For our master graduation project we produced a Game Of Thrones Intro inspired video as a tribute to Italy and to all GoT fans.
With the use of computer graphics and 3D modeling softwares, we recreated 6 of the most famous and loved italian cities.
The aim of our thesis is to analyze the impact of new technologies and social media on the diffusion of tv series-related contents produced by fans.
CHIARA SAPIO, MANOJ ROLLO
Good morning Mr. Valenziano, could you please introduce yourself?
I am Franco Valenziano, a VFX Supervisor. I have been working for years on visual effect in different areas: from advertising to television, from cinema to fiction, from general events to theme parks.
What does it mean to work as a VFX Supervisor?
The visual effect Supervisor is involved, or at least should be involved, in projects which contain digital interventions only in the preproduction phase. During the examination of the script with the production, he has to define which are the best technical solutions by mixing, if necessary, special effects (the ones made on the set) and visual effects (the digital effects made in postproduction phase). He discusses about the budget with the eventual VFX producer, follows the shooting phase on the set, which is important in order to have information about the set. For example, if you need to rebuild the camera movements, the lens used, the lighting, or if you need to check the numbers of the takes and the necessary interventions, he supervises all the postproduction work and coordinates the team until the final delivery, in which he confronts his work with the producer, the director, the video editor etc… This work surely requires technical skills, but also a good taste and devotion for image and cinematography, knowing the possible outcomes you can obtain by using different techniques.
You began to interconnect with the CGI world only in the 80s, so you have seen the special effects progression from the analogical to the digital: can you tell us what actually changed in the use of special effects or in the way of shooting films? What changed from the technical point of view?
My experience has always been digital, I am a computer expert, I started working by chance in a telecommunication company, where the majority of my friends were employed to program telephone software. As I wrote in my CV I loved drawing and as they wanted someone for the cad group, I was assigned to one of the first graphic workstations of that company, even before the Silicon Graphics. So, we started developing codes in C or Pascal writing simple programs for two-dimensional drawing purposes in order to help engineers make printed circuit boards; then we discovered 3D libraries in those stations so we started using them too. This experience lead me to work for a little computer graphics company, the Eidos, it was 1985- 1986. We wanted to develop a 3D animation software, as we saw there were already some types of them around the world: Wavefront, an older one named RobertAbel; we worked with the University “Politecnico di Milano”, where they had just developed a rendering raytracing software. Under these circumstances I worked on the interface part, writing codes, but I was the only one able to use that software –obviously I wrote it myself- I knew which button should be pressed and which one should not. Later I started having fun drawing images with that software so I left the developing part for the production one, it was much more fun to use rather than write. Unfortunately that project was never completed. Later I kept working with the first digital post production company in Milan, where the digital effects were still limited to the 3D ones. There were the first compositing softwares, some concerning the workstation of Quantel (like Paintbox, Harry, etc…) in which the 3D PAL images were written on 1 inch type videotape. During the early 80s- 90s, we had a lot of fun, we were a small group of people working on these workstations because only a few companies could afford the investments in graphic hardware and software which cost hundreds millions liras. I remember we went to the SIGGRAPH in USA because the company had us sent there to attend courses and conferences and many associates never came back.
I got to know the special effects only on the cinematographic set, but I had never had any experiences in that field, I just want to make it clear.
So, when did you actually start working in the VFX effects field?
Firstly, I started working in the advertising sector. Then I managed to work for a movie in 2000s: Gabriele Salvatores called me to work on a film named DENTI, a strange story, quite hallucinated, where different visions came out as the main character started his trip…
Silvia Panicali is a young 2D Animator and Visual Developer.
Graduated with honour at IIF (Istituto Italiano di Fotografia) in Milan, she proceeded her studies at NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti), earning a Bachelor’s degree in 2014.
Since 2015 she works for Cicciotun, realizing commercials through various techniques such as motion graphic, traditional animation, stop-motion, cognitive animation and live action.
She currently lives in Milan, where she teaches Motion Design and After Effects at NABA.
Good morning Mr. Valenziano, could you please introduce yourself?
I am Franco Valenziano, a VFX Supervisor. I have been working for years on visual effect in different areas: from advertising to television, from cinema to fiction, from general events to theme parks.
