premiere « Bryan Ray, Visual Effects Artist

June 18, 2010

Solar Expeditions Cruise Lines

Filed under: 3d Modeling, Compositing, Environments, Graphic Design, Object and Vehicle Design, Photoshop, Video & Animation — Tags: 3d tracking, After Effects, alexis tomashosky, animating, anyul garza, CG Textures, cgtextures, compositing, cruise ship, earth, editing, effects, environment, fluids, flying rig, Graphic Design, greenscreen, gustav holst, illustrator, jessica, jessica ray, jupiter, kat michels, keying, lighting, logo, mars, matchmoving, matte painting, maya, modeling, motion tracking, NASA, nuke, ognian bozikov, particles, PFTrack, planets, premiere, production studio, ruth mentzer, saturn, ship, shuttle, sky, solar expeditions, solar system, soundbooth, space ship, stars, sun, textures, texturing, tracking, twitch, vfx, video, video copilot, visual effects — Bryan @ 9:33 pm

My Production Studio I team produced a set of four television ads for an interplanetary cruise line:

Solar Expeditions 60 second ad from Bryan Ray on Vimeo.

The team consisted of me, Alexis Tomashosky, Anyul Garza, and Ruth Mentzer. Breakdowns by shot follow:

Shot 1, Liftoff: Matte painting constructed in Adobe Photoshop CS4 by Bryan Ray using elements provided by NASA (the launch pad), and cgtextures.com (several sky photographs). The shuttle was modeled in Autodesk Maya (versions 2008 – 2010) by Ruth Mentzer and textured with Maya and Photoshop by Bryan. Animation, fluid simulation, particle effects in Maya and compositing in The Foundry Nuke by Bryan.

Shot 2, Leaving the Earth: Earth texture provided by NASA. Earth and stars modeled and textured in Maya by Bryan. Cruise ship modeled in Maya by Ruth and textured (so to speak—really just simple materials) in Maya by Bryan. Animation and atmosphere effect by Alexis Tomashosky in Maya. Composited in Nuke by Alexis. Greenscreen footage keyed by Anyul Garza and Alexis in Nuke and Adobe After Effects. Shuttle as above.

Shot 3, the Lobby: Lobby modeled in Maya by Ruth and Alexis. Textured and lit in same by Alexis. Keying in After Effects and 3d tracking in PFTrack by Anyul. Map element by Bryan. Alexis composited in Nuke.

Shot 4, the Map: Modeling, texturing, lighting, fluid effects and animation in Maya by Bryan.

Shot 5, Orbiting Jupiter: Jupiter and stars modeled and textured in Maya by Bryan. Animation and engine effects in Maya by Bryan. Composited in Nuke by Bryan. Cruise ship as above.

Shot 6, Cabin: Room modeled and textured by Alexis and Bryan in Maya. Greenscreen footage keyed in After Effects by Anyul. Matte painting created in Maya by Bryan. Hologram animated in Maya and After Effects (+ Video Copilot’s Twitch plug-in) by Bryan and composited in Nuke.

Shot 7, Dining: Keying in After Effects and 3d tracking in PFTrack by Anyul. Modeling in Maya by Bryan and Ruth. Texturing and lighting in Maya and compositing in Nuke by Ruth.

Shot 8, Sun Deck: Sun model, texture, and fluid simulation in Maya by Bryan. Deck modeled and textured in Maya by Ruth. Keying in After Effects and tracking in PFTrack by Anyul. Rotoscoping in After Effects and Nuke by Ruth and Anyul. Compositing in Nuke by Ruth.

Shot 9, Freefall Room: Keying in After Effects by Anyul. Modeling in Maya by Alexis. Lighting in Maya by Alexis, Anyul, and instructor Ognian Bozikov. Compositing by Anyul in Nuke. Flying rig by Daniel Mentzer.

Shot 10, Logo: Mars and stars modeled and textured in Maya by Bryan Ray. Animation and compositing in Nuke by Anyul. Logo created in Adobe Illustrator by Bryan. Additional compositing in After Effects by Bryan. Cruise ship as above.

Screen talent: Alexis, Bryan, Kat Michels, Todd Judd, Vince Chowdhury, Tasha Muhammad, and Marcus Porter.

