How to be a Film & TV Makeup Artist

The makeup department of any production takes on an essential role in giving characters a three-dimensional identity, enriching the distinctiveness of the actor/actress’ looks. However, jobs within this sector suffer a fierce competition, often together with a frenetic environment and long working hours.

What is the Job?

Depending on the production’s needs and budget, four different positions can be found in a makeup department:

• The Key Makeup Artist, who is in charge of the makeup department. Their job is to design the makeup for each actor/actress and assign individual makeup artists to apply it.
• The Makeup Artist is the individual who actually takes care of applying the makeup to the actor/actress.
• The Makeup Effects Artist designs and create special makeup effects using prosthetics, latex, and animatronics. They are not always needed in movies or TV production, as their presence relies on the amount of special effects and CGI in movies.
• The Makeup Assistant helps with some of the minor tasks requiring less experience, like body makeup and organization. This is usually a good position to obtain some practical experience in the field.

Key Skills

Being a very specific field, knowledge and practice of specialised techniques is essential. Makeup schools and courses can teach the basis of corrective, glamour, ageing practices. However, practical experience is fundamental to perfect your craft.

Additional techniques required include applying bald caps, facial hair, fake scars, bruises, marks, tattoos and body art.

Knowledge and experience of hair and wig dressing, and continuity hair cutting is also mandatory.

Additional Skills

As most jobs in the entertainment industry, being a makeup artist requires ability to work within a team under supervision. This translates into teamwork, communication and presentation skills, ability to work under pressure, respecting deadlines and commitment to long and variable working hours.

How to get to work as a Makeup Artist

As most specialised creative freelance jobs, experience is vital to gain credibility and obtain recognition. A good starting point for a career as a Makeup Artist would be participating in low budget production and student projects, even not necessarily in the same sector you would like to work in (i.e. cinema, theatre, TV, photography…).

As you start building a good portfolio and good connections, it will become easier to land better positions in bigger productions.

Education and training

Despite not being mandatory, makeup school/college is usually an important step both to learn theory and practice of the craft and to gain connections. Also, student projects will usually constitute the majority of a portfolio in the initial stages of a makeup career.

Additional courses can look good on a CV, especially if they provide a specific qualification which is important to the chosen production.

After cosmetology school and courses, most Makeup Artists kick off their career with assistant roles, which provide both experience and connection with the work environment.

Where it can take you

Especially in the initial stages, working hours are very long and the job itself can be stressful and demanding. While being talented and creative is a requirement, communication skills are essential too, in order to understand the directors and producers and achieve their desired results.

However, progressively building a very good portfolio, very talented artists can progress towards higher budget productions, landing very good positions with excellent salary perspectives and the chance to work with the stars of the industry.

Q&A With Runner of the Year, Jack Whitney

We talk to BroadcastTECH Runner of the Year winner, Jack Whitney, about his career so far and his aims for the future.

What made you want to pursue a career within post production?
I’ve always wanted to work in sound in some shape or form, and so I decided to move down to London 2 years ago to find a job that involved working in audio. I was really curious to see how the TV & film industry worked, so I applied and got a job as a runner at a post production facility and there I learnt about the many avenues of Post Production. But since being at 5A Studios, I have learnt about the ways in which audio is used in post production, and this has really made me want to pursue a career in audio post.

What do you think made you stand out to be nominated and win Broadcast Tech’s Runner of the Year Award?
I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’ve done quite a lot during the short time I’ve been working in the industry. I’ve been quite hungry for it, and have managed to juggle quite a few other roles whilst maintaining a good standard of running.

TV & Me

This week we catch up again with freelance Executive Producer, Claire Faragher as she discusses watching TV upside down as a child to producing one of ITV’s most successful Reality TV shows. Claire explains her obsession with TV.

Where did your career in the industry begin? Did you always want to work in TV?

