist on Hollow Man (2001 Academy Award nominee for Best Visual Effects), and a lighting technical director on Stuart Little (2000 Academy Award nominee for Best Visual Effects). Bialek joined Sony Pictures Imageworks in 1998 from Rhythm & Hues, where he served as a lighting artist on Babe: Pig in the City.   Prior to his studio work, Bialek founded Red Eye Studios, a computer graphics company specializing in programming and video game content.  He has also taught Modeling and Computer Graphics courses at Gnomon School of Visual Effects throughout his career. A native of Barrington, Rhode Island, Bialek  studied Computer Engineering at the University of  Rochester Institute of Technology.

FILM VISUAL EFFECTS TO THE MAX 10.30am

Allan McKay

Get an expert overview of the process for creating digital pyrotechnics through particles and fluid simulations—explosions, fire, smoke, and various other effects— as well as various creature effects. Allan McKay will also give insights learned from his recent projects, from Hollywood films to big title game cinematics. He will cover many of the processes and techniques involved, along with issues that arose during productions, using Autodesk 3ds Max, Fume, PFlow, PFlow Tools. Allan McKay is a visual effects animator and director of FX studio Catastrophic FX. He started in 3D in 1991 using Autodesk 3ds Max 2 for DOS, POV-Ray, and an assortment of other 3D applications. Allan is one of a select group of artists worldwide to be named as an Autodesk 3ds Max Master in 2007. Over the past 16 years, Allan has contributed to the ever-evolving 3ds Max community, writing, teaching, and releasing several Autodesk-certified training products on everything from modeling and shaders to particles and compositing for 3D Studio. In addition to his work in VFX and developing and presenting training material, in his spare time Allan has combined more than 80 written or recorded video tutorials on 3ds Max and recorded more than 30 hours of content for both beginners and industry leaders to learn from free of charge. Striving to lead the race in both the technical and creative sides of the special effects world, Allan has contributed to many well-known film and game titles, including Superman Returns, Blade: Trinity, Gopher Broke, In the Rough, Idlewild, Warhammer, Bioshock, Halo Wars and Hellboy.
www.catastrophicfx.com

MASTERCLASS: MOTION 12pm

Damian Allen

Damian Allen is a commercial artist and creative director living in Los Angeles. A co-author of Encyclopedia of Visual Effects, Damian lectures around the world on compositing theory and visual effects design. He has designed and directed motion graphics projects for British Airways, Coca-Cola Amatil, Toshiba, Epson, Pfizer and several multinational financial and telecommunications companies.

LUNCH BREAK 1pm

RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION 2pm

Evan Jacobs

VFX Supervisor Evan Jacobs reveals the story behind the production of the third instalment in the hit Resident Evil series, directed by Russell Mulcahy and starring Milla Jovovich. An experienced industry veteran, Evan Jacobs is a dynamic and versatile creative force in the visual effects industry. He has proven adept at designing bold "in your face" effects, such as his work on Christophe Gans' Silent Hill and this year's Resident Evil: Extinction, as well as contributing invisible effects like those in Hollywoodland,16 Blocks and Walk Hard, due out later this year. The VFX Supervisor for Resident Evil: Extinction, Jacobs worked his way up through the ranks at leading effects houses such as Boss Film Studios and Fantasy II Film Effects. He went on to serve as miniatures supervisor on the Tim Burton film Ed Wood and then in 1994 he co-founded Vision Crew Unlimited, a company specialising in miniatures and mechanical effects. Evan served as the company's Executive Producer and VFX Supervisor, contributing to many films such as The Mummy, Dinosaur, Armageddon and Titanic. His company provided notable effects in commercials for Mazda, Lexus, Dr. Pepper, Nissan, Jeep, Dodge, Toyota and Coca-Cola to name but a few. Jacobs is an active member of the VES, and has spoken at industry conferences such as Post/LA. He was an instructor for the Entertainment Studies Extension Program at UCLA for three years.
www.evanjacobs.com

