Tag: VFX

Tokyo: VFX Pioneer George Murphy Talks AI, Virtual Production and the Future of Filmmaking

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New technologies led by artificial intelligence and virtual production are profoundly changing visual effects but are still “another paintbrush” in the service of storytelling, says VFX veteran George Murphy.

“Virtual production is not just a tool for VFX; it’s a storytelling tool that allows actors to feel fully immersed in the scene, instead of having to imagine everything against a blank screen,” Murphy tells The Hollywood Reporter, in an interview at the Tokyo International Film Festival ahead of appearing on the Motion Picture Association panel, Filmmaking 2.0: The Evolution of Real-Time VFX for Traditional Filmmakers.

Murphy, a VFX supervisor and creative director at DNEG in London, made his entry into filmmaking with Steven Spielberg’s Hook (1991), a production hailed for its seminal VFX, in particular the use of projected matte painting. Computerized effects were very much in their infancy when he joined Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). He was part of a small team that pioneered digital compositing for films and he quickly recognized the potential of these ground-breaking tools to transform filmmaking.

“At ILM, we worked with Unix scripts and early computer graphics programs, but it was clear that these tools could create more believable, integrated images than anything before,” he says.

Murphy’s background was in another visual medium. “I started out fully intending to be a freelance photojournalist, covering the real world,” he recalls. “In an odd way, it was those skills in capturing reality that prepared me for fabricating worlds that don’t exist.”

Creating those worlds and making them look believable won him an Oscar and BAFTA for Forrest Gump, and has seen him supervise effects on productions including Planet of The Apes, Mission: Impossible, Jurassic Park, The Matrix sequels and Black Sails.

One of the biggest game-changers in recent years has been the development of virtual production, says Murphy. This technology, popularized by The Mandalorian, allows filmmakers to create virtual environments on LED screens in real time, replacing traditional green-screen backdrops.

Murphy experienced the power of this technology firsthand on the set of Murder on the Orient Express back in 2016, where a train car was surrounded by LED screens displaying high-resolution footage of the world speeding by. “The actors didn’t have to pretend they were looking out at a snowy mountain scene. They were immersed in it, and that makes a huge difference in their performance. Things that were going past would actually catch their eyes,” he notes, saying it led to a more authentic feel and therefore immersive experience for the audience as well.

Responsive tools like Epic Games’ Unreal Engine and Unity have also revolutionized the VFX workflow. “These tools allow us to create, edit, and test our work in real-time, which wasn’t possible a decade ago. You can see the result instantly instead of waiting hours for a render,” Murphy explains.

He likens this change to moving from analog to digital photography: “The whole process has become much more flexible and collaborative, allowing us to explore creative choices and see what works best in the moment.”

With AI advancing at a bewildering pace, it is quickly finding a place in the VFX toolkit. For Murphy, AI offers both opportunities and challenges. He points out that AI can streamline labor-intensive tasks like rotoscoping (manually isolating elements within a scene) or tracking (following a moving object or character in footage).

“With AI, we can now accomplish in minutes what used to take hours or even days,” he says. “It frees up artists to focus on the more creative aspects of their work”

Nevertheless, he believes that for all its power, machine learning isn’t a substitute for the creativity and ideation of a filmmaker, for now at least. “AI can process huge amounts of data, and it can imitate styles based on what it’s seen. But it doesn’t experience emotions, so it can’t capture the essence of human storytelling. That’s something only artists who have lived and felt can bring to a project,” he suggests.

Another exciting development for Murphy is the expansion of storytelling across different media and platforms. During his work on The Matrix sequels, he witnessed the potential of what he calls “story worlds.” The Matrix franchise extended its narrative through video games, animated shorts, and comics, allowing fans to explore the story beyond the main films. Murphy sees this approach as crucial for the future of entertainment, as audiences look for ways to engage more deeply with stories.