What does it mean to work as a VFX Supervisor?
The visual effect Supervisor is involved, or at least should be involved, in projects which contain digital interventions only in the preproduction phase. During the examination of the script with the production, he has to define which are the best technical solutions by mixing, if necessary, special effects (the ones made on the set) and visual effects (the digital effects made in postproduction phase). He discusses about the budget with the eventual VFX producer, follows the shooting phase on the set, which is important in order to have information about the set. For example, if you need to rebuild the camera movements, the lens used, the lighting, or if you need to check the numbers of the takes and the necessary interventions, he supervises all the postproduction work and coordinates the team until the final delivery, in which he confronts his work with the producer, the director, the video editor etc… This work surely requires technical skills, but also a good taste and devotion for image and cinematography, knowing the possible outcomes you can obtain by using different techniques.
You began to interconnect with the CGI world only in the 80s, so you have seen the special effects progression from the analogical to the digital: can you tell us what actually changed in the use of special effects or in the way of shooting films? What changed from the technical point of view?
My experience has always been digital, I am a computer expert, I started working by chance in a telecommunication company, where the majority of my friends were employed to program telephone software. As I wrote in my CV I loved drawing and as they wanted someone for the cad group, I was assigned to one of the first graphic workstations of that company, even before the Silicon Graphics. So, we started developing codes in C or Pascal writing simple programs for two-dimensional drawing purposes in order to help engineers make printed circuit boards; then we discovered 3D libraries in those stations so we started using them too. This experience lead me to work for a little computer graphics company, the Eidos, it was 1985- 1986. We wanted to develop a 3D animation software, as we saw there were already some types of them around the world: Wavefront, an older one named RobertAbel; we worked with the University “Politecnico di Milano”, where they had just developed a rendering raytracing software. Under these circumstances I worked on the interface part, writing codes, but I was the only one able to use that software –obviously I wrote it myself- I knew which button should be pressed and which one should not. Later I started having fun drawing images with that software so I left the developing part for the production one, it was much more fun to use rather than write. Unfortunately that project was never completed. Later I kept working with the first digital post production company in Milan, where the digital effects were still limited to the 3D ones. There were the first compositing softwares, some concerning the workstation of Quantel (like Paintbox, Harry, etc…) in which the 3D PAL images were written on 1 inch type videotape. During the early 80s- 90s, we had a lot of fun, we were a small group of people working on these workstations because only a few companies could afford the investments in graphic hardware and software which cost hundreds millions liras. I remember we went to the SIGGRAPH in USA because the company had us sent there to attend courses and conferences and many associates never came back.
I got to know the special effects only on the cinematographic set, but I had never had any experiences in that field, I just want to make it clear.
So, when did you actually start working in the VFX effects field?
Firstly, I started working in the advertising sector. Then I managed to work for a movie in 2000s: Gabriele Salvatores called me to work on a film named DENTI, a strange story, quite hallucinated, where different visions came out as the main character started his trip…
Did you happened, in your career, to find these kind of problems?
A couple of years ago I worked for a Valfrutta advertisement: a fruit juice, where agency brief was recreated a sequences of anthropomorphic animals, like Madagascar. We realized characters design, informed that we couldn’t create the same characters of the Dreamworks, so for each one there was a series of evident differences. Characters was approved, both design and modeling and texturing phase. Because there are always some presentation steps.
But, at the end, when we presented the characters to the director, all together, inside the circus, they seems exactly like Madagascar!
Anybody had seen that pictures said: “uh, looks! How wonderful, Madagascar 3!”, “No, looks! The lion is completely different, the monkey is completely different!” and all characters was really different, because was born aware of the problem. Maybe a lion, a monkey, a tiger and some parrots under a circus’ marquee remember always Madagascar 3, in everybody’s thought, whatever you can do.
So client asked a legal advice, we got scared, at this point it was too late to redo all work. We had to change something with the rigging, for example, we made a panda that reminds a Dreamwork’s character, so we change him into a polar bear, other characters too were modified using the rig possibility, next we had to texturing all gain. We made a series of justified changes in a hurry!
