No, there is another: Other vfx companies and general discussion thread

@ShaneP: I am going to see avatar, hadn`t time yet and we only have two IMAX cinemas here in Austria. And this is the format it`s meant to be seen!
Cameron is considering a 3-D version on blu-ray:
http://www.awn.com/articles/3d/cameron-geeks-out-avatar/page/5%2C1

If ILM would have got the job back in early 2007, they would have canceled other projects in favor of Avatar (of course Indy IV is the exception).
Or perhaps they could have made all 2008/2009 films they did aswell.
Because in each prequel-year (each of which had as many or even more vfx-shots) they did other big shows aswell. But perhaps they aren´t that big anymore concerning manpower (that´s only speculation).

And one question concerning academy awards for best vfx: I know that people and not companies get the award, but would John Knoll als ILM supervisor also get the Oscar (because ILM only did 250 shots, about 8 percent of the mere shot count), or would it only be Joe Letteri?

One last question: Are there any SW-references or eastereggs in Avatar (like R2 in Star Trek or Transformers 2) to look for?

Greetings
Kaero

P.S.: I wish all of you a happy new year!

 

I haven't heard of any Easter eggs in Avatar but there might well be some.

By the way, the Avatar proof of concept test was also supervised by Dennis Muren according to Cinefex. Eric Brevig mentioned in the Cinefex interview with him how he was involved too so maybe they split the role or shared the duty?

Also, ILM animator Paul Kavanaugh did a separate motion test for Cameron to show how six-legged animals could move effectively.
Based on that test, Cameron turned all of his animals into six-legged ones.

 

And then there were seven:

Here's the list of seven fx films vying for the 3 vfx nomination spots:

Transformers 2
Terminator Salvation
2012
Harry Potter
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

Thanks to vfxblog.com for the notice.

edit

Here's a link to the Oscar press release, including dates when the vfx bake-off will take place to take the 7 and make them 3. vfx Bake-off list

 

Finally I have seen Avatar. Good film, not great and not Camerons best work, effects were great!

Really hard to only have 3 nomination spots in this category (I really hope the academy will expand it to 5 slots in the near future).

I think Avatar, Transformers 2 and 2012 will get the nomination (I feel sorry for Star Trek, great film with very good effects).

And perhaps we get a surprise like when Golden Compass won over Transformers (or ROTS not nominated).

 

i see ILM as the mother of special effects and all other effects companys are her children and like all good mothers ILM will help her children {like ilm helping weta on avatar} and also like all good mothers she dosent care if her children do better than her or worse

 

Does anyone know the approximate vfx-shots number of Avatar?
Cause I read somewhere (don`t know where) the number would be at pretty exactly 2000. So that would mean that concerning the mere shot count, Avatar has a few more vfx-shots than the 10 year older TPM? AOTC and ROTS would still have more shots. Is ROTS still the movie with the most vfx-shots? +
Of course I know that you can`t properly compare effects on movies based on only the shot-count. But I´m just curious whether ROTS is still the king in this category.

 

I think Weta did about 1800 shots for Avatar with the other houses doing another 500 or so.

I can't remember how many ROTS had.

 

Found something interesting:
With today?s eventful release of Star Wars: Episode III ? Revenge of the Sith (through Twentieth Century Fox), that revolution has set a new benchmark, witness the stunning CGI on display, comprising 2,151 vfx shots (of which 1,269 are animated). That compares with 2,000 vfx shots in Attack of the Clones and 1,980 vfx shots in The Phantom Menace. In terms of overall animation, Revenge of the Sith contains 90 minutes vs. 70 minutes in Attack of the Clones and 60 minutes in The Phantom Menace. With nearly 800 CGI characters and 50 3D environments, that?s more than most animated features!

Source: http://www.awn.com/articles/production/irevenge-sithi-part-1-circle-now-complete

I try to find the shot count for Avatar.

 

Visual Effects Society has announced their nominees for their annual awards:

Here's the list: VES Nominees list

ILM had some love for Trek, Transformers 2, and Terminator Salvation as well as a few nominations for their work in Avatar.

ILM's work in Avatar was niminated in the Best Compositing section for their work on the end battle. They were also nominated for Best Single VFX of the Year for the scene where Quaritch drops out of his ship in the AMP suit.

Congrats to ILM.

Thx to ILMfx for the link to THR.

 

I just found out a rough number on the overal vfx-shots for Avatar:
"Of the 162 minutes of film, 117 minutes equaling 1,832 shots was created by Weta's angels, over 2,000 if you count the omits." (source: http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=5434)

So I think ROTS is dethroned in this matter.

Concerning the VES-awards: No surprise Avatar ruled. I´m glad for Star Trek. I`m also surprised but glad that Knowing got a nod for Best single visual effect of the year (the plane crash), that was an eye-catcher and one of the best crash-scenes I have seen in a long time.

 

The plane crash was amazing. I didn't care much for the film itself(the ending: what the hell?)

 

I can't remember my particular feelings on the crash itself, but I thought the effects afterward of the wreckage were horrible. All the fire looked terribly fake.

 

I do remember the flames looking pretty synthetic too. But the approach and crash itself were amazing.

 

What helped the CG Arnie was the fact they used an actual bodybuilder for the body and the lighting and editing worked. If anything it looked a lot like a Winston mask, I wished they had tried a bit more animating the face.

As far as Avatar, ILM also worked with Rob Legato helping develop the 3D stereo system (I think specifically the camera system). This was maybe 3 or 4 years ago, very early in preproduction.

