eyeon often covers the exploits of artists using Fusion in a variety of environments, and this month is no exception. We had the
opportunity to catch up with Bryan Godwin of famed NYC-based commercial 3D, animation and effects studio Charlex to get an idea of
how they take advantage of Fusion's speed and power to aid their clients' quest for brain-burning brandbuilding. Take a look at what
Bryan has to say about why they brought Fusion to Charlex in the first place, and how it has evolved since!
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| eyeon: Can you tell us a little bit about your self? |
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My Name is Bryan Godwin and I started working at Square USA about six years ago doing some videogame work and I've worked in all
sorts of aspects of 3D since then. For example I've done an animated TV series, an animated feature film, film effects, commercials.
I landed at Charlex about three years ago after working at Blue Sky Studios on Ice Age.
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| eyeon: Can you describe your position at Charlex? |
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I'm the founder and supervisor of the 3D department at Charlex and I manage all the operations here. I am also the art director
for most of the commercials that go through.
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| eyeon: What is it that you do on a daily basis? |
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Well, when we first started the 3D department at Charlex there were only 4 people working with me, and now we have over 20 artists.
Initially my focus was on lighting and compositing because that's my main background and that's what I was doing prior to coming
here. As we've grown, my emphasis has switched more towards pipeline efficiency and managing the look and feel of the work going
through, while keeping everyone's day-to- day routines on track.
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| eyeon: Why did Charlex decide to start a 3D department in the first place? |
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Charlex has been around for 25 years now and they were primarily involved with flame effects, motion graphics and editing…that sort
of thing. Until recently, they felt 3D was a little too cost-prohibitive to get involved and be competitive, but they started
noticing that the other companies with in-house 3D departments were winning a lot of contracts so they thought: well you know,
the price of software and hardware has gone down to the point where we might be able to get in. It has really paid off.
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| eyeon: Were you involved with the decision to bring Fusion in to Charlex? |
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Yes I was. We were a Shake house, and my background is in Shake but with the recent turn of events we had to look at options that
didn't include switching platforms. We checked out a bunch of different applications, but Fusion seemed to be the best fit. We
needed something that was flexible, node based, had nice connectivity and the ability to use expressions and scripting because we
are really into customizing our pipeline. Fusion gave us all of that.
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| eyeon: Charlex is primarily a commercial post facility. Was there something specific that made Fusion fit so well into your existing pipeline? |
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One of the things that really impressed me about Fusion was the interactivity. The software we'd been using wasn't quite so
interactive. The fact that there is real-time output to NTSC really gave us a big advantage, not having to render stuff out and
check on a monitor then work again. It really allowed us to hold a session with clients working behind us the same way they would
with a Flame. We still use the Flames a lot but our lighting TDs are able to get approvals a lot faster with Fusion.
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| eyeon: So you’ll use Fusion directly with a client? |
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It's a little more informal then a traditional Flame session. Generally a client will come in as a lighting TD is starting or
finishing a spot, allowing the client to make last minute color changes or tweak the level or add a little more contrast or a
little more brightness -- it's so fast and it plays right out on the monitor. We get a vibe right there, rather then having to
send the work out to have it approved and then work on it again.
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| eyeon: For the benefit of the audience can you please elaborate on your pipeline, because traditionally most of
the compositing for commercial post was done in a compositing bay with hardware assisted systems? |
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We have a different approach here because most of our staff, especially the people that helped found the department, come from a
film background so we are used to integrating our lighting and compositing in one place. All of our lighting TD's also do all the
compositing that 3D does. On occasion, we'll create elements to send out to a Flame, but our standard workflow is to do all the
compositing and finishing of all the 3D elements in the 3D department with the lighting TDs. Then that footage is handed off to a
Flame or a Smoke to cut it into a spot, where extra graphics or text will be overlaid on top but we don't do a lot of 3D compositing
in the Flame.
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| eyeon: What are some of the strengths that you feel Fusion offers Charlex? |
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Speed, interactivity -- that's huge. The particle system is really big. Our FX TDs latched onto that right off the bat and they
were like "hey, holy cow this is a real 3D particle system we can use." For the quick and dirty FX it is a bit more efficient then
Maya's, which is what we've generally used in the past. Also, the color corrector is light years ahead of some of the other packages
I've used. It's really powerful and we can get really nice color correction out of it.
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| eyeon: Can you name some recent spots Fusion has been used on? |
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We used Fusion on the Sunny Delight campaign as well as some stuff for Samsung and Cingular. A little bit on the M&Ms work we
recently did. Things end up going through Fusion on almost everything Charlex does.
All images courtesy of Charlex.
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