Another example for the television is the 2005 show Rock Politic, Adriano Celentano call us (Ubic was one of the leader society for the visual effect in Milan), he wants talk about the Milan of 19th century, when the navigli were yet uncovered and navigable. Navigli should be modeled based on old photographies, daguerreotypes, paintings etc; there were the Leonardo da Vinci’s sluice to recreate too. We started with a shot of the modern Milan, and turn the clocks two century back.
We rebuilt in digital all the buildings, with a fade out we blend the modern shot with the reconstruction, and we animated the landscape with clouds and birds, in spite of this the ambient was damned empty!
When I show our reconstruction to Celentano’s wife, she say to us that it doesn’t work. Her husband’s question focused on what beautiful were the city in the 19th century and how ugly is now, but it doesn’t work, the old city was nice but sad, empty. So we asked to RAI if we could use a theater with a blue screen, in a hurry, and recorded some people spread inside the ambient, at the end we had several minutes of material, we were really proud of it!
The video was edited by Celentano, whom used only 30 seconds, the part about the Leonardo’s slice, but since it was too short was playes on reverse too, with a waterfall effect the water went up. We were really perplexed, but Celentano have the 50% of share, on television, so he was right, there’s no question.
Enrico De Palo is a visual effect artist, a digital compositor who works in the filmmaking industry and creates visual effects for the cinema. During his career he has worked for about ten years as a compositor, an on set supervisor and sometimes as a vfx supervisor in Italy, where he worked for movies like “Il Mercante di Pietre” and “Lontano dalla Luce”.
Then he had the fortune to divide his time between Berlin and London, in order to achieve some visual effects for many important American blockbusters as “Fast and Furious”, “Kingsman” and “Hercules”.
Moreover, for two years now, Enrico De Paolo has worked as a teacher in the Turin offices of the digital art school Event Horizon, where professionals in the field of digital art and 3D artists are willing to share their knowledge.
Showreel of Alessio Bertotti’s best VFX, Compositing, 3D and Motion Graphic works, until Winter 2015:
Alessio Bertotti, VFX Artist and supervisor, has worked in Italy and abroad in different fields: movies, commercials, TV series, music videos and motion graphics.
Since he was young he’s been interested in this industry and in video and photo editing. He’s graduated in Graphic and Virtual Design at the Polytechnic of Turin, and then he has attended two master’s program: one in Computer Graphics in Turin and the other in Professional Compositing at the Escape Studios in London.
Despite his age, he’s already taken part to the realization of remarkable projects, such as “Captain America: Civil War” (2016), “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (2015), “The Expendables 3” (2014), “Everest” (2014), the featured RAI film “One thousand and one nights” (2012), the Tv series “Constantine” (2014-2015) and the commercials for “Vision Express” (2014), “Direct Line” (2013), “Mercedes-Benz Assist” (2013).
Having the possibility to interview Alessio Bertotti, we’ve decided to ask him some questions about his experience in this industry, the differences between working for a movie, a tv series or a commercial, and some details of some of the most interesting and remarkable projects he’s worked for.
Enrico de Palo, born in 1966, is an italian VFX artist, specialized in compositing. He has worked for big international productions such as Furious 6, and After Earth, as a compositor. He also has experience as VFX supervisor for smaller productions.
Visual effects are Enrico’s passion, and this passion was so big that he decided to become a VFX teacher at Event Horizon School of Digital Arts.
In this interview we are going to see how hard it was for him to reach the top of his career, how his passion helped him and the way he tries to infuse this passion into his students.
You are a renowned compositor. How hard has it been to reach this level? What are the main steps of your growth?
The main goal of a VFX supervisor is to work on an international production. You reach that goal when you work for an american blockbuster, but this forces you to move abroad because if you stay in Italy, you will only work for italian productions.
If you want to work for important productions, you have to move to the USA, but this is almost impossible because American market isn’t open to foreigners, unless you have connections.
Fortunately, american productions are also developed overseas, they delegate their work to english-speaking countries like Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
I tried to move either to Canada or London to join the american visual effects market and become a professional compositor. After you do this, then you can move freely both in the american environment and in the european one.
I started with the movie “After Earth” in Berlin with Pixomondo and then I moved immediately to London with Double Negative.
