As it has not yet been released… i can’t show any images from the film.

Please stop back by after the release in theaters.

As it has not yet been released… i can’t show any images from the film.

Please stop back by after the release in theaters.

Per the IMDB; “John McClane and his son take on local forces in Russia.”

Da!  (Russian for “Yes!!!”)

Dan Dorrance  (Production Designer) gave me a call to help him out on this film for a short while (Pre-production in the USA) before they packed everyone up and headed to Budapest, Hungary.

The main project I was to attack with Dan, was the Chernobyl Bank that was key to the script’s story.  First we analysed the existing site.  Much of the model I used was received from the Previs Department.

We used this as a base point to modify the Bank Building to work within the Story and Action of the script.  This site model was used to pull real world numbers of actual distances from one place on the site, to another.  It also gave us an idea of what the construction budget might become, and was valuable to get all the departments on the same page as to what parts of the scene might be shot on location, what might become a set on stage, and what could become a CG element.

ABOVE:  More camera views of the site and proposed building and vehicle positions.

From here, we began working on the Roof Top of the Bank where we knew from the script that much action was going to take place.

The surprises of reality are always interesting when helping design a film.  I think most of us were surprised just how large the helicopter we had chosen really was when placed into our set.   In reality, it would have almost no room to maneuver around the stage.   I’m sure (not having been in Europe to see this part out to the end) that the helicopter will only be partially constructed in the end, and fleshed out with a CG “extension” in the end.

In helping to study and design this set, we played with different heights of the rooftop, for jumping off of and different budgets of building size (platform heights), as well as various action sequences and studies with the director.

Now we needed to figure out what was going to be inside of the bank.

The design of the Bank Interior was driven by a few things.  One of them being research from location scouts, and second, the style of the architecture of the period for Russia.

Due to the Action in the script, we knew that we needed the Bank to be a two story space, and that the bank vault needed to be straight ahead from the main entrance doors.

There needed to be stair cases to the second floor, and the director really liked a decorative ceiling piece from a location scout.

Because of the size stages available, and the size of the Interior Bank set, it needed to span across two stages.

Anything on this project could have changed between when I was involved with it in pre-production, and when it was actually ready to shoot, so I look forward to seeing what was created from these early conceptual layouts for the film.

The last few days before the production headed to Europe, we looked quickly at one more set… The Hotel Penthouse and Ballroom.  We knew some of the dramatic action sequences to take place here, and also knew that it was going to be a large set piece on stage with a lot of green screen required.

ABOVE:  Some quick 3D model  views studying the view from inside the Penthouse living room out to the exterior balcony;  Seeing what on stage would be in view.   And a simple preliminary Stage Plan to begin discussions on what would need to be built to capture the action in the script.

I hope you enjoyed the movie, and seeing here a little bit of what my part in the film process was.

As it has not yet been released… i can’t show any images from the film.

Please stop back by after the release in theaters.

As it has not yet been released… i can’t show any images from the film.

Please stop back by after the release in theaters.

please stop back by shortly.

I had a great time working on “Snow White”.

While I was working on “Snow White”, there were 3 or 4 versions
of the film being made by studio’s all over Hollywood at the same time.
But it looks like things have settled down to just two versions.

The version that i worked on was Directed by Tarsem Singh, and
stars Julia Roberts, Lily Collins, and Armie Hammer.

This week i started my next Film.

Its great to be working again with some familiar faces.

 Photo Measures (currently $4.99)   
— and —    
 Photo Measures Lite (free version, with limits)

The Software Description by the maker; Big Blue Pixel:

“Photo Measures is the most elegant and the easiest way to save measures on your own photos on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch!”

From my experience so far, it really is so easy to add clear/easy to read dimensions to images.  

It’s a great way to communicate important information.

Awesome App Big Blue Pixel!  

Now if you can just add a bluetooth connection to it, from a Leica D330i Disto, I’ll be blown away!!

Go ahead…. give it a try.  What are you waiting for?

MODO by Luxology. 

I can only hope to get images of this quality out of it.  plus, there are some cool modeling tools to learn to add to my Rhino tricks. 

