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Michael McDougall is the Creative Director and Co-founder of BTRY, a multi-disciplinary studio, which produces commercial and non-commercial projects in motion design, 3D animation, and live action.
PAUSE, a
remarkable CG title sequence created by BTRY, was profiled
recently in Post Magazine: Click here
to view the article.
We spoke with McDougall recently at his Toronto facility.
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eyeon: When did you first realize that you wanted to do motion design and visual effects?
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McDougall: I had recently left the Ontario College of Art and Design and was doing maintenance in an office tower. The management there allowed me to use empty offices as painting studios. I migrated between
empty spaces as companies moved in and out of the building. They also bought a Mac for the office right around the time when Photoshop 2.0 was released. I knew my career opportunities weren't looking so
great so I bit the bullet and bought Photoshop. Creating art digitally really spoke to me and I never looked back. So, it was born out of necessity but it seems like it's exactly where I should have been.
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| eyeon: How did you learn your craft?
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McDougall: I learned on the job through a number of different post shops in Toronto. My goal was to become an Inferno artist. I finally had that opportunity at Spin VFX in Toronto. I had a great time
learning from Steve Lewis and Jeff Campbell, but realized that being in the hot seat wasn't what I loved. I realized that my love for art and design was stronger, and decided to scale things back. I went
freelance to work on motion design projects but, once I was outside of the Inferno suite, I found that I missed being able to work with 2D/3D integration. When Fusion 5 came out, I knew it was time to bite
the bullet again, and that's when Fusion became my main package for design.
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eyeon: When did you first encounter Fusion?
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McDougall: I have dabbled with Fusion
over the years. Probably the first time was in 1997 and, yes, I do remember the tubes and tiles!
eyeon: What was it like to learn
Fusion?
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McDougall: Node-based compositing is a bit of a beast at first, especially if you use it for design projects. I spent a few years trying this with Shake but I found Fusion a lot more intuitive and
designer-friendly. I think that once you teach yourself to think in terms of nodes instead of layers, it is very liberating. I find it much more organic and creative.
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eyeon: What was the best thing,
in your opinion, about Fusion?
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McDougall: The 2D/3D integration is
the thing I like best, hands down. Nothing on the market is
like Fusion. I am also very excited about Generation and what
it means for our workflow. Timeline editing and versioning are
a couple of things I am really looking forward to.
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eyeon: What are some of your
favourite Fusion projects?
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McDougall: The most recent project
was PAUSE for the FITC conference in New York City.
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We did a piece called Syngenta, which
includes full integration of shot footage, CGI, and design. It
was all pre-vized and finished in Fusion.
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There was also a Nikon Coolpix ad,
which aired during the Olympics. We developed all the
animation within Fusion using the 3D duplicate, and did some
trickery by using Fusion cameras as containers to export the
animation data using the Fusion-to-Max export plug-in. We then
rendered in Max and brought all the passes back into Fusion
for finishing.
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We also did the Star Racer intro for
Discovery Channel. It was all done in Lightwave and Fusion.
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eyeon: Where do you want to be in 10 years?
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| McDougall: I have tried to forecast this in the past and always fail miserably. I went to OCAD for experimental sculpture and look where I ended up! All I can say is that art still drives me. We are always
looking to improve ideas and projects. Hopefully, this puts us in a position to tackle more interesting projects as we move forward.
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View the PAUSE sequence online at BTRY
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