Goodbye to all that.

After a busy week failing to get shots finalled for Wolf Man (and hence why I'll be working on Sunday) I left work yesterday, walked up to Euston Station and headed north to my mum's. The last time I did this the journey took 5 hours thanks to engineering work. They must have finished as yesterday the feat was achieve in an hour and a half: much more respectable.

The reason for the whistle stop visit is that my ma has decided to move house to a smaller cottage and therefore she had decided that she could no longer store some items that I'd left at her current and previous houses over the years. So after a quick bite of supper I set to work. There were many things which I had forgotten about and some which I never knew were technically mine in the first place. Elderly relatives of mine had a habit of leaving things to me in their wills but I was never explicitly told that they were now mine. Then there were the things such as my "birth spoon". Until yesterday I had no idea that such things as "birth spoons" existed let alone that I was the proud owner of one. This is what I have discovered: If you have parents who are keen on the whole antiques schtick (big yes for my folks) then to celebrate the birth of their offspring they have all the details of the happy event etched into an ornate silver spoon. And I have one, well had one; I told my mother I had no use nor for desire to keep it (never having known of it before) and so ownership has reverted to my mum who couldn't bear to see it got rid of.

Having sorted through the stuff that came as a surprise to me I set to throwing away reams of letters from friends and ex-girlfriends that for some reason I'd stuffed into an enormous jiffy bag. Whilst I'm a big soppy romantic, I'm not very sentimental about stuff and so the letters went into the trash along with years of old photographs and all the artwork I made at school and college. I don't have the space to keep it in London nor frankly the desire. By midnight I had several distinct piles: items to go into the recycling bin, items to go to the local tip, items to go to the charity shop and a tiny pile of items I actually wanted to keep and bring back to London on the train with me.

After breakfast this morning we loaded my mum's car and took the load destined for the charity shop. Having delighted the lady in the store with her haul of very decent china we returned to my mum's and loaded up for the tip. Upon our return from there all that was left for me was to load up my rucksack with my keepsies and get the train back. The items I kept were mostly out of print books, a couple of comics and 4 Victorian cartoons by Rowlandson that my dad bought and gave to me when he ran out of wall space. The final item to carry was my second guitar, bought nearly twenty years ago by a long-haired pimply 14 year old Mr Atrocity. I shall write a piece about that guitar and its destiny in a follow-up post soon. By 2 o'clock this afternoon I was back home in London, exhausted but relieved that I'd finally sorted through the last vestiges of my formative years that had been in storage for so long.

Ten Years On

I almost forgot until yesterday afternoon but on the 25th August I celebrated (if that's the right word) working full-time for ten years. Aside from a month unemployed when a studio I worked for went bankrupt leaving us owed a couple of months pay and no opportunity for redress I've been working solidly for all that time. I'm really thankful for it too; the film industry is a fickle beast and it's not unknown for work to dry up and for good people to find it nigh on impossible to get jobs so I've definitely had much good fortune along the way.

Ten years ago I was a callow youth, working as a runner, making tea and getting abused by the rich-kid offspring of millionaires who'd decided it would be fun to work for an advertising agency and had daddies who could arrange that sort of thing. Those were not great days, I shall always fondly remember the happy mornings cleaning the tramp piss out of the company garage so that the MD could bear to drive his top of the line BMW into it (apparently tramp piss must be very corrosive on the those expensive Goodyears his motor was sporting). Sigh, it's a glamourous industry being in the movies.

I'll also remember the happy day when having worked for less than minimum wage for well over a year I was promoted to a junior designer role where I worked for at minimum ten hours a day and made almost as much money as the receptionist - who did nine till five only.

I cannot really complain though, ten years has seen a lot of companies come and go and I'm not the same person I was then, partly I suspect because my outlook has changed with the work I've done. I am much more confident now, I am probably also more curmudgeonly though I think that's also tempered by a greater understanding of how other people think and feel - I wasn't the most socially adept person straight out of college. All that said I do still recognise myself looking back, I wonder whether the ten years ago me would recognise today's Mr Atrocity though.