It looks as though Snow white has picked up some cast members!

Other cast members include Oscar®-winner Julia Roberts as the Queen, Lily Collins (The Blind Side) – In the Attached photo– plays Snow White, Armie Hammer (The Social Network) plays Prince Andrew Alcott, and Nathan Lane (The Lion King, The Birdcage) plays the Queen’s hapless and bungling servant, Brighton.

This is Tarsem Singh‘s dark vision of the classic Brothers Grimm fairytale “Snow White”.

The Relativity Media project is due out on March 16, 2012.

–Alfred Hitchcock

–Chuck Jones

–Curtis Hanson

Between December 2010 and February 2011 I worked as an Assistant Art Director for my first time on “Snow White“, staring Julia Roberts and directed by Tarsem Singh.

–James Cameron

–John Carpenter

This page is in process of being created.

please stop back by in a bit.

–Francis Ford Coppola

–David Fincher

After receiving a digital model of the full undamaged Sub from the London Art Department, one of the first request was for me to ‘space plan’ and see how set pieces from the script would logically fit into our sub.  Below is an image with internal overlays showing rooms inside of the Sub in scale.

Sometimes I find the decisions in Hollywood to be funny… such as the request here to put the Engine Room in the front of the sub. I would have though the Engine Room would have been in the back! Well, that’s movie magic for you!

Next, we needed to beach the Sub.

An overall drawing of the Sub is released to all of the different departments on the show to keep everyone on the same page as to the size, shape, and function of what the Sub will be – and how much is going to be physically built.  It is useful for all departments to have this drawing for discussions as shooting is approaching to keep everyone moving towards the same goals.

Now we needed to know where each set piece was to be placed.  The Art Director had a section of beach surveyed and this data was built into a digital model.  I used Rhino3D to help me accurately place a digital model of each set piece into the digital model of the beach.  Now we could move the Sub and parts of the X-Jet around digitally to explore options and quickly and accurately find the best placements for shooting purposes.

Another use of making the digital models is that it can be a great starting point for Illustrators to draw on top of renderings from a 3D model.  This can give an Illustrator a head start in their drawing.  It can also help keeping all people on the same page (Set Designers, Art Directors, and Illustrators), by providing accurate lenses and distances between objects in the illustrations.  For this sequence I worked with Illustrators Jamie Rama, and Jim Carson. Both are top Illustrators working in Hollywood today.  You can follow the links on thier names to see their work from “X-Men: First Class”. (Note:  Not all of their work used this process, of drawing on top of digital renderings.)

 

One of the large disscussion points as we worked on this set, was how much tilt/roll the Sub should have on the beach.

Something that was realized was that if you tilted the Sub on the beach, that when we shot the interior hallway sequences on stage (separate set), they should have the same tilt to them.

One of the final challenges of this set was to figure out the damage to the Sub.

We often research existing images to see how things naturally are, and use them as a starting point for design in Film.  There were many images studied, such as the example shown here.  This reference image showed a Submarine ripped in half, so we tried to mimic some of the details when Magneto rips the sub apart in the movie.

 More images are released to keep everyone (on the crew) on the same page as the design develops.  After input from several departments, we are getting closer to a final design for what will be actually built on the beach.

When approval is reached, final drawings of the Sub Set are released.  For this set the section of the Sub was very important for the construction department.  Many of the parts were pre-built off site and transported to the beach for final assembly.

The Hatch of the Sub was realized to be needed as it’s own set piece on a Stage.  This would allow more control while shooting.  Cast members could climb out of the hatch.  The Image to the side shows an early proposal to show what might be need to be built for the set.

The construction department did a fabulous job in building all the sets, and all the work by all the departments showed in the final work for the film, that you see on screen.

Here are a few pictures that i found from around the web, of some ‘Spy Images’ that people took as the set was being built in Georgia.

      

I hope you enjoyed the movie, and seeing a little bit of what my part in the film process was.

Cheers,
–J.Andre.

 

** All images and videos copyrighted to respective rights holders. No unauthorized reproduction allowed.

please check back again soon.

