Professor DeNigris' Sabbatical Vlog

Some of you may know that Professor Paul DeNigris, Program Champion for Digital Video at University of Advancing Technology, has taken a sabbatical this Spring semester to get some additional industry experience working in visual effects in Hollywood. Paul is keeping a daily vlog of his experiences in LA, which he calls "Hollywood at 45." Check it out here:

UAT DV Vlog: Miniature Teleporters

The team behind UAT DV's time travel drama "Ouroboros" decided to build a miniature for the film's teleportation pods rather than rely exclusively on CGI. Check out the construction of the 1/6 scale miniature in the latest edition of the DV Vlog!

UAT DV Vlog: Borderlands Prop and Set Construction

Production continues on our Borderlands fan film "Change of Hart." Check out the progress in this latest installment of the DV Vlog!

UAT DV Vlog: Practical Effects!

Check this out - the students had some fun with dry ice and burning steel wool in the Advanced VFX class. Stick around til then end to see a sneak peek at a VFX shot from our upcoming time travel film "Ouroboros!"

The Making of RED SAND

The UAT Digital Video team has put together 4 behind-the-scenes documentaries about the making of our epic Mass Effect prequel fan film, RED SAND! The videos give a great look into the creative process, the nuts and bolts of VFX-heavy filmmaking, and the community of UATDV students. It's 22 minutes of behind the scenes awesomeness. Check it out!

'Flight of the Melvin' Selected for 2012 Aliens to Zombies Film Festival!

Our family-friendly comedy sci-fi adventure "Flight of the Melvin" has been selected for its 9th film festival, the 2012 Aliens to Zombies Film Festival in Los Angeles! In addition, the film has been awarded "Runner Up, Best Special Effects."

The Aliens to Zombies screenings will be held on the evenings of Monday, October 29 (9-11 p.m) and Tuesday, October 30 (9-11 p.m.) at the W Hotel in Hollywood.

More info and tickets: http://www.alienstozombies.com/

RED SAND Released!

After 9 months of post-production, our latest sci-fi epic RED SAND: a Mass Effect fan film has been completed and released! The film debut on YouTube on Sunday October 7th following a live pre-show with star Mark Meer (the voice behind Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect games), and has scored 75,000 views in just under 4 days. We could not be happier! Check it out below:



And we are thrilled to announce that RED SAND has begun receiving invitations to cons and film festivals! This evening we were invited to screen at the following events in 2013!

RadCon 6A - SF&;F Convention - February 15-17, 2013 - Pasco WA http://www.radcon.org/

Seattle Crypticon - Memorial day weekend - Seattle WA

LoneStarCon3 Film Festival - Aug 29 -Sept 2, 2013 - San Antonio, TX http://lonestarcon3.org/

TCIF3 Film Festival - October 2013 - Richland WA http://www.tcif3.com/

If you want to see RED SAND on the big screen, and you live in any of the above locales, mark your calendars! More info as it develops!

Inspiration: 'Horizon'

Wanna see probably the most impressive 27 seconds you'll ever see? Check out "Horizon" by Mickaël Forrett and then watch the breakdown below. One guy did all this work in Photoshop, After Effects, Maya, Mudbox, and Nuke. Unbelievable!

video2brain: 'After Effects CS6 3D Camera Tracker'

Wow. Check out the features Adobe has added to After Effects!

fxguide: 'Art of Stereo Conversion: 2D to 3D – 2012'

In keeping with their amazing "Art of" series, fxguide has put together a comprehensive set of case studies detailing the 2D to 3D conversion pipelines for films such as Titanic, John Carter, Star Wars Episode I, and the latest Transformers.

Many people argue that if you want a film in stereo you should shoot it in stereo. Yet many filmmakers do not want the physical size of an on set stereo rig, or they prefer to shoot film (ruling out stereo in camera, effectively) or want to use anamorphic lenses which are extremely difficult for stereo native capture. Even on a stereo film, lenses and situations often times render a single camera the only viable solution. Thus, even on films shot in stereo there may well be a need to convert some footage and that high quality conversion is an important tool in the box of any effects house.

As a number of our alumni are currently working in the 2D-to-3D conversion specialty, and there are no signs of 3D disappearing from cinemas anytime soon, chances are high that you'll at some point be involved in this sort of work. Read the rest of this invaluable article here.

UAT Sponsoring Trip to VFX Career Fair

The Visual Effects Society (VES) and CreativeHeads.net are hosting the VES Career Fair and Tech Expo on June 16, 2012, in three simultaneous locations - Los Angeles, London, and New York.

On the heels of our successful inaugural VFX Career Fair & Technology Expo last year, the Visual Effects Society presents our Worldwide VFX Career Fair. This will be a daylong event where the very best practitioners in the Visual Effects industry and the top companies in entertainment from around the world converge on Los Angeles, New York, Montreal, & San Francisco on Saturday, June 16, 2012 to employ, educate and inform the Visual Effects Community.

The VES VFX Global Career Fair & Technology Expo has the distinction of being the world’s largest Visual Effects specific Career Fair and Technology Expo dedicated solely to the Visual Effects professional. Exhibitions, Career Fair, Technology Showcases, and Software Master classes, all set the stage for the 2nd VES Career Fair and Technology Expo.

If you are interested, email ngraves@uat.edu. The entrance fee is $15 dollars and you must provide your own hotel room, but UAT will drive anyone interested there in the UAT Van!

AE Tuts+ 'Create Custom Blood Spatter With CC Mr Mercury'

James Whiffin posted this tutorial on AE Tuts+ for using After Effects' built-in "CC Mr. Mercury" effect to create (in his words) "300-inspired blood spatter." Here's the preview, and the full tutorial can be found here.

