Meet the Artist: Spencer Cook

#64

Great job with Spiderman and Matrix. Each one is ground breaking in its own way and I love all of them. What the next project?

#65

Hello, I just wanted to say what a great film and congrats on such a success. And as many have already posted here, I just wanted to say that my favorite part was the sandman birth. I loved how soft the sand felt and how he was trying to come to grips that “okay im made of sand now…just need to pick myself and move on” lots of determination in that scene and as a growing animator I hope I can pull something like that off in the future. Great work! Also just wanted to thank you for giving us your time here. Thanks.

-Bryan

#66

Hi Spencer,

First I want to thank you for your time…

Well I entered VFX field almost 2 yrs ago, I work in Lebanon(Middle East).

The field is evolving here but still not as professional as what u guys do. I’m really eager to learn and improve in this field more. I would like to ask you, is it in any way possible for me to do training in one of the post production companies in the US? If yes how can I reach any, if not then what’s your advice for me in order to improve and reach the pro level…

#67

Here goes some critics about Spiderman III, its just my opinion thou.

Story was the weakest among the three films, I’d say the first film had the strongest storyline and the most clear to follow, but the third film has too much material and very little time devoted to each as if barely scratching the surface, never letting the audience really get involved emotionaly with anything. For example, the story with the sandman and his daughter and wife, so little screen time is given to them while it could have been a great subject to go deep with.

On direction, while I may not be quilified to criticise, as a mere member of the audience, I found some of the action sequences too crowded, the cutting and continuity was sometimes too hard to follow, specialy on the fight with harry and pete in the alleys, it was like they tried to pack in too much goodies into that sequence that it spoiled it all.

On animation, there was some minor stuff, one during the sandman born scene while hes getting up and falling, i think it would have needed more polish, it felt to me that it was somehow rushed in animation. also some of the shots with spidy just screamed computer animation, as they were too clean and perfect to fit into the live action set. As it is with CG animation in live action films, sometimes you need to add those little imperfections, like a few unclean arcs or maybe mess up those slow in/out a bit to make it more life like.

animation of the sandman in the final battle could have been better, I would have personaly added more weight and force to his punch. it was there but could have been pushed more to add more impact.

Overall, I enjoyed the film but the first spiderman remains my favorite.

#68

Hi Laven,
The Peter/Goblin fight (we called it pg sequence for short) was a mix of everything you mentioned. Some of the decisions of what technique to use were based on things like; how well do you see the actors, is it possible to shoot on location, is it possible for the actor or stuntman to perform the action. To clearly see the actors, some of the action was performed on a stage in front of a bluescreen. In animation we could manipulate the bluescreen plate to enhance the motion. In some cases we comped the actors face onto the animated character. This was a tricky process that involved animating the character then using that motion to program a motion control camera to photograph the actor’s face with the proper perspective changes. For some of the more complex action that no person could perform and no camera rig could photograph we went all digital. We tried to mix up the techniques and see the actors as much as possible. Time and money always figure into the decisions as well.
As far as render times; we generally render a shot in separate passes (and comp them together) so it’s difficult to quantify a time per shot or per frame. One general rule though is that if an element takes more than 2 hours to render then every effort is made to reduce that time. There were some shot elements that took as much as 7 or 8 hours to render. I hope that answers your questions.

thanks,
Spencer

#69

Hi JinJ,

Thanks for the questions, here you go;

  1. We are always on the look out for talented and enthusiastic young animators. It’s important to have a mix of veterans and beginners on each team. Where else will the beginners get the experience to become veterans one day? We have a training department here that helps get new folks up to speed on software, tools, pipeline, etc. It also depends on the time frame for the show. We probably wouldn’t have too many junior animators on “911” shows since we do have to push stuff out quickly. However, there are shows with a schedule of a year or more where juniors have time to ramp up to speed. Also, a junior animator would probably do more simple shots in the beginning.

  2. At Imageworks, once a modeler is done on a show we box them up and put them in storage. I’m kidding of course, ideally what happens is that they move on to another show. If there isn’t another show in house they can take a vacation, work on some internal projects or go to work at another studio. It all depends on the indivdual and the state of the facility at the time.

hope that answers your questions,
thanks,
Spencer

#70

I just found out some new info about render times from Michael May, one of our coordinators. Some of the very complex sand shots took as much as 12 hours per frame to render.

