History 3
Less than a month after graduating from university, I started work at Double Negative as a matchmove artist. There really wasn't much hope of securing work as an animator straight out of school, for those jobs are few and far between, and of course people with experience will always be taken on first.
Matchmoving is generally seen as a good entry position into the VFX industry. It requires a fair amount of technical skill to do the job well, and thus is usually given to promising new hires to see how they cope with things.
What is matchmoving, you ask? Well, the job is mostly concerned with how CG elements are integrated into live-action background plates, (or vice versa). Tracking points are placed on the filmed footage, and their X/Y co-ordinates are tracked for the duration of the shot. These are then plugged in software that can, given some information about the shooting environment, extrapolate a virtual camera that mimics the one used to film the shot.
If this works, the camera can be exported into 3D software, and a scene set up for the artist to add CG elements into.
It's a bit of a hit-or-miss process, for if one thing doesn't work, then other approaches can be used, right the way down to approximating the camera frame-by-frame, by hand. I was fortunate to learn from some really cool people, and so was able to settle in reasonably quickly, to start working on "Tomb Raider 2".
I had lots of fun at Double Negative - my peers were a close bunch, and everyone would head across the road to the pub at every opportunity. (I believe it still happens to this day.)
About six months in though, and just as I'm about to be given some more animatey things to do, I receive a transatlantic call from PDI. Would I be interested in coming over to California to work on Shrek 2?
At first, this scared the hell out of me. Living away from family in London is one thing, but the west coast of the US slightly further away.
In the end, after umming and ahhing over it for a week. I accepted the job. It was my parents who encouraged me to go, pointing out that this kind of opportunity doesn't come around all that often.
So yeah, there you have it. That brings us up to about 18 months ago. It was crappy making the move, what with all of the bureaucracy and all, but I am grateful to my parents for the kick up the behind.
It's all good, really. I'm sure this story isn't unique, and will most likely be repeated by others in due course. At least it shows it can happen, right?
Matchmoving is generally seen as a good entry position into the VFX industry. It requires a fair amount of technical skill to do the job well, and thus is usually given to promising new hires to see how they cope with things.
What is matchmoving, you ask? Well, the job is mostly concerned with how CG elements are integrated into live-action background plates, (or vice versa). Tracking points are placed on the filmed footage, and their X/Y co-ordinates are tracked for the duration of the shot. These are then plugged in software that can, given some information about the shooting environment, extrapolate a virtual camera that mimics the one used to film the shot.
If this works, the camera can be exported into 3D software, and a scene set up for the artist to add CG elements into.
It's a bit of a hit-or-miss process, for if one thing doesn't work, then other approaches can be used, right the way down to approximating the camera frame-by-frame, by hand. I was fortunate to learn from some really cool people, and so was able to settle in reasonably quickly, to start working on "Tomb Raider 2".
I had lots of fun at Double Negative - my peers were a close bunch, and everyone would head across the road to the pub at every opportunity. (I believe it still happens to this day.)
About six months in though, and just as I'm about to be given some more animatey things to do, I receive a transatlantic call from PDI. Would I be interested in coming over to California to work on Shrek 2?
At first, this scared the hell out of me. Living away from family in London is one thing, but the west coast of the US slightly further away.
In the end, after umming and ahhing over it for a week. I accepted the job. It was my parents who encouraged me to go, pointing out that this kind of opportunity doesn't come around all that often.
So yeah, there you have it. That brings us up to about 18 months ago. It was crappy making the move, what with all of the bureaucracy and all, but I am grateful to my parents for the kick up the behind.
It's all good, really. I'm sure this story isn't unique, and will most likely be repeated by others in due course. At least it shows it can happen, right?
posted by Kevan at
7/01/2005 11:31:00 AM
2 Comments:
Hi Kevan, I've been a lurker for some time and reading your posts, thanks a lot for sharing all this great insights about animation with all of us.
I was wondering, how did PDI come to know about you before they gave you the historic call? did you send your reel to them, or did they see your films online? or..?
thanks again and keep up the great blog!
-Kaveh (it rhymes with Ave, you know, like the song Ave Maria)
:)
By
kr, at 7:30 AM
Hi,
A-Ha! I wrote about that in the "History" posts. Have a looky, and if you have any more questions, let me know!
: )
By
Kevan, at 9:22 AM
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