TERMINATOR SALVATION: interview de Raffael Dickreuter !!!

Voici une nouvelle interview exclusive sur Terminator Salvation !!
C'est Raffael Dickreuter de Pixel Liberation Front qui s'est prété au jeu des questions que voici:

Hi Rafael, Can you tell us what was your position on this show ??
I worked as a previs animator in pre production at Warner Bros Studios as well as postvis animator during shooting and post production on the film.

Can you explain to us in what consist the pre-viz ??
Previs is a process where you visualize shots or entire sequences that are usually very difficult to film and figure out how much they will cost. you recreate film sets in a virtual environment and create shots using animation techniques that then are used by the film crews, the director and the studio to film them and make them work.

On which sequences have you worked ??
I worked on the long sequence that started with the harvester grabbing people out of the gas station, the mototerminator chase till all the way the plane and hunter killer fight in the air. as well as the sequence where John Connor shoots down a HunterKiller for the first time to test the signal that is supposed to kill the Terminators.

What softwares did you use ??
Pretty much the standard softwares that is used for previs which is Maya and After Effects.

Is the final result is true to your animations ??
Yes and no. As a previs animator you are involved very early in the project long before even actors are cast. the sequences that we as a team of Pixel Liberation Front worked on evolved over a period of several months to what happens now to be the end result in the film. Its a creative process where many ideas are being tried out. Overall the shots ended up being very close to the previs and postvis. To maybe understand how long a film takes to make, we basically worked on previs about a year and half before the movie has come out. As you can see it takes a very long time from first storyboards, to previs, filming, post production till it finally ends up on the screen.

How was the collaboration with the director McG ??
He is a very intense guy I can say that. but a lot of fun and very passionate. He definitely was a big Terminator fan and wanted to make sure that the movie turned out great. I worked with him mostly on the lot of Warner Bros Studios, besides workign with Chris Batty, the previs supervisor, as well as Charlie Gibson, VFX Supervisor. In pre production we worked a lot with Director of Photography Shane Hurlbut who is a lot of fun, great guy. In the postvis phase we worked also with Conrad Buff, the film editor, who actually alreay edited Terminator 2 back in the day. We collaborated with him to make the Mototerminator sequence work.

What is your next project ??
I am not sure yet. Next up is a vacation going to good old Switzerland.

Thanks a lot for your time.

Source photos: Reportage Kulturplatz