From: matus [matus@snet.net]
Sent: Monday, August 26, 2002 12:22 AM
To: matus@snet.net
Subject: MFD List - Democratizing Film Production - Why TV Is Getting
More Graphic(s) 

(For those of you who interact with me on a regular basis your are likely
familiar with my hobbies in 3D modeling and animation.  This particular
article was produced in Wired News and relates to the growing prevelence of
graphics in TV and Film.  It does not stop there, however, there are
implications from these general trends that will likely change the way we
veiw productions and films.  Eventually, production will be so readily
available and cheap than anyone will be able to produce their own film or TV
series that looks as real as a Live action filmed experience we are familiar
with today.  There is an every growing independent film movement, many of
which hold certain disdains for the large production houses, the creativity
that many independant filmmakers feel is stiffled by large production house
monopolies will fuel this development.  I am witnessing and experiencing
many technological advances in the 3D graphics arena suggesting these
changes, and effects that were only dreamt of ten years ago are easily
producible and realistic on my home system now.  These 3D tools are becoming
every more intuitive, powerfull, and realistic.  Plugins already exist that
enable people to define the points on a mouth of a digitial characther and
have the program automatically calculate and animate the lyp synching,
producing something that previously would have taken only highly skilled
animators weeks to do.  Walk cycles and motions can be synthesied and
stored, relegating the digital director to a more creative directing role
and a less painstaking bean counting role in the animating process.
Eventually, we will have full production studios at our fingertips, complete
with actors and actresses and a plethora of effects and sets, from distant
worlds to other dimensions.  How will our entertainment industry be changed?
What effects will this massive Democratization of film production have on
the most fascinating of liesure times as entertainment?  We can get hints
from looking at the spreading or previous mediums, starting with printed
press.  The invention of the first moveable type printing press saw the
temple of the elites of society, religion, get distributed amongst the
masses.  No longer was all religious inquiry made only by learned elites,
now everyone could learn and make their own views of religions.  In the
judeao influenced world, this lead to ultimately the splitting of the
protestant from the catholics, at the massive printing and distribution of
Martin Luthers's Protestant declaration.  Soon literacy spread throughout
the world and ideas become more varied and widespread, all thanks to the
cheap ability to produce printed materials.  The same events can be seen to
have happened with radio, the first radio companies being of large appeal to
a lowest common denominator, in the US we saw the 'National Brodcasting
Company' and the 'American Brodcasting Company'  Now we see radio stations
as diverse as all sports coverage, all news coverage, and various musical
preferences.  With the Advent of digital sattelite, this variety will
increase another ten fold.  Channels focusing on sports news coverage for a
particular team will be available.  Similiarly, we have seen the same with
television, with the same few large companies dominating their airwaves.
With the democratization of television, we saw the discovery channel, animal
planet, the food network, and golf TV.  What will the democratization of
Film production hold in store for us? - Mike)


Why TV Is Getting More Graphic(s)
By Michael Stroud

http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,54329,00.html

2:00 a.m. Aug. 6, 2002 PDT
LOS ANGELES -- In a scene from Fox's new sci-fi series Firefly, a character
is plucked by a cable from a bullet train streaking 300 mph into the cargo
bay of a space ship.

In an upcoming episode of the Star Trek series Enterprise, viewers will see
a shot of a spaceship's crew walking on the hull in space, then a pan to a
nearby planet, then a shot of another spaceship nearby.

The two shows illustrate how sophisticated computer graphics (CG) -- once
the preserve of expensive movies like Star Wars -- are transforming
television production.

"Technically, you could have done these kinds of shots two or three years
ago, but it would generally have cost too much and taken too much time for
TV," said Rob Bonchune, a supervising special effects animator for EdenFX,
which does much of Paramount's digital animation for Enterprise. "Now it's
become much more practical."

Firefly (premiering Sept. 20 at 8 p.m. on Fox) and Enterprise (second season
begins Sept. 18 on UPN) are perhaps the most visible examples of CG on
television.

But it's becoming more common. Firefly creator Joss Whedon helped pioneer
TV's use of computer animation on his two earlier hits, Buffy, the Vampire
Slayer and its spinoff, Angel -- animating the transformation of humans into
vampires or entities that spring from the ground and swarm around hapless
people.

And less-exotic TV shows are also beginning to use CG. Last season's
Providence, for example, has an animated shot that zooms down from a
satellite in space to a human eye. And JAG uses animation to produce rolling
backgrounds for characters driving in cars.

What's surprising isn't the technology. Steven Spielberg, after all, created
digital dinosaurs years ago for Jurassic Park. It's the cost of production:
Sophisticated computer effects are being integrated into
$1-million-an-episode TV dramas vs. $100 million-plus movies.

The TV effects aren't necessarily any worse than their more-expensive movie
counterparts. "A year ago, there was a six-months-to-a-year lag from when
you saw it on a movie screen and then it went to a TV," said Emile Edwin
Smith, a computer graphics and special effects supervisor for Excelerant,
which does many of the special effects for the Fox show.

"Now you're seeing a lot of things concurrently. You're even seeing some of
the most innovative stuff appearing first on TV."

Smith, for example, is helping to create an edgy, hand-held camera look for
some of Firefly's computer effects shots -- something that's been done in
live-action TV shows like NYPD Blue, but never in special effects.

It's part of Firefly's attempts to distinguish itself from Enterprise, which
in the Star Trek tradition tends to focus on more majestic shots like
spaceships orbiting planets.

Which is not to say that Enterprise is averse to creatures and aliens. Last
year's pilot for Enterprise, up for a special-effects Emmy this year,
featured computer graphics-spawned creatures climbing walls.

"As God is my witness, they look absolutely dead real," said Bonchune.
"There's no way we could have done that two years ago."

So what's down the pike for digital effects on TV? The use of computer
graphics to create human faces indistinguishable from the real deal, the two
animators agree. Probably in three to five years.

"You could redo the old Star Trek series," mused Bonchune. "The original
mission was only three years. You could do two more entirely in CG."



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