Every bright idea seems to spawn a sequel, and "Making a Digital Movie: Intensive Visual Effects Production," a training course offered at New York University’s Center for Advanced Digital Applications (CADA), is no exception. CADA’s digital filmmaking program, announced a little more than five months ago (SHOOT, 8/6/99, p. 8), received informal backing from the New York Production Alliance (NYPA), a non-profit organization representing all segments of the production and postproduction industries; and from the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC). The support of the EDC and NYPA was based on the belief that practical digital filmmaking courses would raise the profile of production in New York and potentially deepen the available talent pool. Now the curriculum has expanded to include a class on visual effects in commercial production.
Last summer, the 11 students enrolled in the original course came away with more than an education. After creating new visual effects for the short film Keep Clear, the class contributed four visual effects shots to I Know What You Screamed Last Summer, a horror spoof. When the movie arrives in theaters, the students will have a feature film clip for their reels.
The new 10-week course in digital filmmaking for spots begins Feb. 4. Andy Milkis, a visual effects artist at New York-based Black Logic, will be the instructor. "There are so many aspects of visual effects that are specific to advertising," says Milkis. "You don’t learn them from a textbook, and you certainly don’t learn them in film school."
CADA, a division of New York University’s School of Continuing Education, offers a wide-ranging curriculum that was designed by program coordinator Peter Bardazzi, a master teacher of digital production.
Morty Dubin, NYPA chairman and president of Iris Films, New York, says that NYPA’s mission is to promote and increase film and video production in the city. In addition to encouraging the CADA course, NYPA is compiling a film education database which will help prospective students find instruction in all aspects of film production. "The idea is to have people in New York stay in New York to learn, and to bring in people from elsewhere," says Dubin.
first shot
The instructor for the ’99 course was Corey Rosen, a technical director at Industrial Light+Magic (ILM), San Rafael, Calif. Rosen, whose credits include technical animation for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, will return to teach the July 2000 classes.
"When Peter invited me to teach, I was just starting to work on a film of my own," says Rosen. "Together we decided, what if I made a film and asked the students to do the special effects? That way, it would be a real collaboration, rather than having everyone do their own projects."
Rosen completed Keep Clear well before classes began, but found it to be an ideal vehicle for the student’s practical work. The two-minute short depicts a bespectacled driver’s encounter with a huge, incongruous road sign. Puzzled by the warning to "Keep Clear," he removes his glasses to clean them. As he does so, Rosen explains, "this parade of increasingly absurd things pass by his car: ducks, a marching band, a city mayor."
real effects
The students, who had some background in postproduction work, used various software programs-Maya, Alias Power Animator, SoftImage-to create new vignettes. "Someone did a bouncing ball, and another did a mouse balancing on a ball, which they animated rolling across the street," explains Rosen. "Another did a blue screen shot of themselves walking with an umbrella, and put in a cloud raining down on them." When the class re-edited Keep Clear using the same reaction shots from the actor, the result was a seamless variation on the original.
Their final assignment was to do the visual effects work on I Know What You Screamed Last Summer. When the producers of the film approached Rosen last spring, they were hoping to hire him as a freelance visual effects supervisor. Since Rosen’s schedule wouldn’t permit him to take the job-his vacation time was already earmarked for the NYU course-he suggested that his CADA students do the work. "The producers didn’t have a lot of money to pay, but for the students [who worked for free], it’s great. They’ll have experience on a feature, something for their reel, and a feature credit."
In the movie, a killer finds that all his intended victims have already met with terrible fates before he has a chance to murder them. "The scene we worked on had the killer chasing a woman who ends up being stung by bees and dying," says Rosen. "We did a series of four 3-D animation shots. The students modeled an animated swarm of bees using Maya, SoftImage and Alias, and then composited them in Flint. We did them at film resolution, and they’re actually being filmed now in Los Angeles."
Rosen, who studied film at Northwestern University, says it’s high time for more practical courses on visual effects. "When I finished in ’94, effects work wasn’t a huge part of the program-the focus was mainly on film and video production, with a lot of writing courses," he says. Rosen spent the summer before his senior year as an intern at ILM. That hands-on experience helped him land a full-time job at the company after he’d graduated.
The instructor for the new course, Milkis, also sees a need for more practical instruction in digital filmmaking. As an undergraduate at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Milkis took the only visual effects course then being offered: a 3-D animation class taught by Bardazzi. "Back in 1995, when I graduated, the class had ten students who had to share two computers. It’s changed quite a bit-the new [CADA] facility at 42nd Street is fantastic."
Though Milkis can’t promise the new students a film credit, he offers this advice: "No one is going to give you a job because you took a ten-week class, but it will give you the edge if you are competing for a job."
Additionally, he says, the CADA program offers a sense of what professional visual effects work is like. "Compositors have a multifaceted job," says Milkis. "Aside from being able to run the machines, you have to have editing skills, and a feeling for artistry. You have to deal with color and light. And you have to have people skills, because you’re dealing with a different breed of filmmaker in advertising people. The length of the course [13 weeks] is perfect too, because with a TV spot, you can go from the conception of an idea to a finished spot in that same time frame."
Adapting the course for advertising training is what Milkis is working on this month. "I’m getting clearances from former clients to use their footage, so we’ll be working on actual spots," he says. "And we’ll be using all the accompanying paperwork, like storyboards and budgets, as reference material. We want students to come out with a better appreciation of what’s involved."