OVERSAMPLING REALITY – THE BITE BEHIND THE BITS  3pm

Sebastian Sylwan

The digitalisation of the entire content creation pipeline for film and television is rapidly changing the way we see and do things. As technology becomes increasingly affordable and more powerful, and techniques are refined, artists and operators are able to easily put more reality behind the images they produce.
In his presentation Sebastian Sylwan will look at current technology trends, the directions the industry is taking with its digital tools, and identify the issues created in the wake of the processing push.
Sebastian is in the prime position to overview the current state of play in high-end digital content creation, as he has built an impressive career harnessing the power of processors for graphics and visual effects design.
As Autodesk’s senior industry manager for film and television, he helps drive the strategic directions for Autodesk products in the Film & TV industries. Sebastian has also served as director of technology at Digital Domain where he successfully renewed the company’s technology infrastructure. He led the technology department into new areas, including development for DD's first stereoscopic rendition of a CG animated movie.
Previously he worked as principal technology advisor for graphics research at the University of Southen California (USC)'s Institute for Creative Technologies where he led the project for the design and construction of Light Stage 6, the world's largest and most advanced BRDF capture device (used for capturing an actor's live-action performance in such a way that the lighting and reflectance of the actor can be designed and modified in postproduction).
“If you look at some of the new areas of work and tools such as the 4K Imaging, image-based lighting, physically-based rendering, photogrammetry and stereoscopic imagery you can see a common trend. While we increase the detail obtained from high resolution capture, new challenges for the industry are created," said Sylwan.
“How you work with the data and the production pipeline you create is vital to the outcome of any project - today and especially tomorrow. We want to be there for our customers, together understanding the problems beyond the products and helping them find solutions.”

THE ART OF THE FEMININE 4pm

Steven Stahlberg

Maya master Steven Stahlberg will show how to create convincing humans in CG, with a focus on the female and how to maximise attractiveness, also applicable to men and non-human creatures. His presentation will look the whole creative process, starting with the initial idea, including reference and sketching, anatomy, topology, skin shading, morph targets for facial animation and correcting bad joint deforming. Steven Stahlberg was born in Australia, grew up in Sweden, and later moved to Asia. After attending art school, Steven worked as a freelance illustrator for 10 years, primarily in Hong Kong. He turned to computer graphics and spent the next 11 years working in Hong Kong, Texas and Kuala Lumpur. Steven was the first CG artist in the world to have a virtual character sponsored by Elite, a major modelling agency. The character was presented to the world in a press conference 1999 and later appeared on ABC, BBC, and many other TV channels, as well as in dozens of magazines and newspapers including New York Times, Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal. In 2002, he returned to Asia and now works freelance from Malaysia where he has written three screenplays and a dozen treatments. Steven has also worked on projects for Disney, Electronic Arts and an animated feature about Anne Frank.
www.androidblues.com

DAY THREE

Thursday 15 November

SPINNING A VFX WEB FOR SPIDER-MAN 3 9am

Peter Nofz

Discover how Imageworks produced fully articulated, performing CG characters entirely from dynamically generated particles and fluids for Spider-Man 3. These digital characters, which embodied key-framed performance animation, interacted with each other and with live-action characters in real and synthetic environments throughout the film. As digital effects supervisor on Spider-Man 3, Peter Nofz had primary responsibility for many astonishing effects including the creation of the alien symbiote, both in its sinister goo form and when it takes shape as the terrifying Venom. Nofz previously served as a CG supervisor on the Academy Award-winning film Spider-Man 2 as well as the Academy Award-nominated international hit Spider-Man. He joined Sony Pictures Imageworks in 1998 as a senior technical director on Stuart Little (1999) and Hollow Man (2000), both of which garnered Academy Award nominations for Best Visual Effects.

COOKING UP A 3D ERKY PERKY 10.30am

Peter Spinaze & Richard Geluk

Peter Spinaze (CG Supervisor for Erky Perk) and Richard Geluk (Technical Director at the LaB sydney) give a behind-the-scenes account of how the 'world of kitchen' comes to life on this Australian/Canadian 3D animated children series. This session will cover Pre-Production and Production with a focus on script writing for animation, the storyboarding process, character design, and in-depth summary of the production pipeline which allows for nearly 5 hours of animation to be created in under a year. The team will also discuss how these processes have been successfully utilized in several television commercials, including the recently completed Arnott's Colosseum TVC.

