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I Am VFX/PDX: Susanna Luck

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The ‘I Am VFX/PDX’ series continues with Portlander Susanna Luck, a traditionally trained artist and FX Animator who has found a home at LAIKA.  Often times she gets the call to provide FX that, although existing in a digital world, are still created by hand.  We’re talking frame…   by…    painstaking…    frame.

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Her evolution of pen into a Wacom stylus is fascinating, as Susanna moved from working traditionally to digitally.  Her unique work slots right in as the bridge between the digital VFX accents being created by machine, and the tangible, physical, “real” world being shot on the stop-motion stages.  Often, with a wave of her stylus, Susanna can take the digital edge off of an effect such as the flame from a torch – that would otherwise be generated procedurally or simulated using VFX software – and give it that human, hand-made touch sewing the digital and analog realms together.  Her work is seen in LAIKA’s most recent animated feature, ParaNorman, and we’ll talk plenty about that, but also reflect on her formative years as an artist, and what about Portland makes her heart race.  (other than the coffee!)

VFX/PDX:  In your case, Susanna, I might just have to talk current events for a moment and then work our way back, since we’re hot off the heels of the ParaNorman Oscar nomination just a few days ago.  Exciting!  I can imagine everyone is dying to hear about your recent experience on ParaNorman at LAIKA, so let’s not keep them waiting.  I might just have to go all the way back to…   yesterday?

What’s a typical day like at work for you?  Or, let’s say a typical day during ParaNorman?

Susanna:  It would vary quite a lot from day to day.  Sometimes I had a brief from the directors or my supervisors and I’d just be left to get on with it, which means that I’d come in to the office I was sharing with four funny, smart, incredibly talented guys, laugh a lot, get some coffee and then sit down in front of my Mac, plug in to some music or a podcast and get to work.  Sometimes I would be scheduled for a meeting with the VFX Supervisor, who would give me feedback on something I was working on, or give me a launch on something new – which means that he’d interpret for me what he thought the directors wanted, based on his much deeper knowledge of the overall project and what we were all aiming for.  Often there were meetings during the day where a group of us would sit in the screening room in the FX department and look at what everyone was working on and receive feedback and notes from the VFX Supervisor.

Norman and company

Norman and company

About once or twice a week (and more frequently toward the end of the production), we’d all schlep across the street to the main building and screen the scenes for “Director Review” that week in the main screening room, and get feedback from the directors themselves. Sometimes I’d also meet separately with the directors in the smaller editorial suite and they’d give me a launch on a new scene, or notes on what I’d done so far.  And then I would draw and draw and draw and make things look like they’re moving around.

VFX/PDX:  🙂  Yes, you’re quite good at that part.  And I hear that since you were sharing the office with the four animator and modeler guys, that you now speak fluent “dude.”

What was your favorite effect that you helped create on ParaNorman?  Will you ever look at a teddy bear the same again?

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Susanna:  The burning teddy bear was a lot of fun to work on.  I was so excited to get my hands on that scene, I totally went overboard at first and had to pull the flames back quite a bit.

But Angry Aggie was by far my favorite effect to work on.  One of the things I really love about working in animation is the collaborative nature of the work. And Aggie was such a collaboration. I think nearly everyone in the 68-person VFX department contributed to her look at some point. In the end, I think we came up with something truly unique – I certainly have never seen anything like it – it was a great combination of stop-motion puppet, hand-drawn FX and CG animation.

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VFX/PDX:  Awesome Aggie is more like it.  Definitely one of the more creative antagonists in recent memory.  And it seems everyone else thinks so too, as the work on Aggie’s “Ink Blot Electricity” effect was recently nominated for a VES award.  Probably the most interesting thing about that character (for me) was seeing what she began as – a stop-motion puppet sort of ‘skeleton,’ just one step removed from an armature, that had such raw, frenetic, in-your-face animation.  I’m vaguely remembering the scene in Fight Club where the Tyler Durden character is explaining the subliminal single frame cuts he was splicing into a film. aggie3 Aggie would be hovering above Norman in one frame and cowering in a fetal position the next, showing the poles at the extreme ends of her personality.  Hats off to the stop-mo animators and facial team for some very creative and emotional animation there.  But then the animated skeleton would pass through VFX for the final look on screen:  complete with the raging Medusa-like ‘Tesla’ hair, an electric dress, glowing features, aura, and lest we forget something the script referred to as ‘ejecta’ that was tossing Norman about like a rag doll.