Spencer

#71

Mr. Cook,

To start, I just want to say thank you. You and your team have done a magnificent job with the Matrix movies, as well as the Spiderman movies (super huge ridiculous spiderman fan since I was born). Your fx are greatly inspiring and amazing! I have always had a passion for animation and I am getting ready to attend AAU online at the age of 26 (military service after highschool). I feel like I am a bit behind the curve because I have very little knowledge in the 3D animation world (messing with the downloadable version of 3DS Max as of late) and the animation/production language used. If you wouldn’t mind, I would just like to get your advice on some of the possible obstacles/problems that I may encounter as someone starting out “this late in the game” so to speak. Thank you ahead of time and keep the amazing work coming! Take care!

J

#72

Spencer,
Congrats on great work and great career.

Joe Piazzo
SVA Film, 1984

#73

Hi amitabhverma8,

Thanks, I glad to here you enjoyed our work. Thanks for the questions.

I think your first question is more of a personal preference. We animated all of the characters the best way we could to fit their indivdual personalities.

As to your second question, the amount of screentime for dark Spidey was based on the story that Sam Raimi wanted to tell. The advertising did focus alot on dark Spidey, mostly I guess because it’s a new element that audiences didn’t see in Spider-man 1 and 2.

To create a photo-real looking environment digitally it’s best to use as much real photography as possible. Scott Stokdyk, our visual effects supervisor, tries to design fx shots to include as much real elements as possible. Most of the time it’s a mix of plate photography, hi resolution stills, skillful model making, texture painting, matte painting, lighting and a critical eye for detail.

The best advice I can give to improve as an animator is this; animate what interests you not what you think other people want to see. Whether it’s cartoons, photoreal monsters or spaceships, you’ll do better work and be happier if you follow your interests. Also, study real world reference. Act out an action in front of a mirror or, better yet, videotape youself and study it frame by frame. If you are animating a creature, find an animal in the real world to get ideas from. Find nature footage of that animal and study it frame by frame and apply that to your animation. Read animation books like “The illusion of life” or Richard Williams “The animator’s survival kit” for basic animation principals. Most of all…animate, make mistakes, learn from your mistakes, be your own harshest critic and study human and animal body language.

Finally, I’m pretty sure there will be a Spider-Man 4. I don’t have any inside information on this yet but a basic rule in Hollywood is that if a movie makes money the studio will want to do it again. There are still tons of great Spidey stories to tell.

thanks,
Spencer

#74

Originally Posted by wotanist
[i]Hi Spencer,

I was wondering if there were any sequences that the director demanded which were too difficult to pull off and were dropped because of technical limitations, or would you say that you’ve met even the most outrageous demands?

My second question is about the CG Spiderman and Sandman? How many animation controls each do they have approximately, and how long did it take for rigging them?

Thirdly, how long did it take to render the most complex scene in the movie? Amongst the characters, I’m assuming that with Sandman’s complex shaders, he would have taken the longest to render. Whats the size of the renderfarm?

Finally, What were the specs of the Workstations the team was working on? Despite working on high end workstations, were there any scenes that may have crashed the workstations while working?[/i]

Hi again wotanist,

I can’t give you too many specific answers to your other questions but I’ll pass along what I can. The most complex sand scene took close to 12 hours per frame to render. We use a linux os on our workstations. Scene crashes are an unfortunate part of working on a computer. Sorry I can’t be more specific.

thanks,
Spencer

#75

Hi seema,

Thanks for the kind words, I’m glad you enjoy our work. The best person to answer your question is Koji himself, so, ladies and gentlemen…Mr. Koji Morihiro;

It was all done with point weighting, basically.
Most of the deformation is done with Maya clusters applied directly onto the geometry
and there are also a few Lattices whose points are driven by clusters.

There are several hundreds clusters placed over Spidey’s body.
And each of them works as a virtual muscle whose movement is
triggered by the animation joints via Maya expressions (equations).
For example, there are clusters placed and weighted around his biceps that get triggered by
the elbow rotation, and as a result these cluters give a nice bicep bulge effect.