This “multiverse” approach to storytelling has become increasingly popular, especially with the rise of streaming and interactive platforms. Murphy believes that as technology advances, audiences will be able to interact with story worlds in new ways—perhaps even experiencing them in virtual reality or augmented reality. “We’re only scratching the surface of what’s possible,” he says. “Once VR becomes more accessible, the way we tell and experience stories is going to change fundamentally”

Looking forward, Murphy is enthusiastic about the possibilities that technology opens up but also concerned about the potential loss of craftsmanship.

“There’s an artistry to physical effects, to building something by hand, and that’s still incredibly valuable. It gives you a grounding in reality that’s essential, even in digital work,” he explains, adding that many of the best physical model makers went on to VFX careers.

Ultimately, Murphy believes that technology should serve the story, not the other way around, and remains optimistic about the future of filmmaking.

“These tools are just new brushes in our paintbox,” he says. “They allow us to push the boundaries of what’s possible. But the artist’s hand will always be there, guiding the story and making sure it resonates with the audience.”

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Gavin Blair

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October 30, 2024
When You Give a Ball a Camera: How ‘Challengers’ VFX Team Created Tennis POV Scene

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In Luca Guadagnino‘s tennis thriller Challengers, stars Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor litigate their love triangle as much on the court as in the bedroom. As such, the sport has to stay interesting.

Guadagnino previously told Little White Lies he doesn’t like watching real tennis because it’s boring. “The way in which [the sport] is shown is rather undynamic,” he said. Challengers — punctuated by the camera’s near-constant frenetic motion — seems to be in part about rectifying this failing.

“Luca’s vision for this movie was making the tennis action generally very kinetic,” Challengers VFX director Brian Drewes tells The Hollywood Reporter. The camera sweeps above and below the court, jumping toward the subjects’ beautifully sweaty faces and buzzing with an immersive energy that took the internet and critics by storm upon the movie’s release. This kineticism reaches its peak at the end of the film, when the camera becomes the ball, and the audiences volleys back and forth between O’Connor and Faist in a dizzying pattern of movement that is most definitely not “undynamic.”

How did they make it happen?

Challengers falls in the category of films whose VFX are not immediately visible. “It’s this kind of movie where the audience just feels a little differently for some reason,” Drewes, the co-founder of Zero VFX, says. “It’s subtle, but it leads to this high impact feel. You say, ‘Oh something there is just different.’”

Drewes and his team touched touched every tennis scene (and then some) in the movie, aiding the game’s dynamism with the CG help of balls, hands, rackets, faces, background actors and more.

“We really wanted to focus on the actors,” Drewes says, “really being able to show off all the work they had done.”

In the case of the POV scene, Drewes started with a previs pass (a computer-generated 3D previsualization) of the entire scene, edited to the real-world audio and speed of an actual tennis match overseen by Brad Gilbert, the famed Andre Agassi tennis coach and Challengers tennis consultant.

“He scripted all of the tennis action for the movie in quite vivid detail,” Drewes says. “Where the ball was going and the nature of the volley was defined by him.”

Mike Faist in Challengers

MGM/Courtesy Everett Collection

The previs helped Drewes and Guadagnino understand what the scene would look like. “I’d never seen it before,” Drewes says. “There’s no reference for it in the real world.”

With the previs complete, the team filmed the scene with two stunt doubles over the course of about five hours on a Sunday. “The time on this court was very valuable,” Drewes says. “Luca said, ‘So long as you’re shooting what’s in the previs, I’m fine with it,’ and I said, ‘Yes, sir.’”

Though most of Challengers was shot on 35mm film, Drewes used an Arri Alexa LF camera for the POV and several other tennis scenes given the speed required for the movie’s most turbulent shots. (Another example? The corkscrew zoom toward Faist made so popular by the movie’s viral trailer.)

The camera was attached to a 30′ crane whose footage would later be re-timed to match the speed dictated by previs. The final result moves at the same rate as a real-life tennis match.

