Geoffrey Hancock
Visual effects for film and animation since 1995.
Cloud Atlas – a virtual environment in the slums of future Neo Seoul
Cloud Atlas is a sprawling epic written and directed by Lana & Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer. I became involved with the project in late 2011 helping supervise the shooting in Berlin of a sequence set in future Neo Seoul. This sequence over over 50 shots takes place outside a safehouse apartment as our heros attempt to flee their pursuers.
The fully green screen sequence was shot with the two actors elevated on a short practical section of the expanding scaffold used in the escape. It was our task to create the exterior building facades and surrounding city with inhabitants at early dawn as the sun rises behind the harbour of Old Seoul. The city surroundings where conceived with the use of 3D buildings designed and modeled to show as layering of time and architectural styles in this older part of the futuristic city. Once the height and orientation of the scaffold in relation to the city was blocked out using this post-vis approach, the 3D buildings where modeled in greater detail and given simple shaders and textures. This environment was lit using Vray for Maya to give a solid realistic base to the lighting for the Matte Painters to work with.
The panoramic surroundings where broken into 6 project viewpoints, each with three to six depth layers. These perspective layers where each painted at 6K, giving a huge hyper detailed set of elements for use in Nuke. The matte paintings where reprojected in Nuke to align with their original 3D positions, allowing for a consistant environment for all tracked and parallaxing 3D cameras. Further refinement and grading in Nuke unified the sequence. Both practical and simulated animation elements of smoke, steam, water, people, vehicles, animated signage and reflections where added to bring life to the early morning environment.
Effect simulations in Houdin and Maya created the destruction to the scaffold and surrounding buildings caused by the gunfire of the pursuing Enforcers and Gunship.
The CG Gunship and three foreground hero buildings where rendered in Vray. The flexing and twisting scaffold plank was rendered in Mental Ray as where the background people and vehicles.
J. Edgar Hoover – invisible effects for a career spanning bio pic
J. Edgar follows the half century long career of the controversial creator of the FBI. Nearly a hundred invisible VFX shots where used to set the stage and accentuate the drama in this character drien story.
This 1969 inaugural Presidential parade shot was one of two conceived from the beginning as a fully virtual CG shot. A reference plate was shot on location in Washington DC from the balcony of J. Edgar Hoover’s original office to show the basic camera angle and to serve as a loose lighting reference. CG buildings, street dressing, roads and side walks where created from photo reference shot on the Warner Brothers backlot. A new wardrobe and uniform set was created for the 1960’s crowd and parade participants. The crowd system used previously shot motion capture from the in-house library. All the vehicles and drivers where animated by hand. Crowds, vehicles and environments where rendered in Houdini Mantra.
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In this set extension shot digital extras are featured nearby in the upper deck. Using the in-house developed hybrid Houdini and Massive crowd system characters are integrated into a Maya Mental Ray digital set extension.
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This digital matte painting was created to tell the story of 1919 Chicago labour riots. This began with rough 3D previz to establish the camera angle and distance to subject. Period photographs where consulted, while a mix of modern and period photos served a source material for the final painting. The fire, smoke and interactive lighting where added in Nuke.
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When Hoover attends a movie premier we needed to widen the street and extend a CG street scene in accurate 1930’s Broadway style. This night time scene with extensive reflections and architectural lighting was rendered with Mental Ray for Maya. Digital extras rendered in Houdini Mantra.
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Once the Broadway environment was created, it became possible to discuss adding an additional establishing shot to the sequence to show greater scope and context.
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This set extension shot required extensive rotoscoping as green screens where not employed due to time constraints. The digital model of the Washington Capitol Building was modeled from photo reference in Maya and rendered using Mental Ray.
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Modern day Santa Anita race track stood in for a plate shoot of the race way combined with a backlot shoot for the foreground actors. Beyond the second row of spectators all the extras are digital characters rendered in Houdini Mantra. The gardens, city and hills beyond the raceway are matte painted to match the historic period.
Invictus – emotional responses from a mid ground featured digital crowd
This clip shows the emotional responces and featured details of the crowds in the Invitus rugby matches. Rendered in HoudiniMantra, motion editing in Massive, hand tweaked facial and hand animation with collision corrections and cloth simulation done in Maya.
Director’s Guild of Canada presentation.
I took part in a panel discussion put on for the Director’s Guild of Canada. My role was to represent the digital side of the visual effects industry, discussing the stages of animation production, the approval process, and uses of pre-visualization. These are some of the demonstration videos containing clips of my past work that where used in the presentation.
Creature work for the film “Night at the Museum”.
“Night at the Museum” Mental Ray Render Layers
These are some of the Mental Ray render layers used to adjust the look of the animation in compositing.
Stages of production for the VFX work on the film “Slither”.
This was used to talk about the different stages of approval during VFX production. Also highlighted some technical car crash and stunt previz, and some previs used for scene blocking.
Geoffrey Hancock 