the fxphd deans blog

Those of you who know Mike and I — or who listen to our podcasts — know that I’m generally a bit more reserved than Mike is when it comes to talking about what we are doing and how cool it is. Ok…fair enough…a lot more reserved. To this end, I want you to know: this is me being excited…..

Wow! (note the exclamation point — I *never* use them) I’m really, really excited about the masters of the craft series we’re starting up later this week on fxguidetv. We’ve assembled a stellar lineup of the top vfx supervisors in our industry to tell us about themselves — learn about them and not just talk about the latest film they’ve been working on.

But where it gets really cool (note the bold type of excitement) is that this leads into one of the best offerings ever at phd this term — our new Background Fundamentals vfx supervisor course. Mike’s Background course is always great, but this term he’ll be walking through what it takes to be a vfx supe…and supporting him will be discussions from these masters. This is stuff you won’t get from fxguidetv…and information that will be incredibly useful to you on the job. Check out the course information page for an outline of the course…and remember: this is a course that everyone who is a member of fxphd will get. How cool is that?

Really — to coin my friend’s phrase — it’s gonna be a cracker.

So I have a confession. One of the best parts of our job here at fxphd is to do stuff that we have just wanted to do for years but never had a client or a budget or a project that allowed it. One such thing is cloud tanks. I just like cloud tanks. So this week we started our first tests with them. Some — not all — but some of this work will be in next term’s fxphd courses and some will appear in Jan 09.

Now I need your help dear fxreaders. We have to work out how to do layers in the water, an old school technique of having different levels of density to the water by having salt layers. The theory is something to do with having different mixes of salt water in a still tank and then this acts as a buffer for the expanding cloud tank primary - in our case liquid latex. I know out there some of your will know of a DVD extra or an article or book that explains this, for me googling salt water cloud tank inversion did not get me much - I did find this on the Raider of the Lost Ark site:
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Over the years at fxguide and simply in my professional life, I really enjoyed seeking out information and educating myself about visual effects and motion graphics design. I guess that’s one of the things about being so into what one does for a living — finding that kind of research fun.

But I have to say, the scope of things I track has broadened considerably in the years since we started fxphd. While I’m still doing production in vfx and graphics, I’ve added a whole new range of subjects related to the web and desktop to my daily bookmarks folder. How to make a site more Google friendly, php programming, web site design, technology behind torrents, and more. One example is screen capture software…..
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Ok I know this sounds like a line but….

We are just finishing the term at fxphd and at the end of the month we announce the Oct 08 term. It is about now that I start to get really worried about the matching what we have done in the past at fxphd. Do we have anything ? Do we have enough ? I start to get twitchy and the then down right nervous. I mean … do we have it - in terms of new courses and cool stuff?

But not for next term ! - No NEXT term is looking mind expandingly cool - it is for the term AFTER next. I swear this is true: I live with this fear of how will we come up with cool new stuff to blow everyone’s mind… but not for next term - we have been working on those courses for months,…
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I got bored a while ago with my stable of standard podcasts and sources. There is nothing wrong with the normal set of podcasts on my ipod, but after a while… well you know. I had fallen into a trap of not having time to go off the beaten track and do some exploring - so I did.

Maybe you have some other great stuff you’d like to share? In which case I’d love to hear it but here is my criteria:
- professional or related to the industry
- not aimed at the college humour crowd.
- not stupid or involving cats

I wanted stuff that informed me and illuminated me on some area I did not know…

This is what I came up with…
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As we get to the end of the successful July08 term, we’ll be closing registration for the term later this week. If you’re interested in one of the offerings we’ve got going this term, this may be your last chance in a while to take the course. Check the curriculum grid to see when and/or if a particular course is planned for a repeat.

Jeff Heusser was in Chicago this weekend and he took advantage of the travel to drop by the fxphd loft and record a segment for this term’s smoke course being taught by Chris Kreynus. We’ve wanted to get Jeff included into some of our classes, and covering an introduction to logarithmic workflow was a great opportunity to do so. Meanwhile, I’m packing up for visiting Europe this week in anticipation of the IBC convention in Amsterdam. We’ll be doing several fxguidetv eps from there next week as well has holding an fxphd meetup. Back to packing….