Going On And On And On...

It's been a crazy busy week. I've been organising and running a complicated photo shoot for the studio in between doing more design work for Universal. This week I also started delivering my one hour introduction lecture on art history and theory. I've been feeling pretty sick all week with a nasty chesty cough and headaches. I think I really picked the wrong week to agree to do these talks. Today's was the second session and I felt it went better than the first as I'd learned how to pace the talk a bit better. It also went better because I remembered to take two glasses of water and a cup of tea in with me to sip as I talked. Speaking continuously for an hour to a room of thirty to forty people is really hard when your throat is sore.

It's been quite fun trying to compress as much information about lighting, colour and composition as I can into an hour. Working what to include and what to leave out has proved highly perplexing. I have sixty slides to show which I whittled down from over two hundred candidates which gives you an idea of the speed of delivery I'm aiming for. I'm always nervous that I don't have enough material prepared to fill an hour but so far I've managed to do the talk both times in a hour exactly. I have no idea where the time goes when I'm speaking, I get a third of the way through my notes, panic because I'm sure I've only been talking for ten minutes, look down at my watch and discover that it is in fact forty minutes since I began. I've done that twice now, perhaps next week when I do it all again a couple more times I'll have accumulated the confidence not to look at my watch for reassurance.

As is always the case, once the talk is over and I ask if anyone has question no-one asks any or gives any impression of having had a good time but I don't think they fell asleep so I'm still claiming it as a win.

Tomorrow I'm off to Lord's with my dad and my pal Tommy Dog to watch the county cricket final. I suspect we may not actually get to watch much as the weather forecast is pretty bad, so we may in fact be spending a day grumbling under an umbrella. Oh well, I keep my fingers crossed.

I don't have much else to say right now, I'm all tired and spacey so I think a quiet evening and an early night are in order.

Tools of the Trade

Tools of the Trade, originally uploaded by Mr Atrocity.

Booda Baby tagged me with a meme. Having looked up the words "meme" and "tagged" I believe I have been invited to respond to the small challenge listed below and to write a six word memoir. It is a small challenge in terms of the amount of copy it requires me to write, it is somewhat more onerous when one considers what needs to be fitted into those six words. I have actually given this some serious thought and most of my better ideas came in at an irritatingly, just too chubby, seven words. You may, if you wish, read my answer below. The rules are also listed below. I have issues with authority so I am only going to address parts 1, 2 and 3. If anyone else wishes to play along then please feel free but I wouldn't want to impose.

Here are the rules:

1. Write your own six-word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you'd like.
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. And don't forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

Here is my 6 word memoir:

Always knows where his tea is.

This I think says a good deal about my character and my attitudes. I have always been a fairly measured person, I don't get ruffled easily and I have only lost my temper a couple of times that I can remember. Knowing where one's tea is helps with this. There are very few situations that cannot be defused with a cup of tea and a moment of quiet reflection.

I am also a very English person in many ways. I love cricket, tweed, films with David Niven or Terry-Thomas in them, warm beer, and of course tea. A life without tea would scarcely be worth living. The gentle stimulation of the mind that it affords allows one to dream and to think beautiful thoughts. Or it can act as a powerful restorative after a day's exertion. My point is that tea, and the ideas and emotions with which it is associated, are deeply integrated into my psyche. I am a tea person. I like coffee, but I am a tea person. A tea and cake person. A tea and cake served on a nice piece of Staffordshire china person.

There is also a pseudish and snobby element to tea. What sort of tea to drink? How to prepare it? These are the kinds of questions that appeal to the snob/connoisseur in me. I like the ritual of brewing loose leaf tea. I delight in warming the teapot, measuring out the tea, pouring in the water, setting out the cups (or mugs) and those few quiet moments of contemplation while the tea brews just enough ease the troubled mind. It's the same pleasure I take in putting on a suit, or cleaning shoes or shaving. There is a sense of ritual, a process which cannot be rushed; it will take as long as it needs. I think as I am inclined to race around during the day because I always feel the need to achieve, I equally need these pauses that brewing up a pot of tea affords to keep me level-headed and sane.

