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Customer Highlight: Brad Kalinoski, Pacific Title & Art Studio
(July 1, 2003)
Pacific Title & Art Studio
provides a full range of state-of- the-art digital and optical services from
2D image manipulation to multilayer compositing, 3D animation, and more. The
company has been using wondertouch's particleIllusion for the past year on
numerous feature films including the recently released "The Matrix Reloaded,"
"Dreamcatcher," "Just Married," "Biker Boyz," "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever,"
and the upcoming, "Torque."
Brad Kalinoski, a digital compositor at Pacific Title & Art Studio tells
wondertouch more about his experience using particleIllusion.
Q: Tell us how you got started in the business and how long you've been at
Pacific Title
I have been using a computer since I was 12 years old. My first computer was
the Atari 400xl. Around the age of 14, I began writing code as hobby to
create animated objects that would fly around the screen. This hobby was to
turn into my current profession.
Later in life, on the East Coast, I shot commercials, PSA's, and created
flying logos and animated characters using Lightwave on an AMIGA 4000. During
that time, I was also working as a full time nurse. One day in 1996, tired of
it all and not going any further with my artistic yearnings, my wife and I
moved to LA.
I landed a job with Pacific Title Mirage Life-FX (yes, that was the full name
of the company at one time) after being in Los Angeles for just two weeks. My
first job was beta testing new facial animation software that was to be used
for Jim Carrey in the remake of "The Incredible Mr. Limpet." Throughout my
tenure at Pac Title, I later held positions creating textures and models,
followed by a roto-paint position. Presently, I am working as a compositor
using Shake and as a particle creator using particleIllusion.
Q. What initially impacted your decision to purchase particleIllusion?
One of the visual effects supervisors at Pac Title, Mark Freund, had seen me
using the version of particleIllusion that was integrated into (Discreet's compositing software)
combustion 2, and was impressed with the demo of snow, explosions, fire, and smoke.
It was on the film "Ballistic:Ecks vs. Sever" that we first gave it a try for
a satellite view of an exploding house. The result was fantastic, despite the
fact the shot was ultimately cut from the movie.
From then on, we decided that the software was well worth the purchase of the
package. This is when we started using it for snow for "Just Married" and
"Dreamcatcher." Following this, we also used it to create smoke and sparks
for films like "The Matrix Reloaded" and "Biker Boyz."
Q. Tell me about the production pipeline at Pacific Title and how
particleIllusion fits in.
We basically look at particleIllusion for what it is - a 2D particle effects
tool. If a shot needs to be done quickly and with good results for a quick
turnaround, then we use it. We find we mainly use particleIllusion for
general particle shots that would not be very interactive with the
environment.
Q. What area of the company is using particleIllusion?
At the moment we are using particleIllusion mainly for 2D shots in the
compositing department. There has also been interest from the Title
Department for its use, but time has not yet permitted any testing to be
done. This is a likely area for future use.
Q. Can you comment on the importance of a particle effects application in the
filmmaking process in general? Also, what particleIllusion features are
important to the feature film visual effects work that Pacific Title is
doing?
Creating films is a lot about time. The importance of a particle effects
application is to add substance to a dull shot and to do it quickly, but with
quality. If you add a little smoke here, floating snow there, and can make
changes to show the director in real time or at the discretion of the
producers, then this is a terrific benefit. And, if you can create the effect
seamlessly and enough to fool the eye of the audience, then the importance is
even more apparent.
Here at Pacific Title, we are trying to not only do the best and highest
quality of artistic work, but must do it with a quick turn around.
particleIllusion is a tool that helps us succeed.
Q. Tell us about some of the feature film project challenges you faced and
how particleIllusion helped you meet them.
There are two shots in "The Matrix Reloaded" where particleIllusion 3.0
was used. On one of the shots it called for elements to be removed
and or replaced by an inferno artist. In the shot, cars are driving down a
dusty road causing a huge plume of dust to fly around. This is where pI3 came
in. After the inferno artist was finished with removing and or replacing the
elements from the shot, I created the rolling dust clouds to be dropped back
in to the scenes. Using pI3, it fit into the shot perfectly.
In the film "Dreamcatcher," one of the biggest challenges we faced was to
match the snow shots that ILM had created using a 3D-particle systems tool.
At the time, I was trying to match the snow elements which were alot more
difficult than I originally anticipated. Using particleIllusion, however, I
was able to pull it off easily.
In the film "Torque" I had to match the practical smoke from motorcycles
burning out. The shots switched from overhead to side views, and these shots
had to have residual smoke floating and dissipating. Using the new super and
force emitter features in pI3 allowed me to have more control over the
elements and get some fantastic results!
Q. Can you comment on how particleIllusion enhances production workflow at
Pacific Title?
Because particleIllusion is a 2D program and runs in real-time, I think it is
a very viable and useable tool for the 3D or 2D artist, for adding elements
such as smoke, fog, or snow on the fly. I have never had any shots rejected
because the effect was not realistic enough or appeared cheap in quality.
Compared to other high end packages using 3D that require double the time,
double the effort, and more than double the money, set-up and rendering in
particleIllusion is very fast, and the quality ideally suited to our needs.
With the release of 3.0, the new control features have make this package even
better.
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