Featured Artist, Brian Pohl of the USA

Brian, could you start by giving us a small intro about yourself?

Well, my name is Brian J. Pohl. I'm currently living the Los Angeles area working as the lead previsualization artist/supervisor for Digital Domain in Venice, California. I'm a midwesterner, born in Illinois and I grew up in Minnesota. I spent several years of my adult life in Tulsa, Oklahoma obtaining a degree in Broadcast Design/Art. After completing school, I put that art degree straight to work in the US Army. Well.. not really. After 10 years of service and seeing the world, I got out the Army and headed back to Tulsa to begin my creative career. When I left school the digital art movement was just beginning. Back in my college days I was working on a smoking 25mhz 386 with a Targa card and TIPS paint software. For 3D, I cut my teeth on Topas and my trusty Atari 520ST. Nothing like 16 colors. Needless to say, a lot happened in 10 years while I was in the army. By the time I separated from the Army, it was 1994 and I felt like I was way behind the power curve. I tried to stay some what creatively current by purchasing my first Mac back in 1991. It was a Mac IIci. I finally retired the Atari, and started learning Strata 3d.

It didn't take too long before I started to obtain gigs creating flying logos and designing industry graphics. Local television stations and small post houses were quick to jump on the animation bandwagon and I actually did quite well. At one of those post houses, I stumbled across an artist using Electric Image v 1.5. Given my preference for the Macintosh and the incredible quality and speed of EI, I found my match and decided to really give it a go. I opened a small shop of my own that provided creative content for multimedia and broadcast design. I did this for several years.

It was only 4 years ago that I decided that it was time to step it up another notch. Tulsa was a great city, but I knew I had to change my environment if I wanted to really make a difference. I moved to Los Angeles and started to expand my horizons.

Where else have you've worked, and what projects have you contributed to?

Well, after moving to LA I took several art and CGI classes to help boost my portfolio and definitely polish the demo reel. I started looking for work and landed several freelance gigs with Warner Brothers Television and Reality Check Studios. Both companies utilized Electric Image so I felt right at home.

The guys at Reality Check really knew their stuff and they gave me the opportunity to work on several broadcast projects for Fox Television, ESPN, and a couple of other broadcast clients. The real break, however, came when Reality Check wanted me to assist them on a 20th Century Fox movie called "Behind Enemy Lines". How could I say no?

My task was to work with a small 5 man team creating 3D animatics totally within Universe. This was my first exposure to the world of previsualization. What I didn't realize at the time was the guy that was heading up the previs effort on Behind Enemy Lines was David Dozoretz, the previsualization supervisor on Star Wars Episode I. Needless to say, I worked like a mad man in order to impress that guy because he was looking to hire folks for Episode II. He held the key to a dream of mine that I thought I would never achieve.

The effort paid off and after the completion of Behind Enemy Lines, I started the interview processes with Lucasfilm and later landed a job on Episode II's previsualization team. I can't emphasize enough how grateful I am to Kory Jones at Reality Check for helping me get my foot in the door, and to David for the incredible opportunity to work up at Skywalker Ranch.

After completing my tour up at the Ranch, which was a once in a life time event, I was prepared to move back to LA when I was offered a transfer to Industrial Light and Magic. Again, how could I say no? I spent the next couple of years at ILM constructing animatics and final shots. Some of the productions I've contributed to during my tenure at ILM are: K-19:The Widowmaker, Star Wars Episode II, Men In Black 2, Van Helsing, Terminator 3, and The Hulk; all of which I used an array of different software packages, including Universe, to complete a number of tasks ranging from previsualization to final shots.

I've only recently moved back to LA, where I obtained a staff position at Digital Domain. Given my experiences at Lucasfilm, Digital Domain is allowing me to help organize DD's first solid effort in creating an internal previsualization department. Unfortunately Universe isn't apart of their toolset, but all the principles I've learned with EI have benefitted me tremendously.

Since I've been at Digital Domain, I've worked on Alex Proyas' I, Robot and I'm now leading the charge on Rob Cohen's Stealth.

What kind of work do you do where you work?

I am the lead previsualization artist/supervisor on Stealth, Rob Cohen's new action film. I manage a team of 14 artists that construct 3D animatics in order to assist the director in defining his vision. I also ensure a solid pipeline exists between the conceptual world of previsualization and the technical world of production. It's my goal to ensure that the data coming out of my previs team can be directly implemented into the production pipeline.

I also do a lot of animation supervising. I advise animators on how to improve their shots. Oh, and let's not forget a lot of organizational, scheduling, and management tasks.

Could you elaborate somewhat, on what a Previs Artist does?

Previsualization is a very unique animal. We use low resolution proxy models, quick OpenGL hardware renderings, and other 3D FX systems to completely conceptualize a sequence that requires either visual FX or character animation. Our goal is to produce usable data that will help streamline the production process. Previs artists need to be incredibly talented generalists who are capable of doing just about anything.

What's really enjoyable about doing previsualization is I have a direct hand in the creation of the actual movie. The previs artist has the distinct pleasure of working with the director by providing conceptual content that directly influences their vision. The creative freedom is so liberating as opposed to the guy working on some small detail on a final shot. Don't get me wrong, I have complete respect for those who work on finals, but when I see a movie on the big screen I can see my direct influence on the entire shot, not just one piece. The camera placement, screen direction, timing, and animation is defined in the previs process. Its filmmaking in its purest form. I love it.

