Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1495092
the real creative part of filmmaking is the planning of it. The rest is merely assembly. Nonetheless, much can go wrong during fabrication if you don't plan ahead. This is why I feel that formulating a movie, especially the concept, through the process of previsualization is the single most important step in making any film. I use a rendering technique I refer to hyper-realistic digital 3D, because I think it arms the filmmaker with invaluable information. Though I use this technique to help directors visualize their projects, I find it is also helpful for other departments, such the camera and the Art Department. For instance, it's a great tool to help Production Designers explore which color works best for the set or location under a particular circumstance. We are fortunate to live in an age where the technology allows us to look into all of our creative options before we "put it on film." Hitchcock didn't have these tools. One could only imagine what he might have done if he had. Matt Cunningham Once upon a time in Little Tokyo, prior to Disney's buyout of Fox, there was a very unique project underway at the Fox VFX Labs, a specialty production studio, housing a tremendous number of in-house previs talent, and the usual ensemble cast of Local 800 Art Department members, production assistants and the occasional malcontent wielding an excel sheet. Two floors, with the most elaborate espresso machine you've ever seen in an Art Department, housing a dedicated VFX team on the ground floor, and the Art Department du jour on the second-floor mezzanine, with a grand view of the expansive warehouse-like stage on the ground floor, a large portion of which was comprised of a series of Tetris-esque interlocking blocks, which simulated various terrain elevations, enabling a one-to-one relationship with elevation changes in the previsualization models, which had been incorporated into Unreal Engine. The preproduction pipeline was unique, in that live-action actors in motion capture suits, including a mocap golden retriever, were mapped to rigged 3D character models visible in real-time, through the director's virtual camera, enabling substantial changes on the fly to both the action, set and camera angle. The production was an adaptation of the popular graphic novel Mouse Guard, which reads like a blend between Watership Down, The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, featuring as you could guess, anthropoid mice, engaged in a grand, oftentimes violent adventures at the scale of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I was hired by Production Designer Daniel Dorrance to design a fleet of turtle houses, which the mice used to safely traverse the dangerous terrain, albeit in a very unique caravan of floating fortresses, replete with elaborate naval rigging and ballast. The design pipeline was a combination of 3D assets, photographic references, and three- dimensional visualizations in Unreal Engine, A. THIS SHOWS HOW LIGHTING AND EXPOSURE CAN HIDE THE BACKGROUND, MAKING IT UNNECESSARY TO BUILD OR DRESS PARTS OF THE SET. B. HERE THE LIGHT COMING FROM OUTDOORS IS BLOWN OUT OR OVEREXPOSED, THUS CONCEALING THE OUTSIDE. THE CHAIR IS POSITIONED IN SUCH A WAY AS TO BLOCK THE VIEW OF THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE FRAME. BOTH OF THESE TRICKS SHOW HOW, THROUGH LIGHTING AND DRESSING, PARTS OF THE SET CAN BE SIMPLIFIED. THIS PROBABLY WOULD NOT BE REALIZED WITHOUT REVIEWING THESE OPTIONS THROUGH THE USE OF DIGITAL 3D. ILLUSTRATIONS BY GARE CLINE A B