As far as doing tests that greenlit a project and not getting it, I wouldn't say it's common but it has happened to ILM a few times. One recent example was Speed Racer (John Knoll talked about this a couple SIGGRAPH's ago). ILM did all the initial look development for Speed Racer. I'm guessing Kim Libreri then took the project to Digital Domain. Anyway the studio thought it might be cheaper and quicker to farm out work to several smaller houses, apart from DD. But alas in the end they ended up giving ILM a 911 to finish one of the sequences (and as far as I remeber the film went way overbudget anyway). I know of another case but I'm not sure if I'm at liberty to mention it (even though it's over 6 years ago). As far as I heard ILM does a lot tests.

Back then I also heard rumblings that part of th decission came down to cost, but who knows for sure.

 

They would never cancel other projects, that would be a breach of contract, probably with penalties besides ruining their reputation. Worst case you hire more project specific artists and also farm out. As far as manpower, ILM is a bit smaller now than it was at the height of the prequels and after moving to the Presidio.

Well, we'll have to hypnotize Richard Edlund. Many years ago he said it was perfectly fine to have only 3 nominations for VFX, because they aren't "pervasive" enough.

I think your list is spot on (just a few more hours till the announcement. Star Trek is also my alternate, especially for the art direction (District 9 as well had great VFX art direction), but the scale of 2012 and Transformers 2 were breathtaking.

 

Yeah the ending of the movie didn't make any sense with hte first part of the movie. It was like 2 different movies akwardly joined. The crash was fantastic (and yes the comped flames in the wreckage afterwards were so-so). The other part I liked was the final city shots seeing the buildings vaporized, and thank goodness they cut those shots of people trying to outrun it ala ID4 (it was in one of the TV spots). And could we have Rose Byrne have a diffent fate in movies ;-).

The only thing is that Moon didn't get recognized anywhere, it had some amazing miniature and comp work, and a great little film.

 

Now I am curious about this project 6 years ago!!!

So ILM does a lot of tests. I understand this.
What I don`t understand in some cases, when a film needs a lot of r&d or generally a lot of work and a big fx house like ILM does the tests, why would they farm it out to smaller companies?
Because the smaller companies are perhaps not capable of doing the show. Or they would have to start r&d after they get hired.
It would be more logical to hire the house which already did some of the r&d for the tests. And it would be cheaper because some of the r&d work has already been done.

Concerning the oscar nominees:
Avatar was a sure thing. I´m happy Trek and District 9 got nominated! Perhaps I belong to a minority, but I liked the latter two better than Avatar. Concerning VFX I don´t think Avatar will get snubbed (I was thinking that some time ago) like for example Transformers 1.
Does anyone know for which films Skywalker Sound has been nominated? I think Avatar for sound mixing and Avatar and Up for sound editing.
I thought Basterds, Star Trek and Transformers 2 were also Skywalker Sound films?

 

Projects given to a large amount of smaller companies are usually because of cost, and not putting all your eggs in one basket. For big projects where R&D, tests and look development is involved, yes usually at least one big company gets the important VFX sequences. Think of Perfect Storm, The Mummy or like the previous post, Speed Racer. Even on those cases work is usually farmed out anyway to smaller companies. They usually take care or things like comps and cleanup, say for example replacing computer monitors, sky replacements, backgrounds, etc. Sometimes that work can be quite extensive. It happens all the time.

The problem nowadays is that with compressed schedules shots have to be farmed out at the last min. and ILM gets a lot of those 911 calls. There have been cases where ILM bid on a project, didn't get it because of cost concerns and then later gets the 911 which many times pushes the budget above what ILM bid on. Sad and funny at the same time, but hey if studios want to waste money...

 

That did happen on Master and Commander for one.

 

Finally found a number concerning the vfx-shots on Avatar.
"-There were 42 CG shots in Terminator 2, which forced a merge of computer effects and Stan Winston?s mechanical work. Compare that with Avatar, which was 2600 CG shots."
(source: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43908)

So how trustworthy can this number be (concerning the source is aintitcool)?

 

A better source for shot numbers are magazines like Cinefex, CGW and 3D World. I wouldn't call AICN the most accurate source but being an event report... But that number sounds about right. Consider that the prequels had about 2000+ shots for a 2-2:15 hour movie, so that works about 1000 shots per hours for a full VFX movie. So 2600 for Avatar sounds about right.

What I find interesting are comments that 2/3 of the budget went to VFX.

 

That´s really interesting. If I remember correctly on Ang Lees Hulk Muren states in a documentary (special collectors edition) that 100 VFX-shots would cost 10 million dollars.
In another interview George Lucas said that the vfx on TPM did cost 60 million (overall prodduction budget was 115 million).

But 2/3 would really big. I mean they did also a lot fo r&d on TPM.
On the other side, ILM would charge more on a non-Lucas-movie.

Of course these were other times then (Hulk 2003, TPM 1999). I was always wondering if 10 million per 100 vfx-shots was some kind of guidline for ILM. Which would be strange. Because I would think that not the number of shots is important but the nature of work. Sky-replacement or digital set-extensions in 100 shots might be less work than character-animation in let`s say 40 shots (assuming it`s key-frame animation).

Where did you read the numbers of the Avatar-vfx-budget malducin?

 

Yep, cleanup work on 100 shots would be much less than full blown CG work (animated characters, etc.). That's why you sometimes see ILM working on these small projects, usually just a handfull of credited people. Touching Home and Twilight come to mind from the last few years.

About Avatar's VFX budget,it was mentioned in CGTalk, I believe in the thread about a letter complaning against Cameron. Paul Franklin of Double Negative mentioned it, though even though they didn't work on the film, probably is better informed than most.

 

I could see 2/3rds of the budget going towards vfx, or vfx-related development.

I mean look at how the film was visualised, shot, posted out, etc. The new virtual camera stuff and all the mo-cap work. I can easily see most of the budget going for that.

 

Congratulations to Avatar for winning best vfx at the BAFTAs.