So there you have it. Tea defines who I am and aids me in remaining that way. It is a crutch and a facilitator. And thus Atrocity always knows where his tea is.

Now We Are Two

Two years ago today I set up a blog called The Renaissance Monkey. I started it because a few friends had begun writing them (they've all now stopped) and I liked the possibility of having an outlet for words and images where I could establish a persona and yet retain some sense of anonymity. Many, probably most, of the people who read this blog actually do know me in person but it is still pleasing to have my alter ego to shield me if necessary.

I had no plan when I started regarding subject matter, I suspected it wasn't going to be a blog that was subject specific but I was also pretty sure it wasn't going to be just "Dear Diary" entries either. I suppose the main function which writing this has served, as well as offering me a time machine back into my recent past, is that by writing my thoughts down, on whatever topic, I get them straighter in my own mind. I find this makes understanding the world in which I live a little less befuddling.

Here's wishing my little blog a happy birthday.

For the sake of amusement here's the author then and now:

Then:




Now:

Make of that what you will.

Notebook Doodle

Notebook Doodle, originally uploaded by Mr Atrocity.

I've obviously been in a very Cthulhu/Frank Frazetta/dodgy 70's fantasy art frame of mind as this is what I absent-mindedly doodled yesterday whilst waiting for renders. I'm not sure what it means but I'm quite fond of him. It may have something to do with relief that the trailer deadline we've been working towards was met yesterday (at the last minute, but then they always are) so the pressure is now off a little. I will actually have this weekend off. Imagine, a whole two days to do what I like. Joy.

Milestones

I suddenly realised this morning whilst shaving that I have been a computer graphics professional for ten years this month. My first job was doing titles for a crazy American evangelist who had made a DVD about his UK tour and was having the video post-produced in the town where I was at art college, which is why I heard about and got the job. Not an overly auspicious start, either artistically or morally but I was a poor student and I got paid more for a week of CG work than I would have for a month of shelf-stacking in a supermarket which was my other possible summer job.

When I look back at who I was then and the aspirations I had I realise that I'm exceptionally fortunate. The 21 year old me desperately wanted to work in visual effects, and through a few twists and turns of graphic design and kids TV series I made it. I am one of those lucky, lucky people who manage to achieve their dreams and even though I complain about work, especially the pressure and the hours, I wouldn't want to swap it for anything else. Perhaps another company, perhaps working in commercials again as a change from features, which I've been doing non-stop for 6 years now, but essentially I do what I love and what I assume I'm regarded as being quite good at it since they keep paying me.

I suspect in ten more years I shall probably be doing pretty much what I am now.

The Proof of the Pudding

So yesterday I finally saw what 18 months of blood, sweat and tears looks like on the big screen. Together with the entire clan Tinseltroos we went en masse to see "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". Tinseltroos had already seen the film on Friday morning and declared herself delighted. She is a rabid Potterphile so I felt I had to make allowances for that and was far from certain that I would feel the same way.

The thing I was most concerned about was how the sequence I'd worked on had been treated after it left us. Once the visual effects for a film are complete they are generally run through a procedure called grading where the director sits down with a colourist and decides how to subtly (one hopes) adjust the colour in a sequence to make it a tad bluer, or a little more contrasty or whatever. This is left until last as it enables the director to be sure that the live action elements and the computer graphics will sit next to each other happily and that an overall style for the film can be maintained. The downside for us is that we in the VFX side are never quite sure what we're going to see on screen and most VFX artists can tell stories about shows where the colourist has gone nuts and really screwed up a sequence. I once spent a year working on a movie that then had the whole film brightened up massively to the point where much of the detail we'd pain-stakingly put into each shot was blown out to white. Suffice to say there is always a sense of trepidation when you see your shots in a cinema with a paying audience.