In post, the team stitched together 23 shots for the 24-second scene. As they put it together, the individual shots also had to be re-lit to account for daylight changes that occurred over the hours they filmed.

To complete their final models, Drewes scanned tennis courts with lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) and photogrammetry and added over 100 photoscanned background extras to fill the stands.

“We had 900 shots in this movie,” he says. “You would never guess so.”

How similar is the final product to the original previs? “I’m 100 percent sure that Luca would not have approved it if it wasn’t what was in his mind,” Drewes says, but adds, “it was a very collaborative process to get there.”

In fact, he adds, collaboration is often the key to successful VFX. “When it becomes part of the story is when it’s very successful. Sometimes that can mean it takes center stage, something like Furiosa, where you know it’s there but you can enjoy it for its beauty. Then other times, you don’t know it’s there. You’re embedded in the process, looking at it with the filmmakers,” he says. “We love surprising people.”

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Zoe G Phillips

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June 5, 2024
Independence Day 2023: Deconstructing the dominance of desi VFX in Hollywood movies

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When we think of big-budget, VFX-heavy Hollywood films, we almost never think of their cutting-edge, jaw-dropping visuals being curated in a studio somewhere in Mumbai’s Malad or Hyderbad’s Banjara Hills. And yet, it is a well-known fact that several fantasy, sci-fi and superhero blockbusters owe a lot to Indian VFX artistes.

As we spotlight desi VFX this Independence Day, here’s a look at some of the biggest movies that proved just how essential Indian VFX is to the entertainment industry on a global scale. Read on:

CGI tigers burning bright

Animals and creatures have notoriously been hard to create. However, the award-winning 2013 film Life of Pi did not have that problem. The Ang Lee film, based on Yann Martel’s classic novel, took audiences on a breathtaking journey of survival and self-discovery as the titular Pi (played by Suraj Sharma) was cast away in the ocean after a tragic shipwreck. The film brought the text to life in a remarkable visual masterpiece. Indian VFX company Rhythm & Hues, now Reliance MediaWorks, created the realistic Bengal tiger, Richard Parker. The studio also worked on the awe-inspiring reflective ocean shot and the mesmerising bioluminescent scenes.

Another film that had realistic animals created by Indian VFX Studios is Jon Favreau’s 2016 live-action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic, The Jungle Book. This one is a particularly tricky film to make since it has an all-animal cast save for Neel Sethi, the young actor who played Mowgli. The film’s vibrant jungles and realistic animals were crafted by Technicolor’s Moving Picture Company (MPC). It’s quite the feat to pull off.

Truly Marvel-ous!

It is a shame that Indian names don’t get instantly associated with superhero movies because of the sheer number of artists employed to complete these movies under tight deadlines. Who can forget the global movie event that was Avengers: Endgame? The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Infinity saga got a satisfying conclusion and it demanded a truckload of groundbreaking VFX work. Luckily for Marvel, Indian VFX studios like Digital Domain India and Framestore were up for the challenge. They reportedly contributed to the film’s unforgettable battle scenes and time-travel sequences. It was a scene straight out of the comic books, one that fans had been manifesting for a very long time.

The VFX work for Chris Hemsworth’s Thor: The Dark World was done by Prana Studios in Mumbai. The film had multiple sequences set between Earth and Thor’s home planet, Asgard. It truly takes a village to pull that off. In this case, a village full of Indian professionals working at the highest efficiency levels.

Space craft

VFX companies have long supported the visions of not just obscure films but Oscar-winning filmmakers, including Christopher Nolan. The visual effects in the sci-fi epic Interstellar were handled by India-listed company Double Negative (DNEG), one of the most acclaimed VFX houses in the world. The film went on to win the Academy Award for Visual Effects. Interstellar has some of the most impressive visuals that combine art and science for the perfect movie experience. The film features scenes set in space, and Nolan goes big with his vision. The visual effects of the film were carried out within a year by a workforce of 300 people. Imagine that.

