How did it feel to win a VFX award and how did it impact your future direction in the VFX industry?
WE: Anytime you work to achieve something through good honest work, its natural to feel really good when that work has translated into a great result. A result that garners the recognition of the VFX community is above and beyond. So it was a thrill to receive the VES award and a thrill for everyone involved, since it was a great team of people who worked together with a lot of effort and dedication to create the end result. As far as how the VES award will impact my career, I can't say directly, but I can hope that it will lead to more creative opportunities on exciting and innovative projects.
Can you share with us more detail on the work that went on behind the scenes in order to make the U2 video a reality? I mean, not just the 'VFX' work but the on-the-scene and job related stress that come from working on a mega-video for U2 and the solutions you had to come up with in order to make it a award winning reality!
WE: The work we did for the U2 project was very much a culmination of a certain quality work and level of organization that we had been developing at Sway over time. In that sense what enabled us to succeed as we did was very much related to preparation. The stress wasn't so much stress, but was rather translated into focus. We were a very focused team and underneath the focus was an excitement to be working on not only a U2 video with a great director in Chris Milk, but also working on a project that carried a social and political message that we all felt a little something for. Those aspects of the job fueled us more. We did develop some innovative techniques during the production which was especially satisfying to see them come off successfully.
How much creative input do you usually get on a project like this one? Does the director usually have a very clear idea of what they want, or are you able to make suggestions for the shots?
WE: Chris Milk usually has a very clear idea of what he wants - which was very good for us on a project that had a tight schedule, since then we could far more directly work toward developing the finished product. When a director isn't quite sure what he wants one the other hand, that can also be an opportunity to take the lead for the look and feel, but offering options takes more time. Again though, Chris was admirably clear about what he wanted.
For example, he provided some excellent and quite specific reference for the way he wanted the water to be displaced by the tanks moving through the flooded streets. The lingering white water residue formed by the turbulence was far from just fractal noise, but had specific gathering, branching and blending fluid dynamic characteristics. It was a challenge I ended up relishing, since I was able to utilize – through minor modification – some very specific creative methodologies I had developed using RealFlow. Essentially, these methodologies provided a set of 'tools' enabling us to achieve the effects with great realism.
Approximately how many shots did you complete for the U2 video, and which sequences were you responsible for? How many artists were involved?
WE: There were well over twenty shots requiring a high level of photo-realistic detail and some with high degrees of sophistication that all needed to be produced in a little over two weeks. We were responsible for every shot in the video that required a visual effect. We had a team of fourteen artists including compositing.
On a job like this where you have to do a lot of 3D and 2D in house, how do you manage the interaction between the different teams and people involved?
WE: Much has to do with a clearly defined and establish pipeline of communication in relation to the status of elements, which was in part for us an established protocol involving intranet/email. We also had many reviews, some improvised and many which were managed by the coordinators.
What 3d tools did you use and what did you learn as a part of having to create 'truly' photo-realistic models and having to seamlessly integrate them into a real world environment?
WE: We used 3ds Max with Vray along with Real Flow for fluid dynamics. We used predominantly Nuke and Flame for compositing with some additional After Effects work. Much has to do with texturing/surfacing level of detail and lighting when it comes to photo-realism, given that the model and motion are where they need to be. We also did some additional video artifact processing to our 3d elements in comp to help them appear to naturally belong in the news footage.
When it comes to the compositing tools you used on the video, you mentioned nuke and flame - can you tell us more about what you used nuke for vs what you used flame for and how the different tools balanced your workflow?
WE: We used nuke to pre-comp shots and also comp them through to being fully integrated shots in a close to if not final state. We would then hand off to Flame a specific set of 3d elements from the Nuke comp that our Flame artist could work with, in order to have enough control over the shot so that the director could make subtle adjustments to his liking.
How many artists were involved on an average shot? What was the average time spent on a composite?
WE: Since we had specific teams fulfilling different functions, the average shot saw at least three different artists including compositing. There were a couple of shots that looked so good out of the 3d render, that they hardly needed touching in comp. In the close up helicopter shot, the helicopter did not get touched at all in comp, which we were all really impressed by. Other shots had up to six artists involved due to their complexity.
What was the major challenge in integrating the CG elements into the news footage? Did you take any special approaches, such as 2D relighting?
WE: The lighting and surfacing played a key role. We used post processing to match the look and feel of the video artifacts associated with the news footage. We always look to produce 3d elements that need very little tweaking on the composite side. Nuke provides some 2d relighting tools we utilize on occasion, and which are apparently going to be evolving considerably. We also use 2d relighting tools in After Effects in our fast evolving motion graphics department.
What kind of info did you get from set for the U2 video? HDR? What resolution were you working at and what bit-depth were you working at? I mean, are you working at really high bit-depths on a project like this?
WE: Overall there was no set, since all the action took place 'within' the original news footage. There were a couple of exceptions that were shot locally in the Los Angeles area for which we did capture an HDRI. The project was rendered in standard NTSC format and all our elements were created in exr format. We almost always use exr format for our compositing pipeline.
Were there any unexpected hurdles that you encountered, and did you ever find any interesting 2D solutions to get around them?
WE: There was a degree of realism that we wanted to address when it came to the Real Flow Waves we generated from the tanks movement through the flooded streets. We really wanted them to look as though they were reflecting the local environment in an accurate way. One of our programmers came up with an ingenious way to do this by calculating a way for the visual information of the video footage, to be projected accurately onto a virtual invisible dome so that the waves reflections would appear to be accurately reflecting the environment local to the wave.
What was by the far the biggest challenge in term of visual effects in the video, and how did you overcome them? Was there a different treatment? A new technique? Which sequence was the hardest to work on, and why?
WE: Getting all the shots done within the very short production schedule with the degree of quality we and the director wanted the shots to have, was by far the biggest challenge overall. Each shot had its own characteristic difficulty most essentially being the photo-realism required for each shot. There were some specifically challenging tasks though, such as the full frame look at the soft body dynamics of a parachute landing on top its attached cargo splashing into water beneath it. Another example of a real challenge given our close proximity, were the interaction of waves and white water wakes of the tanks moving through he flooded streets.
What was unique about working on the U2 video that set it aside from other jobs you have worked on?
WE: The U2 video had a certain purpose and intent behind it that set it apart in a certain way from other projects I have worked on. In a word, we knew Bono was depending on us to deliver a result that would render the video as believable and therefore effective. Given the social and political message U2 and Green Day were seeking to make through the video, in addition to what it was saying to and for the people of New Orleans in the face of the current administrations staggering lack of ethical response to Hurricane Katrina, it was an honor to be a part of that cause. We also knew that on certain days they would be looking at our dailies offsite -which was great to know. From what we heard back, they we're extremely happy with the outcome of the video.