I started out as a print journalist and then became a chat show producer at Anglia Television after applying successfully for a job advertised in the Guardian Media Guide. I had been obsessed with television as long as I can remember – I even went through a phase of watching television upside down (don’t ask me why – I was a child and it added variety!). So when I thought about progressing from my job as a newspaper reporter, what appealed most was using my journalistic skills for television. At Anglia TV, I also made fly-on-the-wall docs and magazine shows for a number of different channels, before joining the BBC, where I downgraded and trained up eventually as a Producer/Director before moving onto being a Deputy Editor and Series Producer.

What was the biggest hurdle you had to overcome whilst trying to make it in the TV industry?

Possibly getting my first break as a director. I feel that strong producers or journalists can be viewed as one trick ponies who are not very visual or can’t work across different genres. When I finally got my chance to direct and then PD it was nice to thwart such views and also get stuck in in the edit, where even today it’s nice to still be surprised with what you can do.

You’ve undertaken a lot of different roles within your career, working in editing, producing, directing and developing. Has variety been the key to your success, sanity or both?

Yes to all of the above!

Which role do you like working most in? When are you truly in your element?

I like managing large teams but still being hands on with the casting and creative input at the beginning, middle and end of the process. I have noticed from looking at my CV recently that I have helped launch a lot of series and have held key creative roles in them. There is nothing better than the buzz of making a new series or even a one off. It’s only bettered when the show is a big success. I also love solving problems and finding unusual ways of cutting and structuring things in the edit.

The Only Way is (Succ)Essex

The phenomenal success of TOWIE shows no signs of abating, turning some of the cast into overnight celebrities, introducing us to the vajazzle and phrases such as ‘reem and ‘well jel’. It has spawned rival copycat scripted reality shows but TOWIE remains the firm favourite with viewers (and critics alike). Claire Faragher, Series Producer on Series 1 and Executive Producer on Series 2, discusses the reason for its success.

Why do you think TOWIE was such a big hit?

We had an incredible cast of colourful (orange) characters, a lot of laughs, relationship dramas, and a unique way of filming the show, which gives it a cartoonish, hyper-real style. And then there was the high-speed and high-quality editing and structuring. The production team got to know the characters inside out and they had enough trust in us to allow us to film some of their best and worst moments. And due to the speed of turnaround the show was more reactive than anything that has come before or since in this genre (it’s a 24/7 operation). The production team worked very hard and there were a lot of brilliant people who made it such a great series. Some of us worked double shifts or more throughout, came up with the structure pre and post pilot and basically pulled off what many thought was impossible, with between three and nine HD cameras filming every scene and with at most 3.5 days to film and cut each episode. Also, ITV Marketing & Publicity gave it a massive push and at our press launch night I’ll never forget the immediacy with which the tabloids embraced our show. Oh, and not forgetting the hard work and talent of the production team I employed…have I already mentioned that??!!!

One Guardian blogger described TOWIE as “Beyond Trash TV.” How do you respond to TOWIE haters?

I have a number of favourite negative quotes about The Only Way Is Essex that make me hoot with laughter. They are:

“shallow, vain, dim people being shallow, vain and dim”
“real people playing themselves incredibly badly'”and
“fame-hungry oddballs delivering petrified forest performances” and
“The Only Way Is Essex is hilarious for about 10 minutes then you wish you were dead”

I realise that some people will always hate The Only Way Is Essex and I understand that. It’s funny because it’s actually one of, if not the toughest, genres of TV I have ever worked on and it’s certainly not as easy and as smooth as we made it look in series 1 and 2. It’s meant to be light relief and entertainment – the disclaimer says as much at the top of every show. We’re not pretending to be Newsnight.

How real is reality television?