No rest for the weary, as break week is a bit of misnomer for the “behind the curtains” part of fxphd. In reality, it is an incredibly busy week and a key chance to get to some mid-term sysadmin work done, start firming up the October08 term courses, re-doing the fxphd tour movie, and planning the next 5 weeks of classes.

We made some under the hood web changes this week with an improved torrent mechanism and an even clearer display of the class schedule for members. Those are things we don’t want to do in the thick of a new term, as even a misplaced quote mark can wreak havoc on our torrents and files. With over 6TB transferred per month…..changes aren’t something we take lightly. Here at the loft, fxphd and Hootenanny added a new XServe, LTO-4 and external 12 drive RAID to handle all our assets…even that takes some time to set up.

David Hamner has started as an intern at the Chicago loft and has been a great help in getting things done. He’s ramping up to speed on filming with our fxphd workhorse the HVX200 and diving head first into brushing up on Final Cut Pro and learning all of our compression/distribution scripts. Having David around will free up Mark Dascoli to make even more improvements on the site and provide better support to our members. Though I have to say — Mark already gets huge props from members for his attention to detail and responsiveness. We might not do everything right, but almost everyone seems to feel we’re there to help people out when things go wrong.

Thanks to our friends at Pixar we got to go to the Sydney opening of WallE today. With Director Andrew Stanton and Sound Guru Ben Burtt, … oh and WallE himself. Thanks to a team of 6 Disney imagineers, a fully robotic WallE greeted guests and posed for photos.

While introducing the film, Ben Burtt explained how it was actually his voice that is processed for the famous voice of Wall E and how he used vacuum cleaners and house hold items to produce the sounds of the robots. Burtt joked that he knew of no other artists who did his rather specialized job of designing robot sounds. Stanton remarked that he grew up inspired by ScFi films - many of which Ben Burtt had worked on: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ET etc.

One man’s personal view from the fxphd loft:
For once the highlight of the show was easy: The barcamp on the roof at sunset. What a great night and a great group of people. We had a great turn out and a fun night. I had to dart off to a meeting backstage at the Jim Cameron /Stan Winston deal, but I managed to find the party later in Korean town. I was struck as I know John and Jeff were by what a great bunch of talented and fun people are in fxphd - it is an honor to serve in such company.

Tech highlights for me personally: I loved speaking to people I respect like (in no order) Per H. Christensen, John Knoll, Scott Squires, John Dykstra, Mike Fink, Ben Grossmann, Kim Libreri, Ian Hunter, Ed Catmull, Tim Sarnoff, Pablo Helman, Matthew Gratzner, Mark Stasiuk, Ron Brinkman,… who did I miss ??…

Of course, as always I was humbled to be working alongside John and Jeff - who are both so talented and so amazingly hardworking. It is truly hard work at a show like Siggraph but such a great honor to hang with our team for now nearly ten years, I am blessed to call them friends- yet alone partners… Special thanks to Matt Graham who worked day and night doing producing, filming, editing and never once complained. To Jimmy and Mark who backed us up. To all the people who helped, off sided, acted as cameraman & women, runners and friends -thanks for making this trip so brilliant - I must fly - literally I am at LAX but thank you so much.

We arrived in LA yesterday - we had a great afternoon at Third Floor and then headed downtown to what will be the home of fxphd for the next week, our apartment studio, or the ‘fxphd loft’. We will have two camera crews doing interviews for 8 days solid at Siggraph, starting Sunday with Mental Images in a discussion for BKD on car finishes in Mental Ray. Our Studio is roof top just near the convention centre, and it will also be home to this years Siggraph fxphd bar camp party.
If you want to follow the latest press releases and blow by blow of Siggraph you can follow us on twitter
www.twitter.com/mikeseymour and
www.twitter.com/johnmontfx