RED SAND Update!

The new trailer for our Mass Effect fan film "Red Sand" was published on this past Tuesday and has racked up over 16,000 hits already on YouTube. In case you missed it, here it is on YouTube and on Vimeo:





We've also gotten some great press coverage already:

MSNBC: http://www.ingame.msnbc.msn.com/technology/ingame/move-over-hollywood-mass-effect-fans-bring-game-film-792972

Kotaku: http://kotaku.com/5912979/that-red-sand-mass-effect-fan-film-is-shaping-up-nicely

Mediocrity is the New Genius: http://mediocrityisthenewgenius.com/2012/05/23/first-amazing-trailer-for-uats-mass-effect-fan-film-red-sand/

Gameverse: http://www.gameverse.com/2012/05/23/holy-mark-meer-batman-red-sand-looks-amazing/

PopGamer: http://www.pop-gamer.com/2012/05/mass-effect-prequels-new-trailer/

'The Walking Dead' Season 2 VFX Reel

Not for the squeamish.

Greenscreen Lighting Techniques Tutorial from Eve Hazelton

Here's an excellent video tutorial on properly lighting, shooting, and keying a greenscreen shot, courtesy of Eve Hazelton and Philip Bloom.

You can check out Eve's previous lighting tutorials here and here.

fxguide: The Art of Destruction

The fine folks over at fxguide.com have compiled a stellar and comprehensive run-down of the state of the art when it comes to "blowing crap up" Hollywood-style.

Destruction pipelines today are key aspects of any major visual effects pipeline. Many current pipelines are based on Rigid Body Simulations (RBS) or otherwise referred to as Rigid Body Dynamics (RBD), but a new solution – Finite Element Analysis (FEA) – is beginning to emerge. In this ‘Art Of’ article, we talk to some of the major visual effects studios – ILM, Imageworks, MPC, Double Negative and Framestore – about how they approach their destruction toolsets.

Read the whole article - featuring looks at Harry Potter, X-Men: First Class, 2012, and more - here!

Inspiration: Stargate Studios' 'XXIT' Shot with the Canon C300

Test videos shot with Canon's new "Cinema EOS" C300 system are starting to hit the web, but none are as closely aligned with the type of filmmaking we do at UAT as this one. Produced by VFX house Stargate Studios, "XXIT" is a 12-minute film that channels a bit of Blade Runner while also showing the extreme range of the C300's capabilities.


The "making of" video below is not only a great primer for shooting on a "virtual backlot," but is also an in-depth look at the many features Canon included in their first Cinema EOS offering.

ICG Magazine: 'Raging Bulls' Examines the DP-to-VFX Workflow on 'Real Steel'

International Cinematographers Guild (ICG) Magazine takes a good in-depth look at the VFX-driven cinematography workflow on the recent sci-fi boxing movie Real Steel. The film was lensed in HD by Mauro Fiore, Oscar-winning DP of Avatar, and the workflow leveraged and advanced many of the tools developed on that picture.

Bringing in a VFX-heavy feature for $80 million is no mean feat, and Josh McLaglen, a veteran of the some of the most complex logistical films in recent memory, points to the unique workflow as a big part of that process. “If you’ve got two ordinary people talking over coffee or even fighting each other for most of your movie, our production paradigm is unnecessary,” he concludes. “But if two of the four main characters are paranormal, it makes really good sense, and is a cost-effective methodology for budgeting complex films. Avatar was translated virtual-to-virtual, only rarely with humans being interactive. But this one is going virtual-to-live-action in the real world. To accomplish that, I think we used the tools better this time.”

Read the entire article here. Also of note is this fxguide "Case Study" on Real Steel and the accompanying fxpodcast.

fxguide: 'Incredible, Invisible Effects'

Here's a great article that breaks down some of the not-so-obvious effects work in recent films such as Drive, Contagion, Killer Elite and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. As usual fxguide does a bang-up job of going into the nuts and bolts of what makes these sequences work so well. Read it at fxguide!

FALLOUT now available on Vimeo!

Now that our year-long film festival run is over - it began on October 15th 2010 at the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival in Tempe AZ and ended last night at the Terror Film Festival in Philadelphia PA - it's time to finally share our epic sci-fi action thriller "Fallout" publicly on the web. Enjoy and pass it on please!
Here's the complete list of festivals and awards from our amazing year-long run

2011 Adobe Design Achievement Awards
- Semifinalist, Innovation in Motion and Video in Education

2011 Phoenix Film Festival
- Best Arizona Short

2011 Los Angeles Reel Film Festival
- Student Film category - 3rd Place, Best Editing, and Best Digital Effects

2011 Los Angeles Movie Awards
- Award of Excellence, Best Editing, Best Special Effects

2011 Los Angeles Film & Script Festival
- Honorable Mention, Narrative Shorts Category

2011 Action on Film International Film Festival
- Runner Up, Best Visual Effects (Short)

OFFICIAL SELECTIONS:
2010 International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival (Tempe, AZ)
2011 Phoenix Film Festival
2011 Los Angeles Film & Script Festival
2011 Los Angeles Movie Awards
2011 NewFilmmakers LA
2011 Los Angeles Reel Film Festival
2011 Action on Film International Film Festival
2011 HollyShorts Film Festival
2011 Renovation World Sci-Fi Convention Independent Fan Film Festival (Reno, NV)
2011 Atlanta Horror Film Festival
2011 Terror Film Festival (Philadelphia, PA)