FMX 2010 + update

Good Evening,

Long time since I updated. First off, is a report of my experience of FMX 2010 in Stuttgart, Germany, which I came home from this Saturday.

For starters, FMX is a conference aimed for the visual effects industry, simply put, for the guys who make all the cool stuff you watch at the cinemas. And me, who loves that stuff. It was a week filled with interesting events and masterclasses, boring weather and “networking”.

For my own personal pleasure, I will now list all the things I went to see:

Day 1, Tuesday:

2012 Tidal Wave Sequences – Thomas Zauner – Scanline

A talk about the sequence where the tidal wave sweeps over the airport in the mountains in the end of the film, where you can see the Airforce One among other planes. Really epic stuff, talking about the workflow and how they developed the shot.

Recruiting Presentation – Framestore, Blue Sky Studios, MPC

Went to a lot of these, where the companies told us what they wanted from the people they employ. In the reels, what vacancies they currently had and so on.

Recruiting Presentation – Animal Logic, rise | visual effects, Mackevision, Lucasfilm

35 Years of ILM – Lynwen Brennan – ILM

She talked about all the amazing work they’ve been doing since the start of  the company.

Alice in Wonderland – Ken Ralston, David Schaub – Sony Pictures Imageworks

They talked a lot about the fx work on the film, showed breakdowns and so on, really nice.

Shelley’s Eye Candy Show – Shelley Page – DreamWorks

She showed her favourite CG pieces that had been released recently, really inspiring work.

Day 2, Wednesday:

Recruiting Presentation – Trixter Film, Ubisoft Studios, The Mill

Visualization in the VFX Production – Kevin Tod Haug, Ron Frankel

Talk about how they can show the backplates and such to the people on set, in real time.

Recruiting Presentation – DreamWorks

SideFX – Go Procedural With Houdini – Jeff Wagner

A quick walkthrough of the workflow in Houdini. Really cool stuff!

“Shutter Island” VFX – Ben Grossman – The Syndicate / Cafe FX

A walkthrough of a lot of the matte work and model work in the film. I really like the whole model making process in movies, something that isn’t as widely used anymore due to us 3d people..

Next Limit Tech – New Dynamics and Fluids in RealFlow 5 – Florian Koebisch

A demonstration of some of the new features in RealFlow 5. Looks good, but didn’t impress too much. They had some trouble with the machines so we never really got to see it simulate anything really fat.

Day 3, Thursday

Recruiting Presentation – Double Negative, Red Vision, MPC

Recruiting Presentation – Sony Imageworks, Blue Sky Studios, Cinesite

Building Pipelines – Hannes Ricklefs – MPC

A walkthrough of the pipeline at MPC, very impressive.

The Making of “Avatar” – Joe Letteri

A talk about the work on Avatar, breakdowns and so on.

Day 4, Friday

Procedural FX Pipeline – Mohsen Mousavi – Pixomondo

They talked a lot about their work on different films, such as Ninja Assassin and the awesome blood effects they had there. 99% of it done in RealFlow btw.

VFX of Iron Man 2 – Ben Snow, Mohen Leo – ILM

Breakdowns here as well, really awesome stuff. Downey JR. rocks btw.

The Tornado Speaks – Don Marinelli – ETC, Carnegie Mellon University

A professor and a great, talented speaker. Really motivating and awesome guy. He talked about the industry overall and his unique school concept.

The Visual Effects of “Avatar” – Paul Kavanagh – ILM

More Avatar goodness.

“Avatar” – Layout – Shawn Dunn – Weta

Even more Avatar, talking about Weta’s own workflows and systems for producing the movie.

Learning the Weta Way – John Bruno

A guy who worked close to James Cameron on Avatar, talked about how he got integrated within Weta.

AAAND that was it! Extremely interesting and inspirational. You need that sometimes when working in this business since it can easily feel like every day is the same, as in any other business I guess..

Apart from FMX here’s some other news:

I’ve gotten some freelance work now and I can’t talk too much about it, but it will be posted here when it’s done. I’m also getting my next diving certificate soon! Advanced Open Water Diver! After that, I’m going to the Sweden Rock Festival and I will spend the rest of my vacation getting my drivers license. The summer is filled with awesome stuff, maybe more on that later