“A VFX Journey Through Pan’s Labyrinth with CafeFX” by CafeFX, Inc.

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Conference:


SIGGRAPH Video Review:


Track:


    13

Title:


    A VFX Journey Through Pan’s Labyrinth with CafeFX

Company / Institution / Agency:


  • CafeFX, Inc.

Description:


    When the harsh world of the Spanish Civil War becomes too horrific to bear in director Guillermo del Toro’s visually rich and complex “Pan’s Labyrinth,” young Ofelia escapes inward, finding in her imagination the power to heal her real-world wounds. Challenged to create the mythical creatures and landscapes of Ofelia’s fantasy, CafeFX embarked on an artistic and technical journey spanning four months of location shooting and five months of post-production.

    Seamlessly uniting the real-world horrors with Ofelia’s fantastic universe, CafeFX brought reality to the dream, creating a curious stick bug, faeries, a giant toad, a baby in the womb, and an infant-like mandrake root, while augmenting both the title character and our heroine’s nemesis, the Pale Man. In addition, artists tracked, rotoscoped, composited, and painted hundreds of practical and digital elements to create the throne room, labyrinth, rock wall, and womb environ-ments, creating a dark and earthy realism that contributed to the film’s three Academy Awards, three BAFTA awards, and six Goya awards.

Software:


    Maya was used extensively for animation, XSI for modeling, mental ray for rendering, and Digital Fusion for final compositing.

Additional Contributors:


    Visual Effects: CafeFX. Inc.

    Visual Effects Supervisor: Everett Burrell

    Visual Effects Producer, Co-Visual Effects Supervisor: Edward Irastorza

    Executive Producer: Vicki Galloway Weimer

    CG Supervisor: Akira Orikasa

    CG Lead Artists: Cory Redmond, Alex Friderici

    Lighting/Technical Directors: Phil Giles, Patrice Saenz, Leigh Van der Byl, Debi Lyons, Kirk Cadrette

    Modeling: Joe Hoback

    Matte Painter: Robert Stromberg

    Effects Animators: Dariush Derakhshani, Szymon Masiak

    3D Tracking: Scott Krehbiel

    Technical Animation Supervisor: Domenic DiGiorgio

    Supervising Animator: Ron Friedman

    Animation Lead: Greg Jonkajtys

    CG Animators: Kris Costa, Jason Thielen, Neil Lim Sang, Soo Youn Han

    Character Rigging: Todd Widup, Tracy Irwin

    Compositing Supervisor: Tom Williamson

    Compositing Lead: Mike Bozulich

    Compositors: Richard Reed, Michael Kennen, Adam Stern, Aaron Kupferman, Chris LeDoux, Doug Cram, Aaron Singer

    Rotoscope Artists: Ruben Rodas, Michael, Kaelin, Melissa Widup, Steve Hutchins, Chris Pinto, Ryan Bozajian, Jen Cantwell, Tina Wallace

    VFX Managing Editor: Desi Ortiz

    VFX Editor: Kale Whorton

    On-Set Coordinator: Fernanda Plana

    Assistant Production Coordinator: Wendy Hulbert

    Render Manager: Brian Openshaw

    Render Wrangler: Bernardo Rodriguez

    Software Development Supervisor, Lead Programmer: Rob Tesdahl

    Software Developer: Paul Hudson

    IT Support: Jack Wells, Larry Thomas, Daniel Torres, Albert Soto, Lap Lu

    Production Executives: Jeff Barnes, David Ebner, O.D. Welch

    SIGGRAPH 2007 Presentation Editor: Desi Ortiz

Animation / Video Overview:


Type: