The story of the storytellers
By Jason Smith,
The digital mavens at the inspiring AnimFXNZ show they’re not blinded by science
[Networking]
Even in the fast-changing world of digital entertainment, it’s reassuring to know that some things never go out of style. No matter how you render it, there’s nothing more compelling than a good story well told. This was a recurring theme at the second AnimFXNZ Symposium in Wellington in November 2007, organised by New Zealand’s Games Animation and Visual Effects Trust.
In a galaxy far, far away from anything resembling a Trekkie convention, the digital entertainment industry converged for heavy action about the weightless economy. Picture, if you will, visual effects directors, game developers, 3D animators, computer programmers, computer-graphic artists, design students and software developers from across New Zealand and around the world. Technology, innovation, artistry, narrative storytelling—in an edgy place where old and new technologies converge. Sh-k-a-boom.
There was lots of light, lots of visual magic and many dark spaces. Moving at speed through the dark, that old warhorse the BBC is making much of new technologies for children’s television. Michael Harrington, the head of children’s TV at the BBC, explained how the Beeb is racing towards the digital future of on-demand TV, immersive television and multi-platform broadcasting to mobile phones and portable devices. For six- to 12-year-olds the BBC has its own online Second Life-styled virtual world made for and by kids called Adventure Rock. Get ’em while they’re young.
Get hard
With typical Kiwi candour, New Zealand gaming industry leaders reflected on their successes and failures in the fastest-growing digital sector (see Idealog Metrics on page 95). The Kiwis who founded the industry here in the nineties are all still under 40. Starting a first business as a keen teen meant that digital game development companies were the kinds of testing grounds where business blunders come easily. Paying staff with two-minute noodles in student digs just doesn’t cut it anymore in this lucrative race to the stars.
Stars? There were plenty of them at AnimFXNZ ’07 too—exploding ones, shaking ones, galaxies of them rendered in every conceivable way, including the Death Star from Star Wars and Warren Franklin, the man who made that magic 30 years ago. Visual effects veterans from Hollywood shared their trade secrets from another age. Dan Curry from Warner Bros revisited the age of painted glass plate special effects from Battlestar Galactica and Indiana Jones movies, capturing trick-of-the-eye hand-made special effects—dry ice and Borax as waterfalls, a cheerleader pom-pom as shimmering nebulous space cloud, a 40-watt light bulb as the sun.
Tim Johnson talks Shrek; Warren Franklin tells tales from Star Wars
Light years later, computer-generated 3D face replacement was used in the Will Ferrell-as-figure-skater movie Blades of Glory, which takes the idea of thousands of luminous spheres to a whole new level for the non-skating star. The story behind the motion-capture behind the Happy Feet dancing penguins; a masterclass on how to build a story by Tim Johnson, the director of Dreamworks’ Over The Hedge; the new intuitive software which ‘built’ 1933 Manhattan for King Kong almost by itself, with thousands of buildings individually detailed and then dusted lightly with snow—these were just some of the highlights of the two-day graphic-overloaded conference-techie nightmare ride.
Get real
Having a Kiwi symposium where the digital entertainment sector comes together is an idea with just the right amount of wrong in it. This sector may not be large in New Zealand but it is light on its feet, and communication among players is easy. Franklin, who started out with Star Wars at George Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic, enthused about New Zealand at the kind of edge where digital entertainment thrives—because computer-generated imagery is not being led by Hollywood.
The local scene may be small, but it’s smart. In this global, borderless part of the economy, everybody gets to participate and create using the tools on desktops everywhere. The tyranny of distance is little barrier as Kiwi dream-weavers have just as much chance of creating as anyone else. At heart, good stories told well will continue to be the bedrock of entertainment, movies, TV and games content. And we all love a good yarn.
Far from being a talkfest of gas clouds and hot air, at AnimFXNZ ’07 New Zealand’s digital entertainment community shared real-world experiences and common miseries and common realities, not just dreams and doodles. Students were fast-tracked with an extra day of masterclasses and workshops with the veterans and pioneers who first learned the tricks for running into the space ahead of them.
Make way for these magic merchants of digital entertainment. This is tomorrow calling. Wishing you were here.
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