Sharpening the Saw

During the last few months I've had lots of time to consider my career and looking at what I've been doing and what I'd like to be doing.  I enjoy compositing and all aspects of 3d, but what really rocks my world is VFX-CG Supervising.  I love working with artists to help them exceed their known abilities and reach higher potentials.  I love working with directors and editors to find the visual solution that moves the story. 

Among other pursuits, I set out to learn Nuke.  Done.  And doing.  Because learning is an ongoing process. I enjoyed learning Nuke --it's been 10 years since I moved from Composer to After Effects, so a change was due.  Missed the whole Shake thing.  Plan to learn Flame next week.

Image by
London Short Film Festival
via FlickrI've also been investing in learning about stereographic films.  After seeing Up! I was convinced stereographic films were back to stay.  Avatar sealed the deal.  Also, a recent trip to Universal Studios was influential --the Shrek 3d attraction in particular but also The Simpsons.    I believe that motion-based entertainment will also expand in the future as filmmakers look for more ways to keep audiences in theaters.  I'm glad I had some work in the 90's with stereographic motion-based rides.  I'm also working on a pitch for a stereographic TV series, because 3D-TV is coming.

Recently I traveled to Navi Mumbai in India to teach about 60 students Nuke.  A little payoff for learning.  The students will be doing stereographic conversions, so there was also some nice synergy.  While there, I observed that a couple of things were more difficult than necessary in Nuke, so when I got home I wrote a couple of Nuke macros, or gizmos in Nuke-speak.  These are on my compositing blog, http://isaalsup-comps.blogspot.com/, on the Nuke Resources page.  There are also some articles there about compositing and my trip to India.

Image by chuck_heston via Flickr

While in India I saw Avatar a second time, this time in 70mm.  I've noticed more and more co-released films in 70mm, and am delighted.  I love the big film format, which I worked with on two films, Alaska and The Greatest Places.

Life is good and I hope to see you soon.