Threads of Destiny VFX compositor interview!
Threads of Destiny visual effects compositor interview!
Andreas Feix, one of the most active visual effect compositor of the Star Wars fan film Threads of Destiny, took the time to answer our questions :
Benoît (swf.com) : Thanks Andreas for taking the time to answer my question. First of all, are you a Star Wars fan? I mean are you a crazy SW nerd or just a simple fan?
Andreas Feix : well I haven't gone so far to dress up like a SW character ^^, but I'd call myself a great fan :) I enjoyed in particular the movies & the clone wars series in particular, as well as several of the videogames - not only for the richness of the universe, but also the technical achievements they offered us. Down in its core it contains a quite interesting mythology on which the universe is based upon - politics set aside - which makes it like alot more interesting than most of the other sci-fi universes created....not that I enjoy other sci-fi content as well.
SWF : indeed, as rich as the Tolkien mythology...
A.F : true! I do like f.ex. Battlestar Galactica, because it brought a refreshning contemporary style while being based on the simplicity of telling about humans in space; and Mass Effect, which tends to bring us the level of maturity and diversity that I failed to discover in f.ex. Star Trek...recent independent film hits like District 9 and Moon also fall in that category :)...but don't get me on Avatar ^^
SWF : Have you ever heard of fan film/ star wars fan film before TOD? Have you seen some of them?
A.F : oh yes - I've seen f.ex. "Revelations", when it was released back in 2005, and I remember watching films like "emergence of the sith" or "KnightQuest" and I was quite impressed what they achieved back then. Brickfilms in particular were also a great source for star wars fanfilms animated in LEGO, both humourus & original ;)
SWF : yes, I remember that ^^
A.F : There was a highly professional Episode III trailer called "Rise of the Empire", with neat effects and interesting ideas, about a month after the real Episode II was released - and most of the effects had been done...in Photoshop. I remember making a lego star wars kiddie tale back then, but the FX and the plot... - let's don't talk about it ^^
SWF : so when Rasmus (director of Threads of Destiny) "found" you were you already an amazing visual effect master?
A.F : It was back in 2007 when Rasmus first approached be about the project, at that point I just finished high school and was about to do civilian service. I agreed to participate for several reasons:
First of all, yes, to increase my skills, but also to try out something new - when you're the only kid in class interested in video, you either try out visual effects on your own or you persuade your classmates to "help you out" as in acting strange in front of the camera - so it was quite refreshning for a change - and hey, after watching several star wars fanfilms, participating in one surely is alot of fun! :)
SWF : you seem to have gained more and more responsabilties within the project. What are you now responsible for in the making of TOD?
A.F : mainly it started out with compositing only, adding backgrounds into greenscreen plates, but the shots soon started to rise in complexity, like animating matte paintings (before compositing them), rotoscoping performers & adding in holograms etc., and a year later, in 2008, I actually produced my first full CG shot for the show, using the ship models etc that were built previously.
Since then, the tasks have approximately stayed the same but increased in complexity - the CG shots have become more vast & expanded (atm I'm in charge of generating an entire asteroid field), and the latter compositing jobs didn't necessarily include greenscreen anymore ^^, but rotoscoping and adding set extensions into plates shot on location.
SWF : A lot of people with different skills have worked on this project to complete the post production. How is this possible to keep an unified version in terms of visual effects? Will some scenes look poorer than others?
A.F : Every artist will have their own methodology and to work out shots, so it's inevitable that scenes will differ in aesthetics - and in some cases they might look poorer than others, based on different skills - Honestly, some of the shots I did back in 2007 will actually look poor compared to recent shots in my eyes ^^ - The best thing that can be done in such a case is to keep an artist to a specific environment or setting, or at least to a certain scene, in order to guarantee that at least a scene look unified - f.ex. I ended up creating nearly every single shot that played inside a certain ship; that way the shots keep a certain continuity as good as possible...
In other situations you'd have to at least guarantee that shots from different artists of the same scene match up by comparison before signing off, or in the worst case have one artist redo another one's shots in order to guarantee continuity...
SWF : So is TOD really gonna be a 2 hours movie? In that case it could be the longest SW fan film ever made!!! Have you been able to see an unfinished version of the whole movie?
A.F : I don't know the exact length, but I guess that we can at least expect a movie of 80-90 minutes in length, unless something end on the cutting floor :P Given the amount of shots I did so far I do have seen my share , however I haven't seen the entire movie yet - that's the little bit of suspense I'd like to reserve for the final version (or the premiere :) )
Still I've got a basic overview for the entire movie by reading the script and also partially knowing the technical spreadsheets for the vfx shots...
SWF : What are your next projects? Short movies or 3D animation, visual effects stuff?
A.F : Well as I'm currently studying at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, our studies demand that we either develop our own projects or help out with visual effects work - in recent cases that has been both :)
Even though I like doing visual effects quite alot, the pleasure of creating a movie on your own can be very thrilling from time to time: Recently I created a sci-fi short within 4 months with CG environments & 30 shots with CG reptilian aliens, which was quite an interesting experience and I do intend to expand my efforts into character animation.
Next term we'll all be tasked to create trailers for a larger film festival, & I definitly plan to do another animation project for graduation, besides the possibility of helping out other with visual effects - I do hope that I get the chance to continue on this path
SWF : Thanks Andreas for this very informative interview. We wish you all the best for your upcoming projects!