Another aspect that's nerve-wracking is that audience reaction. It is one of the great pleasures of my job to sit in a cinema and watch people laugh or cheer or cry at something I've spent a long time crafting. The other side of the coin is that if it doesn't have the desired effect on the public it is very dispiriting to see your work have no effect at all.

And so it was with this mixture of hope and abject terror that I took my seat in the Odeon Leicester Square for the Sunday matinée. The film didn't do too much for me, if I'm honest. I enjoyed the "Goblet of Fire" more but I think this is mostly because "Order of the Phoenix" made no allowances for those unfamiliar with the story from the book. Many relationships were never explained and the film had a jolting, episodic/montage quality where one event simply led to another in a relentless and slightly mechanistic way. If you already know the story backwards I doubt this would bother you. That said I was heartily relieved when Grawp finally appeared on screen and our boy looked fine, the extra grading had helped if anything and there he was, 20 feet high performing in front of 1700 people. It was a bit of a rush but the crowd responded well, "oohing" and "awwing" at the right moments and generally I was much happier with how Grawp looked in the cinema than I ever thought I would be. Tinseltroos' contribution, the apparating and flying wizards, looked amazing but I had no doubts about that beforehand; she's just too talented for her own good.

I'll probably go and see the film once more for the 3D IMAX release but I think true Potter-fans will not feel let down. Also no-one laughed at my work and both of those mark the experience down as a win in my book.

Onto Pastures New

The last major items have been packed now. There remains the hi-fi (always last to be packed for obvious reasons), the radio, a guitar (see above) and a lamp in my room. It doesn't really seem like my room anymore. It had, over the last seven years, accreted detail and texture through occupancy and use and I have, systematically over the last few weeks, dismantled it all. Most I'm keeping because things like books break my heart to get rid of but some things have gone.

I have binned or shredded a lot of old letters and photographs. I'm not really sure why I kept them all. I can't say it's nostalgia because I never re-read them; they were just there. The same applies to the photos. I kept a selection as old hoarding habits die hard but much of it ended up in the bin. It's a strange mixture of emotions. On the one hand there is a tinge of fear of the unknown and the knowledge that I've disposed of things that at one time held great import to me. On the other I feel much lighter as though I've cast off some unnecessary trappings and can step, however falteringly, into a brighter tomorrow unencumbered by relics of my past. Not that I want to disinherit my past or wish it to fade from memory but just that it's gone now and the past is not a place to revisit often and never a good place to live.

On Saturday afternoon we will collect the keys to our new home, our first home together, and later the same day a van will turn up at Atrocity Mansions to load my carefully boxed treasures and then decant them and me at the all new Schlossadlerflug. Saturday I expect will be hell. I have many books and thus now have many, very heavy boxes. These have to be moved along with everything else across town and then unpacked and rehoused.

The last couple of weeks have already been quite tough enough already. It's the feeling of being ineffectual that creates the most stress. First you have to wait for your references to go through to the letting agent. Then you have to wait for a contact to be drawn up. Next, once all your belongings are packed, all you can do is sit, waiting and staring at your four, now blank walls, until you can actually go and collect the keys and then move in. Until all my boxes rest upon new turf I am going to be twitchy and nervous. As a creature of habit and someone whose nest is very important to him as a sanctuary of retreat and recuperation I find the whole idea of moving all my worldly goods terrifying. But it must be done and underneath the nerves there is excitement about the new life I am to share with my love and the knowledge that whilst it is hell at the moment, once we're in the flat together, with just us and our boxes, it is going to be a very magical place.

Keep your fingers crossed for our move and I will write again next week from work: there will be no Internet in Schlossadlerflug for a few weeks so I will be limited to posting from the studio or the few times I pop back to Atrocity Mansions to work on the bike until my lease runs out here. I will write when I can.

Where's My Stuff?

