the fxphd deans blog

The fxphd silver car shot. Our PFTrack prof Victor Wolanksky calls it the most famous scene at fxphd. So it’s only appropriate that he’s using the shot as a guest lecturer for our advanced Flame course in a special two parter ending this week at fxphd. So you’ve seen the shot before? These classes just show how much you can make a shot your own….

In our previous PFTrack course, Victor showed how to accurately track the car and the scene for use in other applications. For the flame classes this term, he brought in the camera move and the tracked 3D car object in order to project textures such as the running stripes onto the car. He showed some nice workarounds for the fact that projectors also project onto the back of 3D objects. Of course, you don’t want to be doing photoreal rendering of 3D objects in flame’s Action, so the classes included 3DSMax renders (with associated passes) of an fxphd billboard, cones, concrete barriers, and car add-ons such as a new bumper, spoiler, and air intakes. They’re fun classes — thanks to Victor for contributing to the flame course.

One of the great things about all the traveling I did last year was having the ability to sit down with fxphd members all around the world and get their thoughts on the site and the industry in general. Because of the broad range of curriculum we have at the site, we have an even wider variety of members. When Mike, Jeff, and I were at Sundance last month we had the opportunity to meet up with member Anthony Young who owns Digital Bytes in nearby Salt Lake City. His company supplies production and post-production services to the region.

Young, who came from a background in broadcast television, has a wealth of experience in the industry. Keeping current on the full range of rapidly changing technology is difficult, which is what led him to fxphd. His company supplied the gear and crew for the AMC network’s tapings of Shootout at Sundance. They were set up in a restaurant-turned-studio right on Main Street in Park City where we had the opportunity to attend a taping with Jack Black and director Michel Gondry who were in town for the screeing of “Be Kind Rewind”…..
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Since fxphd is so much more than what Mike and I are up to, we thought we’d start highlighting some of the classes which are coming out each week. If you’re like us, even though you might no be taking a specific course, it’s fun to hear about what is going on in them.

One of our most popular offerings this term has been our After Effects motion graphics course, taught by Tim Clapham of hypa.tv in the UK. This week, Clapham looks at getting the most out of multipass 3D renders in AE. His work for The Discovery Channel UK provides a great real world example of rendered elements in 3D space, including using camera data and lights to add Particular and Trapcode to enhance the result. If you haven’t checked out the preview classes for AFX222, you should…..you’ll see why people are loving the classes so much.

As people who read this production blog know well, we like shooting with a wide variety of lenses, we want to be able to advise and train on a full range of shots - especially unusual cool setups!

Having been in production and on set for 20 years - I thought I could not really be surprised by a lens. But I laughed out loud when we fitted a T-REX to our RED this week for a fxphd RED class. I had used Century Periscope before but the T Rex is insane - it could turn 180 degrees back and film the red filming it !

The thing is a monster.
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Cool !
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The Independently produced short film I Love Sarah Jane, has been awarded the Prix Canal at this years Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival.

I Love Sarah Jane screened in the International Competition section of the festival, competing with over 70 short films from around the globe. This was the second international screening of the film, following its selection in the shorts competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
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I walked into the area we were scheduled to shoot in and my first reaction was - no way. NO way did we have enough light to see yet alone shoot!

The plan had been to do a low light test with the RED as part of the RED 202 course.We set up our RED and we literally could see nothing on the LCD - I mean we could not even focus. Luckily Jimmy had a pen torch on his key ring, with ONE LCD, run off a single AAA battery. We pointed it in the near dark at the animal we assumed was in front of us, turned the camera to 2000 ASA, took off any shutter, swapped to the fastest lens we had, and by some miracle we could film.

I mean I thought there was no chance at all of getting anything meaningful. Sure the image is noisy and grainy, but still - being able to film in near dark with a pencil torch - amazingly cool.

Today as part of our continuing set of Red shoots for the fxphd - we took to the air. We rigged the Red so we could fly and film freestyle out the side of chopper - as you can see in the photo, I just had the Red One on my shoulder. We figured this would be a good test for the new RED drive. The vibration, wind and dust of the Alice as seen from the air should put any portable hard drive to the test and that was very true today. Thankfully my shoulder had improved enough from the end of last year that I could operate. This area around Alice Springs is so amazing - dramatic and timeless and it was pure joy to photography it from the air today.

We have more shoots planned - wildlife, highspeed and also some plate photography work to allow some insanely cool classes next term. Footage from today will be available as both image sequences and .r3d files to fxphd members.

Mike - Hot and happy in the Northern Territory !

Today we are in Central Australia this week filming for future fxphd classes. We did time-lapse, and mini-gib arm nature shots. The center is so hot this time of year, but even more beautiful. The red earth against the blue sky is just amazing.

We found this beautiful watering hole in the desert. It was the closest thing I’ll ever see to a real work oasis. And after the shoot - I went swimming - and it was really cold about 4 feet below the surface, even with it being about 35C on waters edge.