The hardships and tragedies of the VFX staff who won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in “The Life of Pi: 227 Days Away”

Rhythm & Hughes Studio, which mainly worked on VFX

So he chose Rhythm & Hues Studios (hereafter R&H) in Los Angeles, where he was also a member, as the main VFX production company. The company's predecessor was Robert Able & Associates, a video production company that was all the rage in the late 1970s.

Robert Able & Associates was founded when Robert Able (*1), director of Elvis on Tour (1972), was approached by Con Pederson, special photographic effects supervisor for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The company used motion control filming and complex optical compositing to create the Illuminatec effect, a psychedelic commercial full of color and light that became a huge hit.

“2001: A Space Odyssey” preview

From 1979, the company was once again in the spotlight for its wireframe expressions, which were created by processing black-and-white CG display screens with an optical printer, and after working on Disney's `` Tron '' (1982) and other films, it continued to evolve the realism of its CG technology without regard for profitability. The reason the company was driven into a reckless development race was the influence of rival company Digital Productions. This company introduced the CRAY X-MP, the world's fastest supercomputer at the time, and was responsible for the CG scenes in films such as ``Starfighter'' (1984) and `` 2010 '' (1984).

The Canadian company Omnibus Video took notice of these two companies. The company had the grand ambition of integrating all CG studios in North America and then expanding its network to the whole world. Thus, in 1986, the mega-production company Omnibus/Able(*2) was founded. However, the rapid business integration proved to be a disaster, and the company went bankrupt within a year.

To begin with, there was a lack of coordination between the engineers from various companies within Omnibus/Able. This is why many of the former Able members had gone independent before the company went bankrupt. The person at the center of this was John Hughes, who had been head of the technical department since 1976. The staff he called together founded R&H in 1987.

Using his past experience, Hughes has avoided excessive expansion of production scale, stabilized employment, and created a family-like corporate culture where pets are allowed. (Many of my former Japanese coworkers also worked at R&H, which is why I often visit the company.)

R&H began to attract attention after successfully creating CG images of animals (mammals). They worked on Disney's live-action film Hocus Pocus (1993), Babe (1995), Babe: Goes to the City (1998), Dolittle II (2001), Cats & Dogs (2001), and Men in Black II (2002). In these films, they used CG images of real animals as a base, with only the heads being composited together.

"Mouse Hunt" trailer

They also succeeded in rendering fur, a technique that had been a weakness in CG, in " Mouse Hunt " (1997), and have since gone on to successfully portray a variety of animals in full CG in films such as " The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," "The Golden Compass" and " Evan Almighty " (2007).

*1 During his student days, Abel worked as an assistant title producer for Hitchcock's films " Vertigo " (1958) and " Psycho " (1960) under John Whitney Sr. Whitney also participated in "To the Moon and Beyond," an exhibition film for the New York World's Fair (1964/65) directed by Pederson, and it was at this time that Abel and Pederson became acquainted.

*2 When Omnibus/Able was founded, Omnibus Japan, a joint venture with Tohokushinsha, was established as part of the international Omnibus network linking Canada, the United States, France and Japan. The company was not affected by the bankruptcy of the parent company, and is the only surviving company in the Omnibus Group, and is still active as one of Japan's leading CG production companies. The company's logo uses the same design as the original Omnibus Video.

CG expressions of animals