Structured reality and reality TV aren’t quite the same thing. Look at Big Brother: from what I can see, and I am happy to be corrected, a group of people who have been cast for a specific reason and generally do not know each other all live under the same roof, with no access to the outside world and are filmed 24/7 by a fixed rig and are given tasks and challenges to do and are slowly voted off. Their reactions and emotions may be real most of the time but they will also depend on how self aware they are and how they may or may not be playing up to the camera or attempting to project an image of themselves. So when I look at reality TV I think in many respects that’s not really very real at all and a lot of things are produced within an inch of their life. And then if you look at Geordie Shore you can see it’s related to BB as they have fixed rig but they also have hand held cameras and the cast have access to the outside world too. But they do have someone giving them tasks to do. But even if a situation, night out or conversation has been given a helping producer’s hand there is still a lot of scope for scenes and sequences to play out in a more observational way and it’s mainly shot in that way. The cast also do interviews talking about events that have occurred in the past/present tense and appear to be happy to talk about each other positively or negatively safe in the knowledge that the show will transmit at a much later date. This could possibly be termed ‘constructed reality’ or ‘constructed factual’. And I know when I made a series called Last Man Standing that some people deemed that to be ‘constructed reality’. (Although we took them to places further afield than the Bigg Market!)

A TX experience with accompanying Tweets

This week, award winning documentary film maker, Elizabeth Stropford, discusses how her latest C4 documentary ‘We Need to Talk About Dad’ was received on Twitter, and what a “real time” response means from a filmmaker’s perspective.

Watching my latest documentary ‘We Need to Talk About Dad’ go out on Channel 4 was a novel experience because its transmission was punctuated by an ongoing commentary – courtesy of twitter.

The ‘water cooler effect’ of people talking about your show afterwards has now been superseded by the immediacy of being able to ‘listen in’ on what people make of it in real time.

I’d spent over 6 months producing the documentary ‘We Need to Talk About Dad’ through Rare Day for Channel 4. The Johnsons had twenty years of happy marriage, professional success, a lovely home, blond-haired children. They were nicknamed the ‘Sunday Supplement family’ by locals, and appeared to have it all. Then one day, Nick Johnson, told his wife he had a surprise for her, led her blindfolded into the garden, and committed an awful act of violence.

As a filmmaker building a relationship with the family, I was very aware of the weight of responsibility in handling such sensitive material. The mum, dad and two boys had each developed ways of avoiding the crux of the ”incident” that had shattered their family idyll 7 years earlier.

Made through the eyes of the eldest son, Henry, ‘We Need to Talk About Dad’ is much more about the failure of communication in the aftermath than the attack itself. But a preview feature in the Guardian – headlined ”THE DAY DAD TOOK AN AXE TO MUM” – made me realise that once it is out there, it is out there, and people will interpret it as they will. Bluntly, in this case.

So the response in the Twittersphere was fascinating for me. First up, I was both amused and bemused to read several young females piling in – in the midst of this shocking story, to share their rather personal views:

”I know this is bad but I’m watching ‘we need to talk about dad’, its sad, but all I can think about is how the son is hot”.

”Watching ‘we need to talk about dad’ – really gripping c4 doc, shouldn’t really say this but henry is gorgeous! I just wanna comfort him x_x”

”Watching this and all I am wondering is how could such a f***ed up father give birth to two such beautiful sons?!…”

Fortunately this wasn’t the only talking point. I was encouraged to hear people reflect, too, on what they would do in this extraordinary situation…

”We need to talk about Dad – bizarre! I would never take back anyone who cracked my head open with an axe, let alone make them Xmas dinner!”

”watching we need to talk about dad, why would you let someone who tried to kill your mum back into your life #weird”

”I’m watching ‘We Need to Talk About Dad’. Fascinating and horrifying at the same time. Are we all capable of doing something so terrible?”

”I have just watched ‘we need to talk about dad’. What an amazing family. No judgement-xx”

”Feeling a lot better about my life!…”

Some of these hit at the heart of the issues. It was good to hear people grapple with – and try to relate to – the family’s predicament. Then there were those who didn’t seem to know what was going on at all…

”I’m watching ‘we need to talk about dad’ and I’m slightly confused”.