Another example is Alfonso Cuarón’s mind-bending 2013 space thriller Gravity. The film is a defining moment in cinema, and Indian VFX studio Prime Focus played a pivotal role in creating the awe-inspiring visuals of Earth seen from space, the lifelike space station and the intense zero-gravity sequences.

Quizzing aloud

By now, it’s pretty common to hear that Indian studios were involved in everything from James Cameron’s historic film Avatar to the highly addictive fantasy series Game of Thrones. Khaleesi’s Dragons? Indian VFX. So why are Indian movies still suffering from the bad CGI curse? From the outlandish crocodile in Mohenjo Daro to the weird CG horses in Tanhaji and the strange derivative creatures in Adipurush, we’ve seen some shoddy VFX work. These have sparked a backlash from fans, discouraging production houses even further. There are multiple reasons for this. With studios bagging projects in the West, Indian movies haven’t been getting their due attention. Bollywood movies tend to allot lower budgets for visual effects. This leaves artistes to seek work overseas, which they get very easily due to the high volume of demand. At the same time, the list of movies that employ VFX is very small. Between Hrithik Roshan’s Krrish and Shah Rukh Khan’s Ra.One and India’s inventive attempts at superhero franchises and films like Dhoom 3, there are very few examples to cite.

Rays of hope

Things are changing with films like Brahmastra. The ambitious Ayan Mukerji project, starring Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt, reportedly had more VFX shots than most Marvel films. Then, we had the history-making RRR, directed by SS Rajamouli. The Ram Charan and Jr. NTR-starrer was full of VFX shots, and they were all done to perfection. The ace director had also delivered Baahubali a few years ago, another triumph in visuals. These films are often cited as some of the best in terms of visual splendour. Meanwhile, Nag Ashwin’s upcoming sci-fi film Kalki 2898 AD, starring Prabhas, Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan and others, is poised to display fresh marvels of the Indian VFX scene. The promotional material of the film is good enough to draw comparisons with Dennis Villeneuve’s Dune films. As technology continues to evolve, the magic of Indian VFX will undoubtedly enhance the cinematic experience, setting the stage for even more breathtaking spectacles to grace the silver screen in the future.

SEE ALSO: Made In India: Hollywood films shot in the land of diversity

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Filmfare

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August 15, 2023
Exclusive: Elemental’s VFX Supervisor on bringing the elements to life in Pixar’s most unlikely film

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On paper, the concept of Elemental is very in-sync with Pixar’s style of storytelling. The movie, directed by Pete Sohn, asks the question – What if elements had feelings and lived in a society? However, from the very first glance, one can tell that the film’s look and feel are not very Pixar-esque. Revolving around an adorable budding romance between Ember Lumen (voiced by Leah Lewis) and Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie), two beings essentially made of fire and water respectively, the film takes on some heavy themes including immigration and racial discrimination.

The journey into Element City where fire, water, land and air reside was full of challenges and had the makers drawing inspiration from everything between Miyazaki’s works to The Godfather II. In an exclusive interview with Filmfare, Elemental’s VFX Supervisor Sanjay Bakshi, best known for The Good Dinosaur and Onward, unpacked the film’s visuals.

What was the brief given to you by the director?

I know Pete Sohn. I’ve worked with him before so I talked to him early on about the story. He wanted to talk about his parents and his immigration experience in the world of elements. He thought that was going to be a good way to convey what it felt like – moving to New York City. And my parents moved from India to Canada. So I related that experience. He wanted to talk to me generally about my experiences and see if they were relatable and universal.

The visuals are very different from any other Pixar movie. What are some of the experiments you wanted to do with this?

Thank you for saying that because that was our intention – to be unique looking. To balance realism and stylisation was the goal. But the stylisation for Pete (Sohn) was that it doesn’t have to look like a comic book or a graphic novel but to be in the medium of computer graphics. You’ll notice that Ember has outline work on her face but it’s dynamic and moving and light. On Wade’s face also you see the line work on the silhouette. If you were to draw that, it would be pencil work. But for Wade, it’s the meniscus that happens in water. It reacts to light and it’s moving so I hope that makes it unique. It’s not trying to look like another medium or hand-drawn stuff but made on the computer using computer graphics.