It's been a pretty exhausting weekend. On Wednesday our packing boxes arrived at work and Tinseltroos and I man-handled them back to Tinseltowers before dividing them up and loading my half, along with me into a cab to head back to Atrocity Acres so I could begin the entertaining task of packing all my worldly possessions into the aforementioned. Over Thursday and Friday night I managed to pack my books away, a herculean task in itself, and over the weekend I've packed DVD players, kitchen equipment and nearly all my other treasures and now here I sit on my floor (the table and bookshelves got flat-packed) writing away looking at the bare walls of my little room. It's very strange to think that in a week I will have a very different life indeed.

Last week it really finally dawned on me that my seven year spell in Atrocity Acres was coming to an end. As I walked into work, on the same route I've used on bus or foot for nearly nine years, it was sobering to realise that now I am to do it only five more times. All the areas I know so well and have watched change over the nine years I've been in London will suddenly not be my neighbourhood anymore. The pub that has been my local for all the time I've been here will cease to be such, the local shopkeepers will eventually become strangers. I think this week I shall have to try to experience my favourite parts of the neighbourhood for one last time as a local, rather than an occasional visitor.

Within my room it all feels so odd too. I am a natural cave-dweller and have thus, over the years, carefully built up my room to be a densely packed expression of myself. And now it's all in boxes or on a pile to go to the charity shop or eBay.

Please don't think I'm regretting making the move, very far from it, but it's only at the eleventh hour that you open your eyes to what you will no longer experience on a daily basis.

By this time next week I will be in Tinseltroos and my first home together. That is a wonderful thought. It is the intervening week of contracts, keys, inventories and removals that fills me with dread.

Done and Dusted

Well it appears that it's over. The last finals from my bit of HPatOotP were approved today and so I am done, finished and off the project bar the debriefing and archiving of assets. I should be leaping about, singing and getting roaring drunk but I'm not. You'd think 18 months of work, the last 8-9 of it very hard work indeed would be worthy of some kind of massive celebration but it was announced by a short e-mail acknowledged by those of us left on the show with a tired nod and left at that. When you start out in visual effects most of us have the idea that everyone works incredibly hard up to a deadline, the project is delivered and on the crest of a wave of achievement you all go to the pub. Except it never seems to happen like that. The project finishes a bit at a time, many people will already be on other shows as keeping a whole crew on stand-by to look after the last few stragglers is unnecessary, so it tends to be the few members of the core team who are left and they tend to be the most tired.

My current emotion is very similar to those war veterans who have a melancholic depression following their discharge as though they don't quite remember what they used to do before they went off to fight. This film has been so consuming of my time and energy for such a long period of time that having my life back is a very strange feeling. There are so many friends I haven't seen for weeks or months, so many activities I've missed out on that I should be delirious, but much in the manner of the mole poking his nose out of his burrow, still woozy from a long hibernation, it's going to take a little while to get my bearings and put my feet back on the ground.

Looking back I'm sad that the work doesn't look better than it does. There are a host of reasons for that which it would be impolitic to discuss here but, suffice to say, without much work and many late nights it would have been a great deal worse. No-one's going to get sued but I don't think it'll win many awards either. I suppose that's another reason for the malaise, given what we put in I wish we'd got more out. Ho hum, at least it seems it's done at last. And with that I'm off to bed.

Me Going Home From Work at 1.37 a.m. This Morning

Me Going Home From Work at 1.37 a.m., originally uploaded by Mr Atrocity.

Nuff said.

You Are A Martini

You are the kind of drinker who appreciates a nice hard drink. And for you, only quality alcohol. You don't waste your time on the cheap stuff. Obviously, you're usually found with a martini in your hand. But sometimes you mix it up with a gin and tonic. And you'd never, ever consider one of those flavored martinis. They're hardly a drink!

What Alcoholic Drink Are You?

Tough Call (slight return)

What an emotional roller-coaster of a week. When you last left, our hero (that would me; stop sniggering at the back) and his cohorts were presented with a dilemma. The clients liked what we'd done, but when we saw it as it would appear on film we didn't. What to do? In order to explain I'm going to have to get a little technical. I am a 3D artist. What I do is create images against a black background of whatever the effect is using all the tricks I have at my disposal, in this instance a fully computer generated giant. This is then given to a compositor, who is a 2D artist who takes my images and blends them into the photographed real footage to create a finished shot that you see in the cinema.

