Ten Giant Robots

The robots discuss what to do when you can't get enough of work, work, work! How to properly bid your work as a freelancer.

Brought to you by Cayenne Diane, Heat Seeker Box, Endangered The Movie, Lawn Couch, Story Trix and VFX Jams.

And, yes, there are missing episodes. We will be coming back to those. Promise. Probably.

Show notes? We don't need no stinkin' show notes!  Let us know if you miss 'em.

As always, you can contact us on our Facebook page or Twitter. Let us know what you think, if you have any questions, or if there’s anything you might like us to cover in the future! Ten Giant Robots opening theme music by Shane Kneip.

We discuss the pros and cons of adding CG actors to live-action films--even if they've already passed on.

So full of excuses, we are. Here's what we've been up to.

Brought to you by Cayenne Diane, Heat Seeker Box, Endangered The Movie, Lawn Couch, Story Trix and VFX Jams.

And, yes, there are missing episodes. We will be coming back to those. Promise. Probably.

Show notes? We don't need no stinkin' show notes!  Let us know if you miss 'em.

As always, you can contact us on our Facebook page or Twitter. Let us know what you think, if you have any questions, or if there’s anything you might like us to cover in the future! Ten Giant Robots opening theme music by Shane Kneip.

We're talking about our level of burnout and the sort of distractions that get us through it all. And sort of a love song to Burbank.

With unsolicited props to 3DRetro!

Show notes? We don't need no stinkin' show notes!  Let us know if you miss 'em.

As always, you can contact us on our Facebook page or Twitter. Let us know what you think, if you have any questions, or if there’s anything you might like us to cover in the future! Ten Giant Robots opening theme music by Shane Kneip.

The boys discuss influential medias in this luckiest of episodes.

* The TGR website gets HACKED by hackers!

* VICE interview with Hackers

* PJ and his wife needed to upgrade to new hosting for their site:

CayenneDiane.com

* The old hosting company hotness turned out to not so hot.

* Sean has a complicated relationship with his hosting service.

And the brains behind the sites:  wordpress.org

* Efram’s upcoming short “Endangered” has a website hosted by Squarespace.

endangeredthemovie.com

squarespace.com

* MAIN TOPIC – What media has influenced or inspired you?

* One listener suggests that vfx artists utilize National Geographic for reference

nationalgeographic.com

* Efram relates this suggestion to creature design

* Sean compares how filmmakers behind Minority Report met with futurists to create the world of their film:

…with how Star Wars uses fantasy and sometimes silly design to shape their worlds.

* SciFi as metaphor and the danger of being too literal in story worlds.

* THX 1138 sets its world so far into the future that anything goes.

* Lucas also uses sound to great effect.

* PJ points out that good directors know how to use sound to help tell the story rather than always relying on expensive visuals.

* Sean describes Ben Burtt’s approach to the lightsaber noise.

* Efram talks about how Ben Burtt redefined sound for movies.

* Tie Fighter Noise – what is it?

* Ben Burtt designs the sounds of The Dark Crystal

* —-BREAK—-

* PJ harkens back to the pre-digital days of Optical Effects

* …to discuss the iconic sounds from Predator.

* PJ’s tired of Crappy Holograms in movies.

* Efram’s beef with the holograms in Jurrassic World.

* Sean references the “Peppers Ghost” trick:

* Our Inspirations:

* Jurrasic Park (original)

* Terminator 2 (mixing practical and digital effects)

* HBO Intro (Making-of)

* Inception (mixing techniques in cool ways)

* The Matrix (introducing bullet-time)

* Fire-breathers bullet time:

* 123D Catch from Autodesk

* Close Encounters

* Poltergeist – Tobe Hooper or Steven Spielberg?

* Jaws – kids

* PJ’s Correction – Sulaco is the ship from Aliens

* PJ also loves Starship Troopers

* Sean was influenced by Outland, cuz it's “High Noon in space”

* Sean loves Logan’s Run

* PJ won’t stop mentioning Equilibrium

* Efram didn’t like Predestination

* …but likes Looper

* We all like time travel movies!

* PJ recommends “

A hodgepodge of topics. We work for TV while also cutting the cable.

* Apologies for working more and podcasting less

* PJ has the new AppleTV

* What it does

* And now it has apps and games

* The cool part and the ugly part of it

* And now it's time for cable company bashing!

* What is and isn't available on AppleTV

* The players that are against net neutrality

* Update: You can now enter passwords with the Remote app on Apple TV

* Pondering if a laser keyboard would be a good input device

* Keeping up to date with software and skills

* Kiki effects!