It was unclear to me whether this person meant ”confused” in a good way. I assume not. But it’s possible that if he/she paid more attention to the TV rather than tweets about how fit the son is, he/she would have a better idea?!…

As a filmmaker, it can be excruciating to know that your viewer is most likely making a cup of tea, sending a text message and checking out other domestic homicide cases on their ipad, while simultaneously watching your programme. I suppose, as we toil away in edit suites for hours on end, we have to operate under the delusion that people will really be watching, otherwise we’d become slapdash and just plaster the whole thing in commentary (I think the penny must have dropped for a good few producers, as an increasing number seem to be taking up this far more sensible approach).

Freelancer of the Year Awards – Nominate that Unsung Hero

The summer is drawing to a close (boo…), the days are starting to feel a tad colder (double boo…) so it can only mean one thing; it’s the start of the awards season.

Here at PB towers, we are delighted to announce that nominations are now open for this year’s Freelancer of the Year Awards. As in previous years, it’s a great opportunity to celebrate the talent of some of the unsung heroes in television and film production – we all know who they are; they do lots (and lots) of hard work, make things happen, always have a smile on their face and still have time for everyone else while their social life takes a back seat (well, more like the spare seat… in the boot).

There are four categories that cover the first jobber to the seasoned veteran so there’s no excuse for anyone to miss out:.

Runner of the Year – A runner that has made a fantastic contribution to the production team. Puts in the hours, is there for everyone and does much more than make great tea.

Outstanding Freelancer of the Year – Someone that has made exceptional contribution to a production, did way and above the job description and made the difference.

Production Manager of the Year – Sometimes the unsung hero – this person put together a great team, was the glue to making the production happen, was always on hand and was the calm head in a sea of anxiety.

Beyond the Call of Duty – The person is an inspiration to those around them – has nurtured people through their careers, given great guidance and been selfless in getting the very best out of people. Is the real star in most people’s eyes.

We all know people that would fit into one of these categories, perhaps you have someone in your team that deserves a pay rise because of the effort and hours they have put in but the budget won’t stretch that far? A colleague you know that is the lynchpin to everything that happens, they have a few days leave and while away the world looks like it will cave in? Certain jobs simply don’t get done because this person knows where everything is, how everything works and where the bodies are buried?

If you know someone like this then why not show your appreciation by putting them forward for one of the above categories.

As in previous years, we have an esteemed panel of judges from the world of television, print media and production and the awards will be hosted by Matt Allwright.

The closing date is October 15th so please hurry and get those entries in.

The nominees and winners will be announced at our networking event at The Hospital Club on Thursday 17th November.

Further details of the event to follow – so watch this space!

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ProductionBase – Insider Network for TV Jobs, Film Jobs and Commercial Production Talent

You’re Now the Media Host with the Most

Last week saw ProductionBase launch an array of fantastic new upgrades to your membership. If you missed some of the marketing emails and other missives (well done you), we have PB’s Joe Mahoney to take you through what is now on offer.

I hope you will forgive me for taking over this spot to espouse the fantastic new media hosting service that was launched last week.

Here at PB Towers, we have been feverishly working away to create some fantastic new features that we hope will go down a storm with you. Or, failing that, will at least make you feel that we haven’t just been swaning around the office of late, fiddling with our keyboards, idly looking at exotic holiday destinations with shimmering views of palm trees, white sandy beaches and trying to decipher the ingredients of elaborately made cocktails (we usually would but it’s the school holidays and prices are sky high).

It’s very competitive in media land and we feel that the more shiny special things we can add to your profile the more you will look truly irresistible to your fellow professionals and employers alike.

So, what have we done then? Well, I’ll tell you.

First up, you get your very own external webpage – which you can share with colleagues, employers or social sites for maximum exposure. Now there’s no need to pay expensive hosting fees and having to constantly update your own website – you now have a new state of the art site that’s entirely yours to use and abuse (try not to show any abuse, of course – it can put people off their lunchtime sarnies).

