Silverado goes to ILM

A couple of weeks ago we had the opportunity to go to ILM, or Industrial Light & Magic to give a demo on the RED cameras we have.  ILM is the visual effects division of Lucas Films.  It was not easy to get in – as you can imagine that place is locked down pretty tight!  We performed the demos on their Mocap Stage – we were limited on the photos we could take due to the technology and some material for upcoming products that could not be released yet but I got a few.  It was very impressive to say the least!  The room has 40 high speed cameras stationed all over for motion tracking and visual effects.  If you click on the picture you will get a larger version and be able to see some of the high speed cameras I was talking about.  They are mounted on the wall by the two ladders – there are 5 visible in this photo.  We had a good crowd at the demo, including all the VFX supervisors.  After the demo and Q&A on the Cameras, we got to the fun stuff.  They wanted tosee the cameras in action so we shot various items and styles.  In this one, one of our good friends Brian Hamm is playing the model role for some facial reconstruction tests.  Notice the Blue and Green screens in the background.  Those are for key work, essentially if you place a subject in front of a solid screen, a computer can be used to replace the screen behind the subject and insert another background image.  ILM also wanted to do some Stereoscopic (3D) testing with the RED cameras.  This is done using 2 cameras at a specific intraocular distance to achieve right eye, left eye images.  Here’s another shot of Brian, this time setting up for the 3D tests.

All in all, I’d say it was a pretty good day!  They gave us a tour of the facility, an outstanding lunch and showed us how they accomplish some of the great effects you see in their awesome movies.  We have to give a special thanks to one of their R&D Engineers, Arkell Rasiah, without whom, none of this would have been possible. Here’s one last shot of our two RED cameras, #20 Calvin and #21 Hobbes.  =)

TB