You need to be lucky and have a great willpower. With a little skills and two or three years of experience in Italy, you can find a job as a decent compositor and then it gets easy. But I had no intention of spending my life in London so I moved back to Italy. Sometimes I move abroad to work for two or three months and I consider this as sort of holiday.
How does it feel to work for very important productions?
It feels satisfactory. It feels fulfilling when you speak with someone and you can say “I made THIS movie” and people know about it.
It feels a lot different to say that you made movies like “Il mercante di pietre”, “il 7 e l’8” or “Baaria” rather than “Furious 6”, “Kingsman” or “Hercules”.
This means that you’re filling your own ego. It is a personality matter because I don’t work for money but for passion and I must give the best of me on something that will live for a long time.
How do you define your job compared to others? Is it a kind of hobby?
It depends on the point of view, to me it is an hobby. It’s a matter of personality, I look it and say it’s a cool thing, some others say that they would never do my job. Each shot has a result, you create something that doesn’t exist and this is the great part of the work, you make a shot and it becomes something that’s partially yours, it’s something that you created!
ENG (Leggi in Italiano)
INTERVIEW WITH FEDERICO GALVANI – Motion Design, Stop Motion, Visual Art and a lot more!!!
Federico Galvani teaches motion design at the University IUAV of Venice and he is a founder of the multidisciplinary laboratory “Happycentro” where he works on art direction, graphic design, visual identity, illustration, modeling in clay and paper, printing, and directed animation. This studio works for famous brands or small startup and uses several methods of communication: Stop Motion Animation, TV / web commercials, Packaging, Visual Art, Typography, Graphic Design and Music Videos.
The main technique that reflects the style and the way of working of “Happycentro” is the stop motion because it is the synthesis of what we have always done, build objects, puppets and backdrops of various materials, combining illustration and graphic design and set up the set and lights for the photo shoots.
Tell us about your educational background, where your interest in the world of special effects has began?
After high school, I enrolled at university, first year part-time, because in the meanwhile I was working and the following years full-time. I attended the Graphic and Virtual Project bachelor degree at Polytechnic University of Turin. There, I became interested in 3D. During the last year I followed a course at Virtual Multimedia Park in Turin, where I realized my first Showreel, which allowed me to find a job at Rumblefish in Milan. There I worked for 6/7 months
ENG (Leggi in Italiano)
INTERVIEW WITH VALERIO TARRICONE – FIRE and EXPLOSIONS!
One of the funniest moments for an artist of special effects is playing with digital fire, but in order to simulate realistically and showing its intangible nature we must resort to something different from the normal modeling-animation: the 3D particles!
We interviewed an Italian Digital Artist who deals with the simulation of fire and explosions in video products.
We introduce you Valerio Tarricone!
Valerio Tarricone is a FX TD (Technical Director of Effects) at The Moving Picture Company (MPC), a UK post production company with branch offices all around the world, including Montreal.
He holds a Diploma in Sculpture from AD’A Academy of Art and in 2D/3D Animation from Nemo NT Academy of Digital Arts. He holds a BA degree in Graphic Design and Multimedia from LABA Academy of Fine Arts and He also obtained an MA in Digital Effects at Bournemouth University National Centre for Computer Animation.
He was employed as Junior FX Generalist Artist for Rock Paper Film and as Junior FX Artist at the Cross Channel Film Lab. In London, He collaborated as 3D Generalist for Variant Office, Design Studio. Earlier he had completed the FX Intern at The Brewery VFX in London where He worked on the Fluid simulations as Fire, Smoke plus RBD and Cloth dynamics for the ITV serial “The Great Fire”.
Nowadays he is working on the feature film The Fantastic Four (20th Century Fox). In particular he collaborates for implementing fire simulation in the special effects of the character Human Torch for the MPC, one of the worldwide leaders in VFX for over 25 years. MPC is renowned for adding visual wonders and creative expertise to the advertising, film and entertainment industries. Some of their most famous projects include blockbuster movies such as Godzilla, the Harry Potter franchise, X-Men, Prometheus and Life of Pi, famous advertising campaigns for brands such as Samsung, Coca Cola, Sony.
Front Effects - VFX curiosities and Making of 