VFX Book Project

  Most of what I discuss here I learned from other practitioners in the field.  These people have earned the right to their opinions and this is what they told me.  Some of them will be the subject of humorous (I hope) anecdotes.  Lets go over a short list of these people in no particular order.   Richard Hollander, Larry Cuba, Ray Feeney, Richard Yuricich, Phil Feiner, Bob Lambert, Scott Watson, Bran Ferrin, Douglas Trumbull, Doug Kay, George Joblove, Jim Blinn, Ed Catmull, Alvy Ray Smith, Lance Williams, Ken Perlin, Greg van der Veer, Dick Stumpf, Jane Nunez, John Hughes, Craig Reynolds, Con Pederson, Tom McMahon, Mike Fink, Richard Taylor, Joel Hynek, Josh Pines, Diane Perlmann, Nancy St. John, Scott Anderson, John Nelson, Frank Vitz, Rob Legato, John Lambert, Rene Daalder, Bob Abel,       Special thanks to Peter Bardazzi of NYU for giving me the opportunity to teach a class that was the beginning of this project.  To all my students at NY...

Many years ago I taught a class at New York University's Center for Advanced Digital Applications (NYU CADA) on the topic of the "history of visual effects".  Some of that class is incorporated into these notes but the focus has changed somewhat.  Now this is more of "a study guide to visual effects" or what films/sequences you should have seen, at least once, in order to appreciate and give context to this work.  My joke at the time was that "this was the stuff you have to have seen if you want to work in the slave pits of the rich", by which I was referring to all those who wanted to sell out and work for a large corrupt media corporation. God bless you, all of you, I just want to help you achieve your life's goals. I find it distressing that the noble field of visual effects is relegated to some of the lowest levels of esteem as perceived by the audience, the above the line artists, and the executives of the motion picture industry.  I see this ...

There are many paths through the jungle, but for this project we are going to write pieces and post them here.  Eventually these posts and posts on my other blogs will be reedited and coalesced into a LaTEX document and look all professional, I hope. Feel free to read what you see here but be aware that what you are seeing is out of context, and out of order, and sure to be rewritten by the time it reaches the final.  Thank you.