YOU:   “B-2….”
YOUR FRIEND:  “You Sank my Battleship!!”

Well, Hasbro decided it was time to turn this classic game into a movie.

This was my 3rd time working with Production Designer Neil Spisak. I was put in the group working on the designs for the Alien Spaceships. In the original game there were 5 ships per side.

Do you remember them?

There were:

• An Aircraft Carrier (5 Holes)
• A Battleship (4 Holes)
• A Cruiser (3 Holes)
• A Submarine (3 Holes)
• And a Destroyer (2 Holes)

 

That meant that we had five major alien ships to design.  I believe Peter Berg (the director of the movie) gave out names to all of the ships.  The first four were named after the Beatles —  “John”, “Paul”, “George”, and “Ringo”.   And the last alien ship was given the name “Elvis”.

 

First up on my list was was working on the Alien Ship Paul (seen above).   The top “Paul” image is an amazing illustration by concept artist Steve Jung.  I spent a while trying to figure out how the ship could go from deep space flight form (folded up), to an open attack form standing on the ocean surface.

 

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Next was  a quick project to create a small water surface ship for the aliens that we called the Fast Cruizer. An interesting challenge appeared as we moved along. It became apparent that many of the alien ships we were designing, did not have the narrow form of the traditional Navy ships in the original game.

We wondered how this would work if they turned our designs into a game to be sold after the movie came out.

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The Alien Communication Ship.

This was “Elvis”.

Much of the script was supposed to be about the aliens com ship (communications ship) becoming damaged and crashing to earth; landing at the bottom of the ocean in the area near Hawaii.  Elvis was to be sunk, and then rebuilt on one of the Hawaian islands for the aliens to communicate with their home planet.

 

To the left is another awesome illustration by concept artist Steve Jung.   Using his illustration as a jumping point, I began making 3D computer models of “Elvis”.

We studied it’s total length, and how many bays the ship should have, as well as later changing the number and location of wings per section of the ship.

 

To the right is a great physical study model of “Elvis” made by talented model makers, Scot Erb and Dan Engle.

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A brief amount of time was spent investigating designs for Regent Drones.  We were trying to make unique versions with individual personalities.  The one below that i worked on would have the upper and lower parts spin in opposite directions and each ‘point’ would have a unique tool at the end.

 

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My last major project on Battleship was working on the ‘Flying Machine’ which we also called the “T-Ship”.  This was to be a Regent transport vehicle.

It was to have hoses hanging off the ship that were to be sucking resources out of the ocean, and use them for power.

There was a lot of experimenting on what the building language of the aliens would be.  We sent quite a bit of time trying to create a “coral-like” structure system to be their architectural language in the above images.

 

Tarsem creates movies with stunning visuals and fabulous visual textures and vocabularies.

This was my first film with Production Designer,  Tom Foden.

Tom and Tarsem have frequently worked together.

The first set I was to work on for “Immortals” was the Quarry set.  (As illustrated below by Vlad Spasojevic)

It was descided that we would only need to build the lower section of the Quarry on a stage.

The above are images of the Quarry 3D study model.  This massed out the general shape and layout of the set that was to be needed.  It was created from a mixture of imitating Vlad’s illustration, and combining that with reference material for the set’s final look.

Next was work on the Village Gate.  Again, I was using another great illustration by Vlad to base my 3D Model on.  (Illustration below by Vlad Spasojevic)

The Village Gate was supposed to be able to operate with only one guard to protect the Village.

The theory was that the path to the gate was so narrow, so only one man at a time could engage the sentry on duty.  And the whole gate could be operated (opened/closed) by the one guard, thus one guard could protect the whole village.

Things got very visually interesting here when you look close at the last Village Gate image (below).  There were a lot of details added that were to make the film semi “un-datable”.

There was to be brick, modern cast iron hardware, a piano bench, gears and levers, and other pieces that were from different time periods in the film.

This was actually supposed to occur through out the film.

How it was originally explained to me, was that if there were a shot of an actor walking in the desert, Tarsem would want a bicycle half buried in the sand in the shot, or an oil derrick in the background.