* Modo 901 (it's now Modo 902)

* Reaching a point of competency in older software

* Houdini

* Cinema 4D

* Trapcode plugins

* Element 3D

* Learning on the job?

* Should a producer or supervisor have actual VFX artist experience?

* Pyramids store grain?

* And then old computer nostalgia (again!)

* Discoveries

* Crazy camera technology

* sLog curves

* iPhone 6s camera specs

 

As always, you can contact us on our Facebook page or Twitter. Let us know what you think, if you have any questions, or if there's anything you might like us to cover in the future! Ten Giant Robots opening theme music by Shane Kneip.

An in-depth conversation about Brad Bird’s latest Clooney vehicle: a “Tomorrowland” that never arrives.

* Disney owns everything.

* Marvel

* Pixar

*

Star Wars

Jesus (optioned with right of first refusal)

* The original “Tomorrowland”

* Tomorrowland the movie

* PJ was going to blow it off.

* Efram was intrigued by the “touching of the pin” in the trailer.

*

Sean saw trailer on duct tape.

Brad Bird also did Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (his first live-action film)

Tomorrowland: No there there.

How to deliver on new, magical place – good example, Harry Potter – Diagon Alley.

Good exploration of magical places:

Oz

Blade Runner

Things to Come

Metropolis

Alas, Damon Lindelof and the “Man Who Does Not Deliver”.

J.J. Abrams: Mystery Box – We call bullshit.

Bait and switch with no satisfying resolution on layered mysteries.

Sean’s Rant: Mystery Box is hipster bullshit

The MacGuffin: A person or object that the good guy and the bad guy both pursue. To gain control of the MacGuffin is to have the upper hand in the story and “win” the outcome of the movie.

Hitchcock MacGuffin – Meaningless. Just designed to drive story forward.

Modern MacGuffin: MacGuffin has meaning beyond just being a plot device.

Raiders of the Lost Ark – When it’s done well…

The Ark is the MacGuffin. It also has special meaning beyond just wrestling for its control. It defines the boundaries of Indiana Jones’ character.

Marcus and Sallah worry about the magical properties of the Ark. Indy doesn’t believe in that “magical superstitious hocus pocus”. But the only thing that saves him is recognizing the magical properties of the Ark.

Therefore, the MacGuffin itself is meaningful as compared to the briefcase in Pulp Fiction which has implied power but the nature of it we never discover.

Flakey MacGuffin (mmm… delicious):

Hipster Bullshit: Pretending to take a risk without actually taking a risk.

Desiring to imbue the MacGuffin with special intellectual meaning (a la Raiders of the Lost Ark). The storyteller’s desire to demonstrate their cleverness with a Modern MacGuffin but chickening out at the last minute for fear their idea is weak.

Actually having an idea and landing on it might be embarrassing or underwhelming. A fate worse than death for the Hollywood filmmaker.

Avoiding landing on the idea but pretending to have one is faking intellectual content where there is none. aka “Hipster Bullshit” – pretending to be artful while only having the trappings of it.

Efram: Read where Abrams and Lindelof think the question is more important than the answer.

Sean: Disagrees. He goes to movies to see points of view.

Joss Whedon: Pays off and entertains the whole way through a story. And the whole thing isn’t resting on the mystery box.

Star Wars (the original): Mystery AND payoff throughout.

Efram breaks down plot:

Too much “getting to  Tomorrowland”.

The boys see green with Ridley Scott’s foray onto the red planet with “The Martian”. They also ponder whether there’s too much damned TV!

* After “Prometheus” rose from the dead and immediately turned to dust, Ridley Scott is back on track with “The Martian”.

* Does “The Martian” bring back the science procedural? We make a call-back to a previous episode where we ponder whether a science procedural could be commercially viable entertainment.

* Sean thought “The Martian” got the story structure right compared to its cousin, “Cast Away”.

* PJ gives a tip-o-the-hat to the Jeff Daniels’ character for playing a version of a villain but rooted in a person with complex decisions that must be made.

* PJ and Efram point out and discuss a mixed-bag using comedic actors (Wiig and Glover) in serious rolls.

* PJ wonders if “The Martian” will inspire future scientists like Star Trek?

* Potatoes.

* Hands together all-around for the visual effects of “The Martian”.

* The centripetal “gravity” spaceship. It’s good. But like any law of attraction, it’s complicated. Nonetheless, the guys liked the interplay of the crew on the spaceship’s gravity wheel.

* PJ’s unnerved when a character jumps outside the spaceship without a tether. Which then sparks Sean’s “fake drama” rant: He has a problem with unnecessary drama thrown in over the top of an already dramatic situation. Efram thinks Sean’s being overly dramatic.