Media hosting for all – yep, as standard membership, you can now upload up to 3 minutes of media with a 1GB capacity – your bestest video clips, stills and audio for all to see. If 3 minutes isn’t enough then you can take up the massive 4 hours upload package on offer (with a mighty 2GB) – there’s really no excuse to not show your work off.

All your clips are linked so they’ll appear on more company searches.

There’s more…

You can create and share playlists and thereby spreading the love even further. You don’t need to be an IT developer to be able to use it either – we tried it on our mums and got the thumbs up. The dads were a bit rubbish though.

We’ve added a Like It function which will remind you of how good your profile is by fellow members and whether you actually have any friends. I’m sure you have – we can always pretend to be your friends and click on the Like It feature if your numbers look embarrassingly low.

And I haven’t mentioned the brilliant high quality video and HD player. Ok, job done.

You see, we have been busy.

We hope you enjoy these great new features and if you need any help or advice on using them, just give the (uber) friendly PB team a tinkle and we’ll gladly talk through you anything you need to know. But don’t ask any us any maths questions. We don’t like those.

Joe Mahoney is Managing Director of ProductionBase

We would love to hear any feedback that you have on these changes. So if you have something to say, please feel free to comment below…

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ProductionBase – Insider Network for TV Jobs, Film Jobs and Commercial Production Talent

Making the Payroll with Tom O’Brien

How do you go from office dogsbody to your first paid role, when you have just two weeks of work experience to prove your worth? This week, television producer, Tom O’Brien, shares five points worth bearing in mind when you’re trying to make an impact.

Ok, so, you’ve jumped the first hurdle and you’ve bagged yourself two weeks of invaluable work experience. Congratulations – but here’s where the real game begins. How do you make it count? It’s ultra competitive out there, more and more people are coming in at the bottom – how do you make sure that you’re one of the people who bags a job at the end of it? Of course there are no cast-iron guarantees. On the whole, a career in the media is about being reactive, spotting opportunities, being ready to act on a whim. But still, there are a series of key disciplines, which ensure, should an opportunity ever blow in your direction, you’re ready and willing to take it.

Here’s my five key tips worth bearing in mind as you take your first baby-steps into the world of television…

“DID SOMEBODY SAY JOB?”

First things first: there isn’t always a job available. The majority of companies take you on for work experience and only that. If the circumstances are right, it may, just may, transpire there is a job at the end of it – but don’t live in vain hope; vain hope will leave you frustrated.

My advice would be this: ask around and assess the opportunities. After a week of proving your worth, do some digging, informally and see what sort of job options there might be in the company. Questions you might ask are: Are there any productions coming up in the future? Are they looking to expand the development team here? Are there any staff roles available? Do any of the MD’s need a runner or P.A.? Direct these at the runners and researchers and you might get an answer.

Surveying the scene like this helps you to work out if there are actually any specific vacancies you’re suited to. If there is, you can tailor your gameplan accordingly, by making sure you establish contact with the correct people, impressing them, and doing whatever you have to, making sure you’re at the forefront of their mind when they’re mulling over that big pile of CVs.

” SHOOTING AT THE MIDNIGHT HOUR”

Bear in mind this specific holy watchword when you begin your career in television: flexibility. The lines between work and personal life in this industry easily get blurred. All of us at some point, have had our plans for dinner or drinks scuppered at the last minute by a sprawling beast of a show. Last minute shoots, late night photocopying, midnight read-throughs it happens to everyone, so be ready to do the same. If something comes up at the last minute and you’re asked to help out, cancel your plans, because this time your friends will have to wait. If you don’t do it, someone else will. And if that somebody bags a job off the back of it, it lives eternally as the one that got away.

Two weeks work experience means consigning two whole weeks of your life to the job evenings and all. The dedication could pay off.