The idea behind this technique is that I was convinced the best way to get the most believable deformation
was to have geometry precisely sculpted(weighted) at as many poses and have them interpolated as real muscles and skin would move.
To achieve both precise shapes and realistic interpolations, I found combinations of clusters and expressions work very neatly.

#76

Hi Render3Dean,

It’s pretty much Maya, I think there may be other programs involved to translate 3D scans into a usable format.

thanks,
Spencer

#77

Thanks for the reply Mr Cook.

Since this is a rare opportunity, I’ll be extremely pleased if you could answer a few more questions :

  1. What particular (art/animation) influence(s) do you guys use for Spideys movements ?

I felt that the aerial fight sequences had a (awesome) anime feel to them. In the sense that it was beautifully planned and stylishly executed.
Curious as to how, who and by what you guys are influenced and inspired by when choreographing Spidey-Moves.

  1. On a personal note, who would be your Villians Of Choice for the next Spidey movie ? :wink:
#78

hi Asiadeep,
Thanks, I’m happy to hear you like our work. I’m not sure what my next project is. There are some very cool projects on the horizon here at Imageworks but it’s too early to mention any by name.

thanks,
Spencer

#79

Hi Bhunt,

Thanks for the kind words. I was most nervous about the birth sequence, there were so many complex elements that needed to work. I’m glad you liked it.

thanks,
Spencer

#80

Don’t sugercoat it man, tell us what you really think :slight_smile: Actually, I appreciate hearing what didn’t work for people as well as what did. That’s the thing about character animation, every human being is hardwired through millions of years of evolution to be sensitive to human and animal body language. It’s a gut reaction, an person doesn’t need any training in animation to spot something that doesn’t feel right. As animators we try to find a balance between the fantasy and the reality of an action. In movies like Spidey 3 we are creating events that couldn’t happen in the real world so part of it is very subjective.

thanks for the comments,
Spencer

#81 
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	  Hi hanias and JBoogie,

I’m going to answer your questions together since you both have similar requests.

You can find contact info for studios on the internet. Just type the studio’s name in Google and go to their website. Most will have an “employment” section that will give you an address to send demos to. Here’s one to get you started;
http://www.sonypictures.com/imageworks/

Make sure your demo is vhs or dvd in ntsc format. Most studios get tons of demos everyday so don’t expect a quick reply. You can follow up with a phone call to the HR department. Make sure your demo and cover letter are clear about the position you want; modeling, animation, lighting, etc. You can also inquire about internships which can usually be a good foot in the door if you are just starting out.

I know what it’s like trying to make that initial contact and it can be intimidating and/or frustrating. If your demo is specifically character animation you can mention my name in the cover letter and I’ll be happy to take a look at it. Please only send me character animation demos though.

To JBoogie, the best thing you can do is animate, animate and then animate some more. One of your fellow posters ( amitabhverma8) asked a similar question, here were my suggestions to him;

The best advice I can give to improve as an animator is this; animate what interests you not what you think other people want to see. Whether it’s cartoons, photoreal monsters or spaceships, you’ll do better work and be happier if you follow your interests. Also, study real world reference. Act out an action in front of a mirror or, better yet, videotape youself and study it frame by frame. If you are animating a creature, find an animal in the real world to get ideas from. Find nature footage of that animal and study it frame by frame and apply that to your animation. Read animation books like “The illusion of life” or Richard Williams “The animator’s survival kit” for basic animation principals. Most of all…animate, make mistakes, learn from your mistakes, be your own harshest critic and study human and animal body language.

The software you use is not as important as developing good animation skills.

I hope this helps, I look forward to seeing all of your great work in the future.

thanks,
Spencer

#82

Thanks Joe, good to hear from you. Hope all is well with you.

Spencer

#83

Last drinks!

Thank you everyone who have participated in this tremendous open Q&A with Spencer Cook on his amazing career. Thanks also to Sandy O’Neill from Sony Imageworks for making this possible, and most definitely, Thank You to Spencer Cook for making your time available.