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3DTotal: Hi Grzegorz, it's been a while since we last spoke (about two years). You had just wrapped up working on your second short film Ark and working as lead animator for CafeFX. So what's changed in that time?
Grzegorz: Yes, Ark was a very long project, it took me over three years to complete. And in fact it was a side project, I remember working on an animatic for Ark, during post production of Sin City. My regular
job, as a visual effects artist, was taking at least 10 hours/per day, so I had a very limited time to work on my own film. By the time I finished Ark, I was working as a lead animator for Frank Darabont's Mist. After that, came some other projects, like Nim's Island, The Happening, The Mummy 3 or Red Cliff to name a few. I just did a few effect shots here and there.
In 2008 I created a short film Legacy, completely on my own, for a CGTALK international competition, and
I won the "Individual Video" award for it. While working on Legacy I moved from Cafefx to ILM. I had about two- three weeks to move my entire life from Santa Maria, to San Francisco – it was pretty crazy!
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Since being at ILM, I have worked on Transformers 3, Star Trek, Terminator 4: Salvation, Surrogates and Red Tails among other projects. In 2009, together with fellow ILM artist and producer Bastiaan Koch, I wrote and directed a live action short film The 3rd Letter. We just finished working on it barely two months ago, and the film is now being screened at various festivals around the world (and getting some great awards!) |
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3DTotal: That’s a pretty impressive list of projects that you’ve worked on! Have you picked up any handy “tricks of the trade” from your colleagues and projects that you have implemented into your own movies and if so what are they?
Grzegorz: Definitely! Learning effects techniques as you do them is a huge part of it. You just observe your colleagues, you learn from supervisors (Everett Burrell, Jeff Goldman, Ben Snow) and from great directors like Del Toro, Darabont or Verbinski. It is like a good film school. If you are focused and particular enough you can pick up tons of techniques from the footage, comments, turn arounds, dailies etc. You come to understand camera angles, framing choices, narration over the editing process, why certain shots get omitted, what the reason for it is, how the edit looks after that omission, etc. You also learn that sound effects and the music are very very important for the film. All sorts of things.
3DTotal: So with this new understanding, have you been tempted to look over any of your older projects, such as Ark, to see if you could have done things differently?
Grzegorz: Well, Ark was printed on 35 millimeters, and I have no intention of revisiting it whatsoever. I have discovered one very obvious technical mistake after probably one year of the film's completion, but it will have to stay. When it comes to the way the film was made - miniature sets and CG backgrounds - I think it was good choice.
I'm still using the same technique in my current projects, animated or live action. I simply love building miniature or practical, real-scale sets! |
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3DTotal: You’ve mentioned your latest project – The 3rd Letter – could you tell us a bit more about what that entails?
Grzegorz: The 3rd Letter is my first live action film. It’s set in the vague future, or maybe a parallel
universe. People are forced to use many bio mechanical health "aids" to survive in it, because of the pollution etc. It's mostly a personal drama, just with a couple of actors. We shot it over a period of
10 days (mostly evenings, since I had to work from 9 until 6-7) and the post production took about a year.
It is an effects-heavy film, but the story is the most important aspect.
We used a Canon5D Mark II dslr, with the HD recording, and it proved to be an excellent choice, quality/money wise. During the post production, we had a lot of help from my favorite Polish studio Platige Image and friends from US and abroad. Also, as far as practical effects, we had a tremendous help from John Goodson and Fon Davis of ILM fame. |
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