We open on a woman sitting under a tree at the park while reading the newspaper. She comes across a print ad for Specsavers’ contact lenses, the asking price being a relative pittance. The ad catches the eye of an astonished koala who falls out of the tree and lands with a thud nearby the woman. A tug of war over the newspaper ensues with the koala ultimately winning as he reads the Specsavers’ offer for himself.
The photoreal koala was a CG creation of Frametore, London, the creature being built on a tight schedule of just five weeks with the effects house explotig to the max its experience of creating furry CG animals from such previous projects as Andrex’s new CG puppy and The Chronicle of Narnia’s Aslan lion.
Henry Littlechild of Outsider, London, directed “Koala.” Framestore’s Simon French supervised the South London park shoot, ensuring he captured correct lighting reference data, lighting balls and grading reference cards so that the CG koala could be convincingly embedded in Flame. He also captured falling tree debris passes and clean plates so that the Nuke team could have complete control over the separated backgrounds.
Reference for interaction between the koala and the newspaper was generated by shooting simple coat hanger style claws. The CG paws were designed to match the stand-in shoot claws so as to minimize paint work in Flame. But 2D artist Russell Dodgson perfected the interaction between the koala and the newspaper with plate retouching.
After supervising the shoot, French set about modeling and texturing the koala. Framestore’s in-house grooming system was used to create and style the fur, with rendering and character look-dev being created through commercials tools. French said: “In order to accommodate the incredibly tight schedule, rendering had to be super efficient. We managed this by exploiting our already established but continually evolving and improving character production pipeline — the one tried and tested in earlier projects like Narnia and Andrex. This pipeline enabled quick and easy scene setup, plus a smooth and well defined process of passing renders onto the Nuke team for compositing.”
The koala, whose limited screentime meant that each of its frame had to work extra hard, was animated by Michael Elder who had to develop how the animal should fall and react. He also had to strike the right balance between realistic and cartoon-like koala movements, with the end product taking on a 70 percent feel of realism. Elder then researched koala behavior and subsequently shot video reference of himself acting like a dazed koala. He was then ready to sketch thumbnails of main poses which became the basis of keyframing in Maya.
Disney Pledges $15 million In L.A. Fire Aid As More Celebs Learn They’ve Lost Their Homes
The Pacific Palisades wildfires torched the home of "This Is Us" star Milo Ventimiglia, perhaps most poignantly destroying the father-to-be's newly installed crib.
CBS cameras caught the actor walking through his charred house for the first time, standing in what was once his kitchen and looking at a neighborhood in ruin. "Your heart just breaks."
He and his pregnant wife, Jarah Mariano, evacuated Tuesday with their dog and they watched on security cameras as the flames ripped through the house, destroying everything, including a new crib.
"There's a kind of shock moment where you're going, 'Oh, this is real. This is happening.' What good is it to continue watching?' And then at a certain point we just turned it off, like 'What good is it to continue watching?'"
Firefighters sought to make gains Friday during a respite in the heavy winds that fanned the flames as numerous groups pledged aid to help victims and rebuild, including a $15 million donation pledge from the Walt Disney Co.
More stars learn their homes are gone
While seeing the remains of his home, Ventimiglia was struck by a connection to his "This Is Us" character, Jack Pearson, who died after inhaling smoke in a house fire. "It's not lost on me life imitating art."
Mandy Moore, who played Ventimiglia's wife on "This Is Us," nearly lost her home in the Eaton fire, which scorched large areas of the Altadena neighborhood. She said Thursday that part of her house is standing but is unlivable, and her husband lost his music studio and all his instruments.
Mel Gibson's home is "completely gone," his publicist Alan Nierob confirmed Friday. The Oscar winner revealed the loss of his home earlier Friday while appearing on Joe Rogan's... Read More