I also do a lot of freelance illustration and design projects.

What are the tools that you use mostly?

My personal toolset includes Electric Image, Maya, After Effects, Photoshop, and Final Cut Pro. I also use a vast array of Konkeptoine, Northern Lights, and Triple D plugins.

Why do you use Universe as one of your tools?

I think Camera is the primary reason. The renderings that come out Universe are so appealing to me. I also find the interface within Animator very easy to use. Its far more logical and structured than most programs that rely on a heavy GUI interface. I can fire up Universe and within minutes have a rendering complete that would have taken considerably longer in another package. I feel its the best broadcast design tool on the planet.

I also find that Universe really excels at Digital Set and matte construction, lighting tasks and hard surface animation. Large poly scenes are handled quite effectively and the program seems designed to find simplistic solutions to complex problems. When it comes down to the wire, Universe provides me with guaranteed quality. Its straight forward and I like that.

What are the benefits of this tool, in your opinion? Is it good for High-end work, etc?

Well, let's see. Another ILM artist and I used it on T3 to construct the planet-wide nuclear blast scene. The interesting thing about that planet-wide nuke shot was none of the nuclear clouds were done with particles. Each mushroom cloud was constructed with Image2Mesh displacement geometry and some clever texture maps. The definite benefit here was the ability to handle huge numbers of polys and fast render times. We kicked of five different passes per mushroom cloud and each was rendered at 2k. I think everything rendered in a period of a couple of days, all using a few macintoshes in the art department. Pretty slick.

It was used exclusively on Behind Enemy Lines to previsualize the ejection sequence and it contributed to several final production shots for that movie. The benefit here was EI's nice looking motion blurs. It really helped sell the sense of speed for most of the shots.

I also used Universe on Episode II to provide all the final animated elements for the Geonossian holographic Imlok Arena 7580 tactical monitor and for previsualizing firework explosions in Men in Black 2. The benefit here was Universe's ability to easily render high quality hidden wire removal renderings without at lot of hassles and the new constraint system made auto orientating the gunships' flight paths a snap. The fireworks were easily handled with Triple D Tools' Fyreworks plugin. The automated fyreworks system allowed me to knock out dozens of explosion concepts...unfortunately, none of them were used in the final production.

K-19 implemented Universe to construct temporary visual fx and previsualization shots for nearly every underwater sequence that included the Widowmaker. The benefit here was the easy implementation of global fog to mimic the murky depths of the ocean. Plus Dante was crucial to generate the propeller cavitation and particulate matter in the water. Camera data was passed out of Universe into other packages for the final shots which were probably rendered with Renderman.

Finally, I used Mr. Blobby and After Effects to assist me in conceptualizing some of the memory sequences in The Hulk. The benefit was combining metaball geometry with deformation tools.

I wish I could show you some of the images from these productions, but alas the rights belong to their respective studios. One of the down sides about working in previsualization is extremely tight security and non disclosure agreements on conceptual work. It seems like the studios don't enjoy showing their conceptual process. It tends to reveal too much technique. Given the chance, I could create an entirely separate demo reel on the materials I can't show. Go grab the DVDs. The Behind Enemy Lines DVD includes the complete previs ejection sequence, while the Episode II DVD has a great feature on the art of previsualization. Plus you can see these effects first hand.

So yeah, its very capable of high-end work. Seriously though, with a small render farm, Renderama, and Universe, there's very little you can't do. The benefits? Speed, a large variety of 3rd party plugins and shaders, and awesome render quality.

Any advice for people that want to get into the film business as 3d artists, compositors, or previs?

God, I have plenty. My biggest advice is to learn how to market yourself. You can be the most talented animator in the world, but it means nothing if you have zero people skills. Get out there, network, and be bold. Show people what you can do with Universe. Impress them. Don't be afraid to take risks. Failing to do so will only leave you asking the questions of "what if" or "if I had only..."

Concentrate on a making a strong demo reel and focus the contents of the reel towards the job your applying for. Its ok to be a generalist or specialist, but ultimately you should understand the type of job you are applying for and cater your reel to address that need.

Finally, get a solid education, learn the principles of animation, and develop a passion for animation. The film industry looks like its a lot of glitz and glamour, but its really a lot of pressure, deadlines, and attention to detail work. If you don't love what you're doing, consider a different occupation.

Any projects for the future, (personal, or otherwise)?

Right now I'm focused on Stealth, however, I plan to take a sabatical after this production is over to begin work on a small animated short. The amount of experience I've gathered over the years is dying to manifest itself in some personal and creative way. Granted, its nice to work on a big feature film, but at some point you just gotta do it purely for yourself. Self expression is the heart of living.

Anything else you want to add?

Sure...I want to tell Matt Hoffman that he's doing a great job and to keep working on opening up EI's architecture. We need more hooks into the program. Today's digital environment is all about sharing data. I hope to see more tools that allow Universe to directly communicate with other packages like Maya, Houdini, Motion Builder and Softimage. I also want to address my fellow Universe users out there. You've purchased a great software package. Help our community grow by getting out there and showing your stuff!

Brian J. Pohl

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