Digital Production 2019 : 06 Animago!

Welcome to this year’s animago-issue! We are presenting all the nominees, winners and a handful of stills – but only a little bit about the event itself, which, as we go to print, has not happened yet, and it is bastardly difficult to predict the future, as you might know. If you don’t find it difficult, we either have a bridge to sell you or you have seen that joke coming a year off. But back to the issue in your hand: A few nominees and winners are only introduced very quickly – we will have larger stories in the coming year on those, and a few more in-depth making-ofs, going into all the interesting technical details – keep reading, if you are into that. But, going back to predictions…

Between the 2nd and 5th of November, animation fans, artists, 3D people, VFX gurus, game designers, and VR / AR enthusiasts will once again have the chance to get tips and tricks from established professionals, among others Scanline, Illumination Mac Guff, Weta Digital and Pixar. Many of our speakers will get more than just one slot this year, so visitors have the possibility to see their favorite speakers. Thanks to our exhibition partners, our visitors get the chance to meet large companies, universities and academies in addition to the conference. For us, it was important to be able to offer a great experience on each day of the event. The animago is becoming the center of the international animation scene and therefore the animago Award has been restructured, too. We…

And here they are, from right to left: Günter Hagedorn, Agon Ushaku, Alexander Bouquet, Robert Hranitzky, Isabell Mayrhofr, Tobias Hager, Thomas Grohnert, Melanie Beisswenger, Bela Beier and Dominik Markota. Günter Hagedorn Günter is a graphic designer and freelance editor who grew up in Hamburg, Germany. In 2004 he also started photography. He’s been involved in organising and managing the animago AWARD since it was first launched in 1997. His list of animago responsibilities ranges from handling project submissions all the way to organising the jury meetings and putting on the awards show. www.hagedorn-photography.com Agon Ushaku As Head of CAD Management at Unexpected GmbH in Stuttgart, Agon Ushaku is responsible for industrial visualisation and the studio’s 3D data management pipeline. In this role he is in charge of setting standards for…

One of the studios involved was Scanline, which we don’t have to introduce, we all know Scanline. We talked to Mohsen Mousavi about the show. DP: Just to clarify: On a scale of 1 to 10, how much fun is it to burn down King’s Landing and animate dragons? Mohsen Mousavi: 15! DP: How big was the team and much time did you have? Mohsen Mousavi: Almost 300 artists at Scanline VFX worked on the final season from march 2018 all the way to April 2019. DP: What was your feeling to be part of this iconic TV series? Mohsen Mousavi: “Game of Thrones” raised the bar in TV on every level. From storytelling to craftsmanship, it has managed to establish an amazing, believable and utterly entertaining universe with visuals…

DP: When I watched “Sicario 2”, it felt like regular, practical SFX. How long did you need to get to that point of realism? Alexandre Lafortune (VFX Supervisor): As the sole vendor on this movie, we produced 70 shots which featured various types of visual effects including muzzle flash, bullet impacts, full CG environments and matte paintings, and also military and civil vehicles to populate shots. We were brought in quite early in the production, with work beginning in January of 2017 and wrapping in September. I met with the director early on, but I was not on set for the whole shoot. We started work as soon as we started receiving plates from production. Filming wasn’t even finished when we started working on assets and preparing everything else. It…

DP: “Fantastic Beasts” had all kinds of VFX, FX, sim, explosions, creatures, characters and tricky CGI stuff that is possible: How do you keep track of that huge amount of assets? Arnaud Brisebois (VFX Supervisor): We use Shotgun. In a nutshell, SG is an internal publish and review software where every single task, time log, shot or asset version and published file – in fact everything in the company – is filed and tracked either at company or show level. Every single artist version, be it modeling, rigging, textures, shading, CFX, FX, matchmove, layout, animation, lighting or comp, is posted on SG, where show or specialty supervisors review them, enter written feedback for artists and track task progress status. At Rodeo FX, all activity is filed and tracked through SG…