“THE TWITTERATTI REPORT”

If you’re young and fresh and just out of university, the odds are you’ll be more au fait with new media than your many of your seniors. This is your strength, use it to your advantage. If you’re asked to prepare research packs of any sort, you should be engaging on as many different platforms as you can, to wow and surprise the producer you’re working for. Scour Twitter. Search Facebook. Stream video. Then, take it all and put it in one easy to read, multi-media fact-pack. Engage with new media, so they don’t have to. Give them a shortcut into a world you know intimately.

Here’s a quick list of tools you worth knowing about: Snapz Pro. Openbook. Getty Images. Rex Images. GeoMeme. In conjunction, they should give you most of what you need. Unless, God forbid, I’ve just revealed myself as that out of touch senior I just mentioned.

“CAN ANYONE MAKE LOGOS?”

Another thing that can set you apart from others is a solid understanding of the different computer-programs that are now part of the everyday architecture of programme-making. What do I mean? Photoshop, PowerPoint and Final Cut Pro. Having a rudimentary understanding of them all will put you in good stead.

It’s a simple equation. If you can edit, create graphics and source music, for said production, the budgeters, might not have to pay a graphics company, an edit-house and a sound library for the use of their services. The sum-savings on that equation are substantial, so if you can, try to get handy with these programs, because the more value for money you offer, the more of an attractive prospective employee you become.

Also, specifically in the development side of things, more and more each day, these tools are proving essential to the way we do business. Low-fi (not always) taster tapes are de rigueur, pitch-sheets are daubed with fancy graphics, the pressure’s on to create multi-media shop windows for our show ideas – if you can help, great; we’ll probably want to keep you around.

“SOMEBODY GET ME MY CHAI-LATTE!”

It’s a simple one, but must be re-iterated again and again and again. If you’re visiting a production company for your work experience, make sure you have a broad overview of what they make, what they do and who they are. If you draw a blank when somebody mentions the companies biggest-hitting show, then you’re in trouble (although, it must be said, it happens to all of us at some stage). Familiarize yourself with the company’s body of work and form opinions on as many shows as you can. Then, when the vital question is dropped which it inevitably will be you’re ready to tell them exactly what you think about last night’s episode.

Secondly, being able to put names to faces is a great thing. If you know Mister X is the producer of show Y – which you love – take the opportunity to ask questions. TV, by it’s nature, is filled with egos, a genuine viewer asking the how, what, where, when and reallys is both flattering and shows that you’re already keyed in to the company mentality. Also, of course, when the pin-eyed, deshabille man in the corner whose been eyeballing you all morning, gruffly demands his Chai-Latte, knowing he’s the MD who was at last night’s BAFTA awards and fetching it ever-so-quickly could put you in the good-books.

“WEIGH THE ODDS IN YOUR FAVOUR”

So that’s it for now. Five good starting points for anyone hoping to get the most out of their work experience. It’s a learning curve and nobody expects you to come in as the perfect article (believe me, all of the above I learnt through my own major mistakes), but taking just some of these points on board, makes you a stronger, more prepared, more employable would-be employee. On the surface, you’re there to gain experience via exposure. Truth be told, go in ready and you might just bag yourself a job at the end of it.

Tom O’Brien is a TV producer at Two Four Productions.

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ProductionBase – Insider Network for TV Jobs, Film Jobs and Commercial Production Talent

When Motion Captured the Animators Art

With more and more games and animated movies using performance capture technology, will it be the death of traditional hand animation? This week, Story Board Artist and Animator, Ben Bowen, suggests there is room for them both to live together.

This month see’s the arrival of Rockstar & Team Bond’s LA Noire, a game that’s been purported to be the next step in interactive narrative. To bring the game closer in line with the films it’s based around, the studio used innovative facial capture technology that far exceeds the capabilities of the current crop of animated avatars seen in games like their own Grand Theft Auto IV, or even the blockbusting Call of Duty saga. But how, if at all, does this new launch towards photo-realism affect traditional hand animation in games, which has already taken a battering at the hands of motion capture?