How different are the elements from the initial visuals?

That’s an interesting question. The early versions of Wade look a lot different than the one in the movie. We spent a lot of time making the character feel watery. We put a lot of work into his face as well. When his mouth’s shape changes, ripples would flow from them and pick up subtle bubbles through his head. But when we got into animation we could see it in the performance. So we had to dial it all back. That is something we had to leave on the cutting room floor. Some of the technology that we developed to make Wade feel watery, we dialled back and we left that for other parts of his body. So he still feels watery but we get the subtle acting that was necessary.

What was the key to achieving Ember’s fiery look and not making it scary?

One thing that we did to stylise her was running something called a pyro simulation to simulate heat. Fire is very distracting and really mesmerising. People can watch fire for hours because it’s constantly changing and it’s so interesting. But if you had that on Ember’s head it would be distracting. We still wanted it to be dynamic. So we used neural-style transfer to organise the flames. It’s still a simulation but we organise it into shapes that somebody has painted. So that simplifies them. That was one of the keys to unlocking the stylisation of Ember.

What were some of the movie references you looked at?

There was a lot. Pete is a cinephile and he really loves movies. There was Hayao Miyazaki – Calcifer is a character we looked at. He’s so funny and 2D and cartoony. These were the fun things we wanted a fire character to do, to change form and still be more realistic. We also looked at immigration movies. Godfather Part II has a beautiful sequence where there’s no dialogue and we see the patriarch Vito Corleone moving to Italy and going through Ellis Island and going through those steps. Not many Bollywood movies, unfortunately.

The music did sound like Indian instruments…

Yes, earlier on a few Indian movies were used as references but we slowly moved towards making it more universal because now you can’t pinpoint which country it exactly came from. That makes it more relatable.

How much has Pixar animation changed over the years?

I think it has evolved a lot. This movie was definitely the most challenging for me on a technical level. The industry is constantly changing. I like the idea of a lot of movies moving a little bit away from realism and towards stylisation. It’s a trend I’m really enjoying. The Spider-Verse films really feel that way. With Elemental it was a goal to make an imaginative world without overwhelming the audiences by being colourful and bold. I hope that continues as a trend in animated movies.

Elemental will release on June 23, 2023.

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Tanzim Pardiwalla

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June 20, 2023
Exclusive: Avatar: The Way of Water’s VFX supervisor Pavani Rao Boddapati unpacks the film’s visuals

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Everything you see in Avatar: The Way of Water is mesmerising, to say the least. From Pandora’s newly introduced CG creatures to the realistic water, the sequel film of Avatar (2009), directed by James Cameron is an absolute triumph of visual effects. Much of the film’s breathtaking shots came from WÄÂÂÂtÄÂÂÂ FX, the studio behind some of the film’s splashy scenes. Their Visual Effects Supervisor, Pavani Rao Boddapati has been a part of Pandora’s decade-long journey since the original film and the sprawling sequel was her return to the exosolar moon. That is when she wasn’t working on films like The Hobbit Trilogy and Maze Runner: The Sorch Trails.

In an exclusive chat with Filmfare, Pavani Rao Boddapati opened up about working with James Cameron, Avatar’s underwater world and more.

Avatar is the highest-grossing movie of all time. Did the anticipation around the film affect you?

That feeling first came in 2009 when I came to New Zealand from Los Angeles to work on the first film. I’m a huge Pandora nerd. Every time there was a Pandora-themed project, I was the first person to sign up. In 2018 when I started on Avatar 2, it was hugely exciting. I want to work on every single movie Jim’s (James Cameron) making.

When it comes to such a massive project, do you ever feel like you’re nearing completion?