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(continued on page 2)

Office Space: Chel White’s Forest

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Chel White, in his natural habitat

Chel White’s “natural habitat”

On anyone’s first day on the job at Bent Image Lab, there’s this inevitable neck snap of a double take that happens as they are shown around and walk by Chel White’s office for the first time.  Sometimes there’s a sound that accompanies this action – but this is no kung-fu  soundtrack…  this is the much more low key true-to-life sound you hear when you see something unexpectedly awe inspiring.  Sometimes the whoosh has a “wha?” attached.  Sometimes it’s more of a “gah.”  Other times it’s merely the sound of the lower lip separating from the upper as the jaw drops wide open.

Welcome to Chel White’s forest – an office honed to Pacific Northwest perfection over many years spent directing and supervising independent features, commercials, music videos and other creative endeavors at Bent.

I like a good challenge as much as the next guy, but I’ll admit trying to put what Chel has created here into words will be a tall order.  Let’s try this – it’s a bit voyeuristic but here’s a panorama I snapped and stitched that puts you in the center of the room.  Click & drag below, have a look around!

[pano file=”/panoramas/QTVR_chelwhite.mov”]

Can you feel it?  It’s a kind of calming effect.  That same feeling you get when you’re fully enclosed in Forest Park and see the buildings of the city melt away as you ascend up into the redwoods, sequoias and pines.  It took me a while to catch myself doing it, but each time I walk into Chel’s office I almost subconsciously take a deep breath as if there was fresh forest air waiting for me inside.  Yes, I’m being completely serious – this scene he’s created…  it gets me every time.

mirrorI guess it’s no different from a breath you might take when you’re about to tee off at the first hole of the frisbee golf course at Pier Park amongst the trees, or when you take that first step onto, say, one of the more manicured college campuses around here – maybe Reed College down in Woodstock, NoPo’s U of Portland, or Pacific out in Forest Grove.  Or maybe you’re hiking up that trail to the top of Multnomah Falls.  Depending on how long you’ve lived here, you may not quite have put your finger on it yet, but you most definitely know it;  it’s that impossible to define “forest feeling.”  For some of us it’s half the reason we live in the NW in the first place.

But let’s not kid ourselves, this is an office space that lies within the heart of Bent Image Lab.  There’s work to be done — a mountain of it!

And make no mistake – lots of intense, amazing work does flow through this office in particular.  But thankfully (for our sake), the calming effect makes it a much-needed eye of the hurricane.  You step out of Chel’s door and it’s chaos at 24 frames per second (ok, sometimes 30).  But step inside and close the door, and you might be safe if not just for a moment.

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Thanks to Jalal Jemison (Bent) and James Chick (HiveFX)

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James Chick/HiveFX

Another giant thank you to James Chick from HiveFX and Jalal Jemison from Bent Image Lab for putting together a great night of VFX from around PDX.  I was impressed with the refined approach that HiveFX takes with Grimm and their commercial work – they are clearly a force to be reckoned with and wise beyond their years and James is a great example of the young talent that is booming over there.  Jalal gave us an interesting look into the mind of a colorist and a taste of that world.  I think we’re all envious of the power and control that he wields with that sweet DaVinci Resolve setup.

Everything was recorded and I hope to get clearance to post a highlight video soon – watch this space!  Bits of the Silhouette demo will be included as well.

The raffle was a big success and thank you all for contributing!  We were able to raise about $100 to help defray the costs to import next meeting’s headliner, and that should knock the dollar amount down to a reasonable level that a sponsor can help cover.

Congrats to our raffle winners Chris Greene, Matt Keyes, Steve Molin, and Justin Nichols.  Another huge round of thanks for our meeting sponsors 3DPDX and Autodesk, and our raffle sponsors Silhouette, Blackmagic Design, Artbeats and O’Reilly Media.

The Spring meeting is shaping up to be the biggest yet, stay tuned for more info!

 

Jalal Jemison/Bent Image Lab

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