Some animators might balk at it – to some it must seem as if artistic creation has been swiped aside, but in reality it’s more of a step towards physical movie making than creating an animated film. You still require artistry to create such titles; the actors themselves, for example, as well as the various production artists who’ve created the world from concept up to final design. Animators are also brought in to smooth things out, correct errors or areas where things don’t quite work and to often add extra character. But to some extent, the wariness is justified.

Back when Back to the Future’s Robert Zemekis started dabbling in the uncanny-valley world of Polar Express, a hushed silence swept over animation internet boards everywhere – the sound of people afraid for their jobs. Then it was unleashed and everyone drew a collected sigh of relief. Whilst the art was beautifully rendered, the loose-limbed and strange facial features of Tom Hanks and his young cast pulled many out of the picture. Still, it still meant that producers started looking at mo-cap as a shortcut, a shortcut that doesn’t always work.

Whilst such animation has been successfully added to movies mainly in the form of special effects, most performance caption movies, particularly Mars Needs Moms and Final Fantasy The Spirits Within, have fallen flat on their rigid, weightless (yet very pretty) faces.

Meanwhile, traditionally animated fare has made a comeback (Disney’s wonderful Princess and the Frog and the ceaseless output of Studio Ghibli finding western audiences) and hand animated movies from the likes of Pixar and Dreamworks consistently rake in audiences. Possibly the only performance caption film of any particular success was Monster House, thanks to its stylistic advantage on top of the zany, thrilling and somewhat ‘80s throwback plot.

With the new Tin Tin also walking to the perf-cap beat, there is the sense that maybe some producers aren’t quite getting the picture. Audiences seem to be put off by films that veer towards the uncanny. Interestingly, a movie like the new Rise of the Apes has used CGI to sidestep a tricky issue – using live apes to tell the story – and it’ll be interesting to see if it pulls it off. Tin Tin might also manage to finally hurdle the fence, but the internet cynics feel like they should animate it properly, with character and crafted nuance. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.

The other fact is that motion-caption does take jobs away from traditional animators when its applied. This is arguably fine when mo-cap works, but too often the light, weightless look of a character unadjusted by an animators touch can be seen and some might be left wondering why that choice was made. To an extent the initial rush to apply this has died down, but the same mistakes are often seen repeated today.

Gaming has also undergone the same transition. Away from hand animated sprites and beautifully painted backdrops of adventures past such as Monkey Island and Kings Quest to the hyper-realised titles like LA Noire. Yet despite its (arguably) creepy look, performance-caption will probably work in its favour. A similar title, Mafia 2, made by the very talented 2k Czech, who have an excellent eye for period detail and drama, failed to quite engage with gamers last year. The hand animated avatars, beautifully crafted in the real-time cut scenes, lack the punch and verve in the performance to really pull off the more subtle acting that’s allowed by something like LA Noire. There, veins pop and jaws clench, and the actor sells the performance, no matter how loose limbed they may appear.

There is a time and a place for motion caption and hand animation and the two can often meet together for pleasing results. Performance capture is not something to be afraid of nor even entirely relied upon. It’s turned into something that has its place in the entertainment world and both Hollywood and the gaming industry are on a learning curve. As virtual representation catches up with life, interactive entertainment will certainly be an interesting thing to watch from now on – but only if the art is given room to breathe by choosing the right course.

Ben Bowen is a Storyboard Artist and Animation Illustrator

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ProductionBase – Insider Network for TV Jobs, Film Jobs and Commercial Production Talent

I Wanna Be a Model

This week, 3D Generalist & Motion Graphics Designer, Micheale Shelvin, struts us through the technical make-up of animation modeling. Can you really compare modeling in NURBS to modelling on the catwalk?