We knew that it was going to be a project that has been in the works since 2009. There’s a technology that was developed so we already knew that it was going to be a very complex film. So 3,000 shots and 2,200 water shots are a very big number for a visual effects project. We started five years early to deliver this project. Out of which 2 years were just research and development. So all we did was evaluate what kind of shots we had to work on, plan for it and shoot references. We knew when we finally started that we had the recipe and the crew to get this project.

What are some of the cues you got from James Cameron and his team?

It’s very extensive and it’s very collaborative. This was a collaboration that began with Dylan Cole the concept art director, Deborah Lynn Scott and the crew we’ve been working with since 2009. They give us something and we can always go back with our shots and designs. Jim is extremely accessible in New Zealand while shooting the movie. We’ve had a lot of discussions. The goal is that we’re a part of a bigger picture and we need this movie to hit Jim’s expectations. To give an example – Deborah Lynn Scott, our costume designer would often shoot very extensive references of movement study like adding air or water and whenever we did the CG version of those costumes, we would always be in touch with her to discuss when we put the costume on to check if the colour is right or if the movement is right in the water.

What does a typical piece of feedback from James Cameron look like?

Jim is very generous with praise. There are things he would say when he loved the shot. It was pretty quick when he loved it – there was no critique and you’re through. But he would say “you nailed it’ or “bingo bongo” and every time he said something like that, the crew would go crazy because it meant that he was loving the shot.

Avatar: The Way of Water has so many underwater sequences. How challenging was that?

We knew that with this movie the water was going to be a major part of the 2,200 shots and in the last five to six years we started working on getting the water right. There are a lot of movies that came out in the past couple of years featuring water and the audience critique was important. Humans are very sensitive and anyone can figure out if the water looks fake. You don’t have to be a visual effects artist or know films to realise that. You see that it’s wrong and people can immediately tell. So the first underwater sequence that we worked on is where Jake Sully’s kids dive into the water and they are learning how to breathe. That was going to be our first shot at fantastical world-building. I remember when I watched Avatar (2009), the sequence where Jake follows Neytiri into the forest and it’s all lit up and I thought what is this place? I want to go there. And this underwater shot was meant to be that. It’s the first time you go into the water and you see these beautiful corals and kids swimming and you want to be there and feel like you are there in stereo. We did a lot of work into making the water look believable and also making it look like you’re in there with stereo. So we used a high frame rate, added tiny particles, and put gel on the camera. And Jim, who has spent so much of his life in water, was there to tell us “Well that looks like something I’ve seen in real life”. That was one of the first sequences and the one we put a lot of time and effort into creating this beautiful moment.

It takes something like an Avatar sequel to get audiences into a 3D theatre. Do you think the medium has been losing relevance?

There have been a lot of projects that aren’t native 3D. They’ve had a stereo that’s converted in post where the movie itself wasn’t designed to be stereo. I think what’s unique about Jim’s movies is that he designs the movie in stereo. It’s not a post-conversion, it’s not an afterthought. He has designed every single shot to be an immersive experience. So for me, that’s a very successful stereo. When we could get these crude templates from Jim of hots that are representative of a camera or performance, the first thing we do is to put on our glasses and see the visual representation of the shots. And we see exactly what he’s trying to do, there are little nuances with depth perception, where the characters are, little particles in the water and even the high frame rate. That is also something that Jim has used very successfully in the film. Even in Avatar which was not high frame rate – looking at the movie, at things which usually strobe, underwater scenes usually look a bit chunky, the 48fps combined with the stereo here is hugely successful because it’s designed with that in mind.

What can we expect from the sequels?

I haven’t read the script because I want to be surprised by it when I start working on it. But I’ll tell you this, before 2018, Avatar was the most beautiful movie I was involved in. But now I’ve changed my mind and I think The Way of Water is the most beautiful thing I’ve been involved in. And I’m sure if we have a chat after the next sequel, that’s gonna be the most beautiful movie I’ve worked on. These are just great films and I’m very happy to be a small part of the big picture.