The 2D process can tweak our elements quite a bit, adding some blur here, tweaking a colour there, that sort of thing. What we discovered is that substantial changes had been made to our elements that didn't look so good on the clients' screen. So we've fixed that and then got some better feedback from the clients such that they were willing to put it in front of the film's director and producers to get their feedback. They are the ultimate arbiters of what's hot and what's not and they can ask for literally any change that takes their fancy. It's rather daunting. So the revised shots were put in front of the powers that be. They reacted very positively and the only changes they requested (read "demanded") were things we'd wanted to do anyway, which was the best thing we could have asked for. It does mean yet more work, but it will be worth it and will really improve the finished look. As I write this I'm watching renders of some of these improvements appearing on my monitor as I make some of the changes. It's already looking better and by the end of Saturday hopefully we'll have effected everything that needs to be done and we can resubmit the work for final sign-off. I'm sure there'll be more tweaks but we're in a much better position now than we were on Tuesday evening. Phew.

I'm sure at some point I'll actually be able to write about something non-work related but it is all consuming at the moment. Sorry folks.

Tough Call

We have a problem, well a difficulty more than a problem. Yesterday we had a presentation of our work on the movie to the clients in their fancy screening room in Soho. They were very pleased with what they saw, indeed so pleased that they sent us a cake to show their appreciation. Naturally, none of us who'd been working on this part of the show saw any of it as it was all scoffed by those with less insane workloads but that's another story. Our problem is that those of us who do the work really thought it looked awful. This presents us with a quandary, the client is the happiest they've been and of course they have the final say, but we've been working on this for nearly a year and a half and we think it's just got worse. Now in the end, if push comes to shove, the client will get their way, they've paid for it, it's their property. And yet, we just can't forgive ourselves if we don't try and make it better (in our eyes) and hope that the client also believes it to be an improvement. So GW and I spent last evening in the studio until nearly midnight having one last throw of the dice. We owe it to ourselves to and I'm not giving up on this just yet. But I'm paying for it this morning; I am very very tired.

We will never surrender (until there's about two weeks until the deadline, then we'll capitulate so fast there'll probably be a shock-wave).

Two Bits

From this:

To this:

What a difference a day makes... I have spent the week being not recognised at work.

Shiver

It would appear I picked the wrong evening to shave my beard off and get a much shorter haircut. It's freezing outside. My poor little face. I think I'll have to track down some monsteriser at lunchtime before my face turns into parchment.

I do like my new look though. It's a whole new me. Or something.

Two More Things

1) Van Halen have reformed with "Diamond" Dave Lee Roth back on vocals after 23 years. Over recent time friends of mine and I have idly speculated as to what lengths we would go to to see one of our favourite bands if they reformed with Diamond Dave (never liked Van Hagar) and we'd agreed that should the impossible happen we'd fly to L.A. to catch that gig; Van Halen in its natural habitat. Well the impossible's happened so we'd better get booking I guess.

2) I'm toying with shaving my beard off, retaining some sideburnage and getting my hair cut á la Clark Gable thus and thus. Is this a good idea? I'd want a less pomade dependent version though.

More Me(me)

Inspired by Churlita, I've decided to answer this little meme quiz thing:

Things That Scare Me

1. People who are proud of their ignorance.
2. Drowning.
3. Prejudice.

People that make me laugh

1. Woody Allen.
2. Frankie Howerd.
3. Bill Hicks.

Things I love

1. My life and those who make it so great.
2. Blanket forts.
3. Cricket.

Things I hate

1. Killjoys.
2. Fundamentalism.
3. Banks/dealing with finances.

Things I don't understand

1. Foreign languages (to my eternal shame).
2. Maths very well (though I'm trying to improve this).
3. Reality T.V. - I lack the schadenfeude gene.

Things on my desk

1. A metric shitload of computer equipment.
2. A cubic shitload of books.
3. A plastic Jimmy Page action figure.

Things I'm doing right now

1. Trying desperately to finish "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix".
2. Nothing else.
3. See above.