Another set i briefly worked on was called the Circle of Silence.

And this set came with another illustration by Vlad Spasojevic (Right).

The size of the set was scaled back from the illustration.  This set was the first time I used some new tools for digital sculpting, in the attempt of making rock like surfaces in a digital medium.

For it’s time, it was somewhat of a success, but lead to even better techniques that I use today.

I enjoyed working for Tarsem Singh And Tom Foden on this project.  Here are a few more Movie Posters for the film.  I liked their style.

I was in Chicago for 6 months.  I arrived the night before a blizzard and left in the heat of summer, so i felt that I got to experience the extremes of the weather in Chicago.

Where to begin with my experiences on this show….. I guess I’ll just dive right in!

Gotham National Bank.

The first set that I jumped into was helping out on the Gotham National Bank set. As is generally know to the locals of Chicago,  we used the Old Post Office as a location and modified it for the film.

We quickly surveyed the existing space of the Post Office, and determined a layout for the “Bank”.

Next, every bank needs a vault to rob.  So designs were begun to be proposed.

Wayne Enterprises Boardroom.

Next up for me… Wayne Enterprises Board Room.

This set was built at the Richard J. Daley Center, Daley Plaza, on Washington Street in Chicago.  It was a large and had bare available space.  Also a part of the Boardroom Set was a Lobby Space with elevators at one end, and Fox’s Office on the other, complete with a secret elevator contained in his bookcase!  The table in the Boardroom was almost 90′ long!

Calling for Batman.  The Bat Light.

How cool is my next assignment?!?  I was asked to quickly knock out a design for the iconic Bat Light.  The Art director new pretty much what was wanted, but they still needed to get approvals.
A quick 3D model was made and Drawings quickly followed.
I enjoyed seeing this set piece in the film.  I heard that it was actually Christopher Nolan’s ams in the film – swinging the axe – that shatters the lens of the Bat Light!

Bruce Wayne’s Penthouse.

This was where the party was at!

But who invited the Joker?

This set was built in the Lobby of Illinois Center Buildings, 111 East Wacker Drive in Chicago.  It was interesting to work here, as it was a high rise building (30 stories) with many companies within the building.  Therefore, we had restricted hours as to when we could work there, and restrictions on things that could and couldn’t be done.

Here is a conceptual image of what the top of the building might look like complete with a helicopter pad for Bruce Wayne’s arrival.

The images above show the set was actually filmed in the Ground Floor Lobby for the building, and that Green Screens were placed outside all windows.  This allowed the City view to be composited into each shot later in Post Production.

We also had some fun on this set creating the semi-circle staircase and an extra large fireplace.  Unfortunately we couldn’t lite the fireplace due to fire codes and venting issues.

Many of the limitations of working on this site were in part due to the historical nature of the building, as it was created by German Architect, Mies van der Rohe in 1970.

It’s time to do some R+D.

There were a few challenges to figuring out what Bruce Wayne’s Cell Sonar (the ultimate machine to track the Joker) would become.  One of which was the spacing and count of all the screens. Also, we did studies on the size of each screen, and the overall size/shape of the final desk.

Headache.  To the Hospital.

In Chicago, there was a deserted old candy factory that was owned by Brach’s Confections, Inc.

This building was turned into the Gotham Hospital.  I had the “pleasure” of being escorted thru this building for a week with an armed guard. Really… I did.  It was a crazy place, and falling apart everywhere.

It was a lot of work to turn into the hospital, just due to it’s size.

In the end it was pretty spectacular coming down.

I hope you enjoyed the movie, and seeing a little bit of what my part in the film process was.

Cheers,
–J.Andre.

** All images and videos copyrighted to respective rights holders. No unauthorized reproduction allowed.

Cheers,

–J.Andre.

*************************************************************

UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!

*************************************************************

Tom Cruise will be impressed with all the images that will go here.

___________________

This will have some images of my work from the movie Minority Report.

I hope to show the Hall of Containment, and details of the Containment sleds and Operators Booth.

Maybe drawings of the stage plans.

Construction drawings for the Pre Cog Chamber.