Avatar: The Way of Water is currently in theatres.

Avatar: The Way of Water Ending, Explained: What Happened To The Sullys?

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Tanzim Pardiwalla

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December 27, 2022
Exceptional Minds Class of 2017 Defies Autism Odds

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Eight young men and two young women graduated from Exceptional Minds vocational school for young adults on the autism spectrum on Sunday, the fourth such graduating class to defy the odds of a population known for its high unemployment rate and low expectations.

Sherman Oaks, CA, June 7, 2017 (Newswire.com)
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While an estimated 90 percent of young people with autism are under- or unemployed, the Exceptional Minds Class of 2017 joins the alumni of young adults on the autism spectrum who are pursuing meaningful careers in the fields of visual effects and animation.

Exceptional Minds graduates — all in their 20s and on the spectrum — have gone on to work in studios such as Marvel, Stargate and Mr. Wolf, and on productions such as Game of Thrones, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and Doctor Strange and for programmers such as Sesame Workshop.

Your personal and professional achievements are inspiring. You’ve overcome obstacles others don’t have … but you also have many talents that others don’t have.

Richard Goldsmith , CEO, Cyber Group Studios

“Your personal and professional achievements are inspiring. You’ve overcome obstacles others don’t have … but you also have many talents that others don’t have,” said Richard Goldsmith during his commencement speech Sunday. Goldsmith has worked for The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros., The Jim Henson Company, and Univision Communications as an executive specializing in family entertainment. He offered both encouragement and advice to the graduates. Steven Asidilla, Carter Capps, Matthew De Lorimier, Annie Leffe, Liam McClure, Jacob Olsen, Madeleine Petti, Tony Saturno, Chase Shirley, and Kenny Valdivia make up the Exceptional Minds Class of 2017.

Also during the graduation, Exceptional Minds staff and students recognized a group of students with the Net Impact program at UCLA Anderson School of Management for their tireless work on a feasibility study that will determine the future location of the Exceptional Minds campus.

For the ten graduates, Sunday marked the end of their formal training and the beginning of their professional careers in the competitive fields of animation and/or visual effects.

Following Sunday’s graduation, Matthew De Lorimier will begin his career in digital animation as an intern at Cartoon Network. “Three years ago, I was at a crossroads…1690240449 I will be working as an intern at Cartoon Network on the show Summer Camp Island,” said Matthew.

Others from the Class of 2017 will begin their careers in the Exceptional Minds Studio, which is co-located in the same building as the school to provide them with paid work experience in animation, rotoscope and cleanup, green screen keying, simple compositing, object removal, tracking mark removal, and end credit composition.

Since the studio opened almost three years ago, it has completed visual effects and end title credits for more than 50 productions for HBO, 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate, and Annapurna, as well as animation for Sesame Street.

Exceptional Minds opened its doors in 2011 with a first-year class of nine students and now has more than 30 full-time students, 38 part-time students and more than a hundred summer enrollment students. The school is a nonprofit organization funded privately through tuition, foundations and grants. Preceding graduation on Sunday, the school and its students awarded Adobe Vice President of Sustainability and Social Impact Holly Campbell with the Exceptional Hero Award. “Adobe is truly our hero. They’ve been with us from the beginning, offering software and support, without which we wouldn’t be here,” commented Yudi Bennett, co-founder of Exceptional Minds.

The graduates completed Exceptional Minds’ comprehensive three-year program with professional certifications in the key software applications used for visual effects and animation work, including rotoscope and cleanup, green screen keying, simple compositing, object removal, tracking mark removal, end title credits, and character animation.

More than a half million individuals with autism will enter adulthood in the next decade, the vast majority of whom are ill-prepared for meaningful employment. Exceptional Minds is the first and only school of its kind to prepare young people with autism for careers in visual effects, providing well-rounded instruction in soft skills and technical skills as well as job placement and work environment preparedness.

Source: Exceptional Minds

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June 7, 2017