Music: “Jupiter” from The Planets Suite composed by Gustav Holst and mutilated in Adobe Soundbooth and Premiere by Bryan. Voice over by Jessica Ray and recorded in Soundbooth by Bryan. Sound effects from an unknown library that’s been kicking around on one of my hard drives for years. Audio mastering by Anyul and Bryan

Editing by Ruth and Bryan in After Effects and Premiere. Special technical support by instructor Ognian Bozikov.

Thanks to the Art Institute of Colorado for the use of a Panasonic HVX200 camera, greenscreen stage, video studio, portable greenscreen kit, and the 60+ Macintosh computers we used for rendering on the weekends.

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September 20, 2009

No Choice

Filed under: Stories & Scripts, Video & Animation — Tags: 7:15FX, acid, After Effects, alexis tomashosky, brainwashing, colorization, editing, grant mcminn, gun, ian morrell, Intermediate editing, interrogation, jon franks, lighting, premiere, soundbooth, vfx, video, visual effects — Bryan @ 12:25 pm

This is the final project for my Intermediate Editing class. I drew heavily on 7:15FX, an extracurricular visual effects group that I am a part of, for talent and technical support. Four of us are in the same editing class, so it was easy to turn this into a group project. I wrote the script and drew some storyboards; I was also both the director and cinematographer during production. Alexis Tomashosky was the production assistant, helping me to set the lights, managing the microphone boom, assisting the actors, and doing some set dressing. Jon Franks, Ian Morrell and Grant McMinn were the actors. During post-production, I did the editing, audio, some stylistic color grading, and a little bit of visual effects—the blood splatters on Ian’s shirt were mine. Jon did all the rest of the visual and audio effects, which was mainly the muzzle flashes and gunshots. Alexis did the color correction and a little bit of editing.

The piece was shot with a Panasonic DVX100a DV video camera. Edited in Premiere, mastering and effects in After Effects, audio in Soundbooth and Acid.

If you’re interested, here’s the script:
Screenplay-1stDraft

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August 6, 2009

What Goes Around Comes Around

Filed under: Video & Animation — Tags: acid, After Effects, artificial, candle, compositing, consequences, demon, editing, effects, FX, golem, greenscreen, Intermediate editing, James Felix, premiere, simulacrum, sorcerer, vfx, video, visual effects — Bryan @ 3:44 pm

Intermediate Editing. Shot on a Panasonic DVX-100a in my apartment and the Art Institute’s greenscreen studio. Edited in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, effects and mastering in After Effects CS4, and audio in Sony Acid Pro 4.

For this project, the class collectively came up with the title “What Goes Around Comes Around.” Then we each wrote down an adjective and randomly drew the words from a hat to give us a guiding theme for our videos. I drew “artificial.”

I had a very limited amount of time to accomplish my shooting, since I could only get into the studio for about three hours, and I hadn’t shot any of my empty plates yet, so I didn’t have camera angle and focal length data. I think I accomplished what I was after, though, for the most part. I think my shot composition is improving rapidly, but I need to set aside time for storyboarding next time.

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July 2, 2009

Where the Wild Things Aren’t

Filed under: Video & Animation — Tags: After Effects, broadcast layout, frustration, jessica, monster, premiere, special effects, vfx, visual effects, where the wild things are, wild things — Bryan @ 11:01 pm

This was an experiment in frustration. One member of my four-person team was assigned location scouting, scoring, and costuming. After the first in-class meeting, he dropped the course without telling any of us. I kept calling, and he kept saying he’d be there at the next meeting, but he never, ever showed up. So we did a lot of improvising for locations and just forgot about costuming and make-up entirely.

Another member had a death in the family and took off to the East Coast for two weeks. Again, without informing anyone. He left his phone behind and never checked his email. He was supposed to have been the main character. I gave him the opportunity to redeem himself by editing the more difficult scenes, but he failed to hit a single deadline, so I wound up having to edit his scenes myself at the eleventh hour.

Member #3 was the bright spot for me. He showed up to every meeting, he procured our equipment and arranged time in the greenscreen studio. He, also, had editing duties, but although his scenes were delivered on time, he apparently had no clue what was meant by “editing.” I wound up editing those scenes myself, too, plus doing the visual effects, graphics, audio processing, scoring, and DVD mastering.

Had I known at the outset that it was going to be a solo project I would have been far better off.

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