I had a client once (ahhh, those were the days…) who I was training to build character models in Maya. After his training, some therapy and a week’s retreat whittling wood, he came back and asked me: why, Sensei, don’t we make everything out of NURBS?

Well Grasshopper (I said), Modeling is roughly separated into two disciplines: glamour modeling and catwalk modeling…if only…but, having said that, 3D modeling is also separated into two disciplines: Nurbs modeling and polygonal modeling. Like catwalk modeling, and haute couture in general, NURBS modeling is all about precision, perfection and high quality models looking gorgeous whereas polygonal modeling is all about getting quick and dirty models to bend and flex for not a lot of money and try and look pretty in the process. This metaphor is lame, but in order to keep at least 50% of my readership I am gonna ride this pony until Pedigree Chum come a callin’…

NURBS (Cat Walk) Modeling
Non-uniform rational b-splines. If there were ever a sentence that guarantees you a barren love-life then that was it. I don’t model a lot in NURBS as it’s time consuming, an utter pain in the arse and most people don’t notice the model anyway…which is a bit like catwalk modeling (where am I going with this?): you can spend ages making one amazing coat, chuck it on a tall lass on a stage (who is demanding and a pain in the arse), but only the experts will notice and they don’t give a monkeys how it was made either…

NURBS create perfection because you can specify exactly where you want one side of an object to start and where to end, how and where it bends and the computer extrapolates between those vectors and creates a perfect curve. To illustrate, you remember those crappy paper lanterns you could buy from Habitat (before we had the Scandinavian allen-key hell that is IKEA) that were wire circles with paper stretched over them? Well, this is kind of the same principle. The curve is the wire and the paper is the surface and everything in NURBS is created like that. It must have a few wire guides to tell the computer where to stretch the skin. The difference between the habitat lampshades and NURBS is that the NURBS object would end up as a perfect sphere whereas the Habitat lampshade would make your house look like a student bedsit. (Unless you are going for that look in which case that is very difficult to do in Maya and I’ll need an extra day and maybe I’ll have to write some MEL as well. Call it two days.)

Because of this, NURBS are limited to creating very perfect surfaces and objects. So, like catwalk models they are a pain (in the arse), use up all your time, have loads of issues and don’t exactly lend themselves to great movement. But, if you want something to look perfect and are willing to sink load of time, cash and effort into the process then Nurbs should be right up your strazza,

Polygon (Glamour) Modelling
We don’t always have the luxury of getting a beautiful model to do our bidding and sometimes the constraints of time and money force you to use models that are a bit rougher, a bit uglier but willing and able to do literally anything you want. But, if you want close ups – it’s not going to pretty. Then you need a bit of detail and for this you add complexity – but these models can’t handle complexity, innit, everyfin slows down. If you make things complicated then it just won’t compute.

The only way to really describe polygonal modelling is to say it is like making a 3d mosaic out of stretchy tiles and as any good tiler will tell you: keep your tiling even and don’t leaves spaces between them because grout is ugly. The beauty of polygonal modeling is that it is very fast and (if enough polygons are used) is a very organic way of creating models for animation. You can also add extra geometry as you work and because of this it can be a very intuitive process and a good modeler can make anything. It used to be the case that computers and graphics cards weren’t quick enough to handle large, complex models with a sub-d node on top – but the dark ages of computing (called the SGI era) are over. Now even a cheap PC can redraw even the most complex models.

…which is exactly like glamour modeling. It used to be the case that only pretty people could have their photographs taken but with the advent of affordable software and faster computers even the uglies can get cobble together a half decent photoshoot.
We don’t have to worry about slowing down machines with massive amounts of geometry…which is why I don’t really model with NURBS. Yes, they are useful for lofting the odd shape and then converting it to polys but I find that I never really need anything to be truly that perfect. Most of the time you just need an ordinary model, some decent lighting and a whole load of slap.

Micheal Shevlin is a 3D Generalist & Motion Graphics Designer

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