Somehow out of some complete and random series of events, I ended up being talked into taking an upper level division class this semester on creating special effects. While this is sort of an introduction class into rotoscoping, compositing, tracking, modeling, painting, and essentially creating special effects for live action pieces, I am in a class full of mostly male film and digital arts majors who are old pros and seem to understand the programs that I have never even opened up before inside an out. They thoroughly enjoy blowing up random buildings and trucks and adding random dragons into their projects. The class is difficult, and I spend more late nights in the lab battling the keyboard to do what I want it to do, but it is really opening up my eyes to an entirely new world of digital arts that combines both traditional film and animation. It’s an incredibly broad and diverse field that takes a lot of manpower and a lot of tedious work to manipulate an imaginary world with one that has already been filmed in real life.
As I have been slaving away on After Effects rotoscoping a T-rex chasing a kid through a forest, I have been thinking about how long it takes to make a heavy special effects laden film, like The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
When I suddenly remembered my favorite nerd show of all time was starting up again soon. And it dawned on me; how is it that a television show, just as heavy laden with special effects and compositing as high budget fantasy films, could possibly get the job done in a short amount of time and make the end result look incredible??
Taking Art to the Next Level 