Special Effects: The Matrix and Other Movies
Cassandra Bell
September 08, 2005
I recently interviewed Eyal Erez, who contributed his knowledge of special effects to various films and tv series.
Bell: For what company do you work and how long have you worked for them?
Erez: I've been working for Sony Pictures Imageworks for the last 2 years.
Bell: What was your special effects contribution for movies?
Erez: Effects Animation, which is basically procedural animation of particle systems. we use it to create phenomenon like rain, snow, wind, clouds, fire, explosions, tornadoes, flocks of bugs/sentinels/birds, water, sand, destruction, etc.
Bell: What was your special effects contribution for the films? Can you describe some of the scenes in those movies/tv series, of which your were the effects animator?
Erez: I've worked on "The Aviator," "Christmas with the Kranks," "Spider-Man 2," "Hellboy," "The Matrix Revolutions," "Visitors," "Ghost Ship," "The One," "Smallville," "Angel," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and some music videos and commercials.
For the "Matrix," I've developed a system for the sentintel swarm chasing the spaceship, the system handle, the animation of the swarm following the ship and trying to land on it. Once they land on the ship, they start crawling on it and destroying it. The ship's guns are constantly firing at the sentinels as the sentinels are trying to avoid the laser beams. If they get hit, they change their behavior based on how they got hit. A center hit will blow them up, but a side hit will change their flight direction so only if they hit the tunnels they explode. otherwise just smoke and sparks are coming out as they loose speed. In addition to sentinels I've worked on explosions, smoke, dry-ice, fire, lasers, sparks, Neo-Vision fx and destruction.
For the "Aviator" I did mostly water splashes generated by the spruce-goose as it takes of from the ocean.
In "Spiderman2," I've worked on destruction shots, specifically in the train sequence where the train gets to the end of the track and hits the train stopper, which destroys the whole platform.
"Hellboy" had some destruction work and character driven effects, like Sammael's hair.
Unfortunately, I can't really talk about "Superman Returns," since the movie is not out yet. I can only say that we have very challenging work ahead of us and very cool looking effects. It'll be out next summer.
Bell: Did you become acquainted with any of the actors?
Erez: Not really. We usually interact with the directors more than the actors. Sometimes we start vfx(visual effects) production after the movie was already shot.
Bell: How long have you been involved in special effects?
Erez: I have been involved in vfx for the last 10 years, but I was also working for Sony Playstation, developing technology for next generation console. One of the things I like about this industry is that you can switch back and forth between film, tv, music videos, commercials, and games. It gives you an opportunity to focus on the medium you enjoy the most.
Bell: In what other departments in the movie industry have you assisted?
Erez: I've only been involved in the visual effects side of production. Although I have been doing different disciplines like character animation, modeling, shader-writing and lighting.
Bell: What type of equipment/supplies do you utilize for special effects?
Erez: We use powerful pc's running on Linux. Most of our tools use parallel computers which speeds up things tremendously. Sometimes I'll have 40 computers working in parallel to render my images. We also use special light/camera rigs that capture data from actors for digital character replacement. We then take this data and generate a digital double of the actor, which we then animate into a shot in the film. We use it in many cases where a real stunt double can't make the performance needed.
I would like to thank Eyal Erez for allowing me to interview him.
Bell: For what company do you work and how long have you worked for them?
Erez: I've been working for Sony Pictures Imageworks for the last 2 years.
Bell: What was your special effects contribution for movies?
Erez: Effects Animation, which is basically procedural animation of particle systems. we use it to create phenomenon like rain, snow, wind, clouds, fire, explosions, tornadoes, flocks of bugs/sentinels/birds, water, sand, destruction, etc.
Bell: What was your special effects contribution for the films? Can you describe some of the scenes in those movies/tv series, of which your were the effects animator?
Erez: I've worked on "The Aviator," "Christmas with the Kranks," "Spider-Man 2," "Hellboy," "The Matrix Revolutions," "Visitors," "Ghost Ship," "The One," "Smallville," "Angel," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and some music videos and commercials.
For the "Matrix," I've developed a system for the sentintel swarm chasing the spaceship, the system handle, the animation of the swarm following the ship and trying to land on it. Once they land on the ship, they start crawling on it and destroying it. The ship's guns are constantly firing at the sentinels as the sentinels are trying to avoid the laser beams. If they get hit, they change their behavior based on how they got hit. A center hit will blow them up, but a side hit will change their flight direction so only if they hit the tunnels they explode. otherwise just smoke and sparks are coming out as they loose speed. In addition to sentinels I've worked on explosions, smoke, dry-ice, fire, lasers, sparks, Neo-Vision fx and destruction.
For the "Aviator" I did mostly water splashes generated by the spruce-goose as it takes of from the ocean.
In "Spiderman2," I've worked on destruction shots, specifically in the train sequence where the train gets to the end of the track and hits the train stopper, which destroys the whole platform.
"Hellboy" had some destruction work and character driven effects, like Sammael's hair.
Unfortunately, I can't really talk about "Superman Returns," since the movie is not out yet. I can only say that we have very challenging work ahead of us and very cool looking effects. It'll be out next summer.
Bell: Did you become acquainted with any of the actors?
Erez: Not really. We usually interact with the directors more than the actors. Sometimes we start vfx(visual effects) production after the movie was already shot.
Bell: How long have you been involved in special effects?
Erez: I have been involved in vfx for the last 10 years, but I was also working for Sony Playstation, developing technology for next generation console. One of the things I like about this industry is that you can switch back and forth between film, tv, music videos, commercials, and games. It gives you an opportunity to focus on the medium you enjoy the most.
Bell: In what other departments in the movie industry have you assisted?
Erez: I've only been involved in the visual effects side of production. Although I have been doing different disciplines like character animation, modeling, shader-writing and lighting.
Bell: What type of equipment/supplies do you utilize for special effects?
Erez: We use powerful pc's running on Linux. Most of our tools use parallel computers which speeds up things tremendously. Sometimes I'll have 40 computers working in parallel to render my images. We also use special light/camera rigs that capture data from actors for digital character replacement. We then take this data and generate a digital double of the actor, which we then animate into a shot in the film. We use it in many cases where a real stunt double can't make the performance needed.
I would like to thank Eyal Erez for allowing me to interview him.