Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/161463
V F X for F ea t ure [ Cont.from 19 ] and implementation of this purposebuilt system." The system helped del Toro "get into offline faster than he ever had before," says Parker, and it enabled DP Navarro to "maintain a comfort level and apply his immense talents to his first major digital project. By all accounts it was the best [front end] experience they've had; it allowed them to shift from production into digital post seamlessly." WORLD WAR Z Hands down the go-to company to record massive zombie swarms is Audiomotion Studios (www.audiomotion.com), the Oxford, England-based motion capture provider, which gained its undead expertise working on World War Z. Audiomotion deployed 160 of its Vicon cameras on location at Shepperton Studios, creating one of the world's largest-ever motion capture stages. The 50-by-85-foot volume was used to capture hundreds of stunt moves later transformed by The Moving Picture Company and Cinesite into thousands of frenzied digital zombies. "We had already executed quite a few shots for the show when the animation consultant realized they were going to need a huge capture volume, so we started looking for a stage big enough to accommodate our needs," says Mick Morris, managing director/ co-founder of Audiomotion. They set up on an unheated stage at Shepperton during the depths of winter, hanging all of the Vicon cameras from trusses; preproduction planning helped configure the cameras quickly since time on the stage was limited. "We've been doing motion capture for 15 years and had never been tasked with a capture volume of this size," Morris says. "We had never put together a rig of 160 cameras before — we were pioneering and breaking new ground. We captured hundreds of moves that populated a lot of set pieces," including A U D I O F O R F ilms Classifieds zombie swarms in Philadelphia and Jerusalem. In addition to the scale of the motion capture volume and the freezing on-set conditions, Audiomotion also had to deal with myriad stunt performers who obscured markers. "Even with 160 cameras it was hard to see every marker because of the sheer amount of occlusion," Morris explains. "The Vicon software does a good job filling in the gap when a marker disappears on the trajectory and reappears later. But we still needed a huge amount of manual intervention in post to make sure the clips delivered to MPC and Cinesite were as high quality as possible. This wasn't just a case of pushing buttons and capturing motion." Indeed, Audiomotion's expertise was evident on two fronts: having "the technical chops to set up this large a capture area," says Morris, and fielding a team capable of solving any problems with the zombie character rigs to create clips ready for the animators at MPC and Cinesite to transform into swarms of the undead. On-stage stunt performers clambered up netting to simulate scaling the walls around Jerusalem and smashed into and crawled over stand-in cars, buses and trucks. "These were not lumbering zombies," Morris reminds us. "We worked closely from the early days with the choreographer, movement directors and animation consultants, exploring different ways for the zombies to move and performing movement studies and tests to develop their distinct motion." Audiomotion didn't have to write any new code for the project, and the Vicon hardware, "the Rolls-Royce of motion capture cameras," never let the team down, Morris reports. "You can take them into almost any environment and know they'll get the job done." The resulting digital zombies blended in "amazingly well" with zombie stunt performers and extras shot in camera. "Our motion capture was meant to be seen up close and personal, and the CG characters are almost indistinguishable from those captured in camera," Morris says. Help Wanted Advertising Sales Rep. Ad Sales Rep needed for advertising sales in Post Magazine and Computer Graphics World. The purpose of the position is to generate classified advertising sales for the publications CGW & Post Magazine in the areas of Rapid Prototyping (3D printing), Camera, Displays/monitors/projectors, Workstations (mobile, desktop), GPUs/CPUs, Input devices (mice, scanners, etc), Motion-capture, Storage, Service provider, Education/training, 2D modeling, 3D modeling, 3D animation, Compositing, Rendering, Lighting, Editing, CAD/CAM/CAE/CAA, AI/VR (including headmounted displays), Game engines, Middleware, Texturing, Simulation, Plug-ins, Web content tools, Music Libraries, Stock Footage, Large File Transfer companies , Studios. Full-time position. Operates from office when not traveling. Skills/Qualifications: Customer Service, Meeting Sales Goals, Closing Skills,Prospecting Skills, Negotiation, SelfConfidence, Product Knowledge, Presentation Skills, Client Relationships, Motivation for Sales. Send cover letter and resume to: ksafaryan@copcomm.com. CSR - CUSTOMER SERVICE REP. Our local office in Glendale, CA is seeking a Customer Service Representative to be the first point of contact with our print customers. Our customer service representatives are passionate, customer-focused professionals with outstanding people skills and the desire to help us grow our business through hard work and innovative thinking! As a customer service professional, your responsibilities will include: • Responding to service requests. • Investigating and resolving customer questions and concerns efficiently and compassionately. • Preparing and distributing reports (utilizing various proprietary systems) on a regular and timely basis. • Assisting with various administrative duties, such as filing, data entry, and ensuring SOP compliance. • Participating in inside sales activities. C O M M E R C I A L S [ Cont. from 33 ] reference. In post, all the audio was synced using the Singular Software program called PluralEyes. Singular is now owned by the visual effects software company Red Giant. Since the videos were typically shot in the lobby of the different law offices, the recordings weren't pristine. Cook notes that despite their attention to detail on-set, like stopping the elevators to that floor and relocating the receptionist, the environments were not soundproof by any means. To clean up the dialog tracks, Cook used the Waves X-Noise plug-in suite. "We'd peel away the noise layer by layer," he explains. "We'd come back and do it again if we needed to. We find that if we hit it too hard in the beginning it makes the audio sound like it's underwater, or it gives you artifacts." With his extensive ADR experience, Cook knows the importance of room tone. He always records room tone on location to help him bridge any gaps during the post process. Cook also created the sound design for the com- pany logo. "We wanted it to sound simple and minimal, but at the same time, we wanted to create an audio logo for each city that has a similar identity when you listen to them." Soundworks/VividMix has a huge library of sound effects that Cook pulled from to create the audio logos. Each logo was custom tailored to fit the animated graphics. Since the promos are for the Web, there is no output spec. Cook's goal for the mix was to make sure it wasn't too loud. "There's nothing worse than going to a Website and having the sound be so loud that you want to turn it off, but you also don't want to have to turn up the volume," he notes. The promos were mixed in stereo. He used the iZotope Ozone 5 mastering plug-in suite to help optimize playback for computer speakers. "We wanted to make sure the dialog popped on a small computer speaker." He also set up a template, to ensure that the different cities, shot and edited a few weeks apart, had a similar sound. Successful team members also possess the following qualifications: • A High School Diploma or equivalent. Preferably a College Graduate. • At least 2 years of experience in a customer service or call-center environment. • Excellent written and verbal communication skills. • Strong data entry/typing skills. • The ability to multi-task and prioritize multiple assignments. Send cover letter and resume to: ksafaryan@copcomm.com. For Advertising Rates & Schedules: POST Magazine, 620 West Elk Ave., Glendale, CA 91204; Western Region 818-291-1153, Fax: 818-547-4607; Eastern Region 781-255-0625 Fax: 781-255-0431 www.postmagazine.com Post • August 2013 53