ANIMALIA ROARS ONTO AEAF PROGRAM 11.15am

Jami Levesque, CG Supervisor, Animalia Productions

Explore the making of Animalia, a 40x half-hour, high-end CGI animation series, at the Australian Effects & Animation Festival 2007. "Animalia is the most ambitious children's series ever produced in Australia", said Executive Producer, Ewan Burnett. "High quality CGI animation allows us to maintain the rich imagery and whimsical humour of Graeme Base's picture book, a perennial favourite with millions of children across the globe, while re-interpreting the world created in the book as a place of endless adventure and entertainment."
Network Ten is screening the locally produced children's television series based on Graeme Base's international best-selling picture book Animalia from November 11 at 12noon. With its principal computer animation based at Photon VFX at Warner Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast and additional animation produced at Digital Pictures Iloura in Melbourne, Animalia will showcase the work of over 300 local industry professionals and highlights Australia's burgeoning CGI industry.
Jami Levesque was responsible for Technical integration of production pipeline and establishment of proper workflow between Animalia Productions, Iloura and Photon VFX. He also designed and implemented the rendering solution for production efficacy and ability to deliver the desired look. Proir to coming to Australia for Animalia, Jami delivered six major feature film projects in less than two years as Director of Technology at Canada's Meteor Studios, including the Fantastic Four.
As Pipeline Advisor / Lead Technical Director he Oversaw project integration into Meteor’s CG Pipeline and was tasked with understanding the VFX Supervisor's vision and translating it into a workflow for Meteor. He also supervised Modeling, Texture Mapping, Shader Development, Layout, Matte Painting and all TDs work. His feature film credits include Elektra, Exorcist, The beginning, Catwoman and Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.
www.animalia.tv

MASTERCLASS: ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 12pm

John Dickinson

Get to grips with the latest release of this powerful program. Learn how to create compelling motion graphics and blockbuster visual effects and take advantage of integration with other Adobe software to lift your film, video, DVD, and Flash productions to the next level. Currently employed as a Senior Broadcast Designer at Foxtel, John designs and produces a wide range of broadcast graphics for various channels including The History Channel, The Biography Channel, Foxtel Box Office, Main Event Pay-Per-View and Fox Sports. Thorough industry-based experience includes a position at the Computer Graphics College as Interactive Video Production course manager and After Effects lecturer. John has a Certificate III in Work-based Training and has been teaching After Effects to individuals and groups for over 7 years. John is dedicated to excellence in motion graphics and is a contributing member of the global online motion graphics community. www.motionworks.com.au

LUNCH BREAK 1pm

ON A WAVE WITH SURF'S UP 2pm

Rob Bredow

This session will offer a detailed look at the making of the animated documentary Surf's Up and the live-action camera implementation, character animation, wave effects, and rendering techniques that contributed to the film's unique look and style. Rob Bredow was the visual effects supervisor on Surf's Up, the second all-CG feature length animated film from Sony Pictures Animation. He is an acknowledged expert in the field of effects animation, shading and rendering and has presented his work through various publications and conferences around the world. In 2004 he completed work on Robert Zemeckis' The Polar Express, supervising the hair, cloth and effect animation team as well as a number of sequences in the film. While at Imageworks, Bredow has been involved in creating many of the complex visual effects featured in Stuart Little 2, Cast Away and Academy Award-nominated Stuart Little. As a director of R&D at VisionArt he developed visual effects for the films Godzilla and Independence Day, among others.

BITING CREATURE EFFECTS FOR ROGUE 3.30pm

Andrew Hellen and Dave Morley

Follow from start to finish the creation of a fully CG giant croc that runs riot in Rogue, Director Greg Mclean’s follow-up movie to Wolf Creek. Fuel completed over 170 effects shots as the lead VFX vendor for Rogue. Dave's role as VFX Supervisor on Rogue was shared with fellow Fuel director and supervisor Andrew Hellen, and was responsible for developing the on-set technical surveying, overseeing the CG water development and, of course, the compositing process. Dave Morley spent a few months as a trainee 3D artist before moving on to compositing. He spent seven years at Garner MacLennan Design, advancing from a trainee compositor to a senior inferno artist. After leaving Garners he worked as a senior inferno artist on director Baz Luhrmann’s feature film Moulin Rouge and then joined Fuel as a company director and VFX Supervisor. Dave is a member of the Visual Effects Society and his other recent VFX Supervision credits include The Marine and Like Minds. Andrew Hellen was earning a living as an illustrator when the computer graphics industry was in its infancy. Attracted by the challenge of the new field, he trained himself in some of the earliest 3D packages and was part of the first wave of 3D artists working in Australia. Andrew was a senior 3D artist at Garner MacLennan Design for over eight years and contributed to many of the company’s award-winning commercials. Andrew is a member of the Visual Effects Society and recently acted as VFX Supervisor for See No Evil.

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