Three things I want to do before I die

1. See a great white shark in the wild.
2. Learn to play "The Hermit" by John Renbourn properly
3. Paint something I'm truly proud of.

Things I can do

1. Play the guitar acceptably.
2. Cook.
3. Prattle on endlessly about things I am enthusiatic about.

Things you want to listen to

1. Your heart not your head
2. John Renbourn
3. Music you play yourself

Things you should never listen to

1. Whiny Indie Rock
2. Any album whose title has the word "Moods" appended to it.
3. A junior school violin orchestra

Things I would like to learn

1. Ancient Greek
2. To program computers properly
3. To be a better draughtsman

Favorite Foods

1. Steak frites
2. Sushi
3. Cold apple pie with milk

Favorite beverage

1. Tea
2. Beer
3. Wine

TV shows I watched, books I read as a kid

1. "The Moomins" (both books and TV).
2. "Captain Scarlet".
3. "Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day?".

All Work And No Play

I have very little news to tell you, if I'm honest. It's now Sunday morning and I'm back in work. Worked some crazy hours in the week and was in the office till a quarter to eight last night. Tinseltroos is also putting in the hours at the moment too so I have a kindred spirit at least. I really hope it's all going to be worth it, because it's really hard going at the moment. It is one the aspects of visual effects that I think very few people outside the industry appreciate; the whole amount of effort it takes to do anything worthwhile is huge.

I suppose the best way I can explain is to take the current movie I'm on as an example. It is going to be released on 13th July worldwide (that date should tell you what it is if you care about such things). By the time we finish we'll have been working for 18 months on the film. Non stop. For eighteen months of effort my little team will have produced perhaps two minutes of footage, if that. And we've been working pretty damn hard for all that time, ramping up to 10-12 hour days for 5-6 months and now we're in the 12-14 hour, 6 or 7 day week working pattern which will continue until we finish. I'll reiterate, all for two minutes of screen time. There are other teams here and at other studios doing the same thing to produce the rest of the effects for the film. The belief that "it's all done with computers nowadays" is largely true, we're all CG visual effects artists but the notion that the machines do the work and it's now easy to create these effects is utterly untrue. And the very tired bunch of people who surround me will back me up on that.


It's a psychologically strange profession; we utterly obsess over something, in the current instance a fully CG giant for many many months to the point where all critical facility is gone as we are so immersed in the finest and tiniest detail that we cannot see beyond it and therefore rely on those with fresher eyes to tell us where we're going right or wrong in a more general way.

I remember when I created the squirrels for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", which were mostly digital whatever spin Warner's press office put out about the hordes of trained squirrels they had for the sequence. The fact is squirrels are skittish rodents who will not perform to order and so our workoad went through the roof. I worked on that film for a year and everytime I walked through a park, there would be one of the furry little bastards staring back at me, as if it were personally defying me.

That project was a massive undertaking because everyone has their own idea of what a squirrel looks like and I have to tell you, you're probably wrong. I realised this when we went up to Pinewood, where the film was shot, to see the squirrels who were being trained and we going to make digital versions of. I had an image in my mind's eye of what to expect, everyone does. The human brain is an amazing thing, it reconstructs almost everything that our eyes take in to the point where 90% of what you see at any one time is what your brain believes you are seeing on the basis of past experience rather than unfiltered input from your eyes as you might expect. That's why we don't notice when people get new glasses or change a haircut, even if the effect is startlingly different; our brains make huge assumptions about what we see.

The one way I have found to get around this is when I need to study something as it actually is, rather than how I think it is, I draw it. If you have to construct the image yourself you can break the brain's desire to do the work for you. Photography doesn't work so well because your brain tries to make the same preconceived reconstruction of the image when you look at the print, that's why I prefer drawing. Drawing those squirrels totally changed how I saw them and understood them to look. Then there was a year of hell to build animate and produce the images for the film. This current project is about ten times as complicated. Wish us luck.