* The boys talk about sterescopic 3D movies. All agree James Cameron owns this game.

* PJ and Sean teach Efram about the witchcraft that is turning a 2D movie into 3D on the fly.

* Riffing off of “The Business”’s interview by Kim Masterson with FX Network’s John Landgraf, the guys discuss Landgraf’s “Too Much Television” theory.

* The Gatekeeper Theory: Gatekeepers artificially limit content output thereby potentially protecting its value. Gone, now, with cheaper production costs and unlimited broadcast bandwith via streaming video.

* Efram doesn’t buy what Landgraf is selling.

* Sean thinks Landgraf’s theory suffers from Big Tent Theory in the age of the Long Tail.

* The role of the curated watch list is brought up.

* PJ needs the opposite: He needs a curation drill sergeant. Someone who’ll help him winnow down from the things he has on his watch list. (Is PJ secretly agreeing with Landgraf?!)

* The boys pontificate on a “smarter” curated media website.

As always, you can contact us on our Facebook page or Twitter. Let us know what you think, if you have any questions, or if there's anything you might like us to cover in the future! Ten Giant Robots opening theme music by Shane Kneip.

The whiskey cast. And an animatic anecdote. And back to the Weta Effect video–again!

* (We no longer cross-post to YouTube. Maybe if demand is expressed, we'll return to that.)

* GarageBand is regressing– no more podcast features

* Logic Pro X is our recording platform

* Then a rundown on how we're posting our podcast

* Tech nonsense (web hosting issues)

* WordPress

* Specialized hosting for podcast files: blubrry.com and libsyn.com

* Sean's catch-up

* working with a brand, and agency, and a client

* and how it sometimes pinches the vfx team the most

* and dealing with ad agency jobs

* James Cameron working on framing his shots

* an animatic anecdote

* And Efram has more on “The Weta Effect“

* Santa Clarita Studios

* Imagineering book

* Disney weenies

* Efram's catch-up

* Working on his short…and working on getting work!

* Sorry about the g-g-g-glitch on the “soft hold”

* Pay to Play. Kill Fees. What are they? Will a vfx artist ever get one?

* Lessons learned with hiring or being hired

* PJ's guess about what percentage of jobs make no money

* And introducing the concept of the bonding company

* we'll need to follow up more on this in the future

* SAG possibly striking for videogame voice actors

* Obama has acknowledged the plights of freelancers

* There's a freelancer union

* Freelancers are, on average, missing $6000 in compensation a year (sited from the Freelancers Union)

* …and the Canadian subsidies!

* Interviews are teased… and other nonsense

* Weta Effect … Part II!

* Questions and Answers about the Questions and Answers

* And is the problem with Prometheus* the VFX?

* Correction: The other giant (dead) aliens in Alien were not “Starshooters“

* Efram's argument against the Weta Effect video

* Sean thinks the video creator's intention has to do with the strengths of movies themselves

* Augmented Reality games

* The origin of the name “Ten Giant Robots”

As always, you can contact us on our Facebook page or Twitter. Let us know what you think, if you have any questions, or if there's anything you might like us to cover in the future!

* We discuss the Apple iPad Pro – and its stylus (called the “Pencil”)

* Sit on the sidelines as we debate!

* Is it going to be a necessary tool for we digital artists?

* Sean says “I'm gonna buy it!”

* Efram is super- skeptical

* Sean has mostly good thoughts about Apple products

* Efram is definitely wait-and-see

* PJ thinks it will become an expected presentation piece in professional and commercial settings

* The Lightning Port

* The MacAttitude vs the MacThing

* Apple's option for leasing your phone

* The Creative Emmys

* Outstanding Visual Effects

* Game of Thrones

* Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects

* American Horror Story

* Stephen Colbert's new late show launched

* And its innovative title sequence

* And late night show formats in general–how have they evolved

* Kingsman: The Secret Service. Directed by Matthew Vaughn

* Discussion of the director's intent with the church crowd slaughter

* Where do you draw the line with gratuitous violence?

* The Hulk reviews The Kingsman

* What makes an A-List actor?

* Pedro Pascal

* Versus

* Harrison Ford

* Versus

* Humphrey Bogart

* Casablanca

* Robert Downey

* Johnny Depp's Black Mass

* And back to talk of tone… and the bloodless end of Kingsman

* Kingsman written by Mark Millar

* Efram still likes regular pencils

As always, you can contact us on our Facebook page or Twitter. Let us know what you think, if you have any questions, or if there's anything you might like us to cover in the future!