Weta Digital « I Design Your Eyes

Zoic Studios Welcomes Visual Effects Supervisor Mark Stetson to the features team

Posted by Leslie Morgan in I Design Your Eyes on October 7, 2010

When I found out last week Mark Stetson, Academy Award winner for Visual Effects for Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Academy Award nominee for Visual Effects for Superman Returns was joining the features team at Zoic Studios, I have to be honest I was pretty giddy with excitement. I recall the 2002 awards ceremony when Lord of the Rings was nominated for best picture. My reaction when the film lost the award was something like this:

However, the film did win for Best Visual Effects for a motion picture and Stetson’s reaction was quite different than mine. ”It was completely surreal. I was pretty much in shock that whole weekend. I’m one of those people that always wonders why and the big why was why me amongst the thousand artists that worked on it. Visual effects people don’t have too much association with the glamour of Hollywood so that was another part of the shock value.”

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Academy Awards, BAFTA Award, Blade Runner, Bob Spurlock, Lord of the Rings, Mark Stetson, model maker, RIght Stuff, Solar Babies, Star Trek, Star Wars, The Fifth Element, VFX, VFX Supervisor, Weta Digital

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Zoic Studios Puts ‘NFL on Fox’ Robot into James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’

Posted by Erik Even in I Design Your Eyes on December 15, 2009

Last weekend, NFL on Fox aired a promotional clip for the upcoming James Cameron film Avatar, featuring effects work done by Zoic Studios. Zoic inserted NFL on Fox’s robot mascot, Cleatus, into a scene from Avatar, which also featured Fox NFL Sunday co-host Terry Bradshaw.

Zoic executive producer for commercials Erik Press explained that, in his experience, Fox seems to seek partnerships with various brands, including feature films, to enhance the NFL on Fox brand and the Cleatus character. When Fox Sports approached Fox Feature Marketing Division’s Mike Perman about an Avatar tie-in, he contacted Zoic based on the studio’s previous work on a Cleatus/Terminator Salvation tie-in.

New Zealand’s Weta Digital provided Zoic with back plates and necessary assets for the shots into which Cleatus would be composited. The work involving compositing Bradshaw into the RDA Combat Amp Suit was done by another vendor.

“The project came up pretty fast,” Press said. From the time the project came to Zoic, “we delivered two 10-second billboards inside of two weeks – animation, rendering, lighting, even editorial.”

“Weta was incredibly helpful,” Press added, “as was Mike Perman. We have a great, ongoing relationship with Fox, and we look forward to future projects.”

The 3D sci-fi epic Avatar, starring Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldaña and Michelle Rodriguez, opens tomorrow in the US. It is Cameron’s first major feature film since 1997’s Titanic.