District 9 Director Neill Blomkamp - Vancouver Film School

[plusultrastudio]

photoshop 3.0 > ALL

[sokem1]

wow and rendered on a pentium Pro 200mhz. that brings back Memories, actually more like nightmares. You might think that the models crap Not only would this have been an enormous task for one student undertake but this reel demonstrates more than just modeling and effects it shows Niel's Talent as a Director not a Visual Effects Artist, although based on armageddon the concept is very well executed...except for the dude that shoots the car in the begining....that bit sucked Balls Niel!.....

[simonorman]

you can see his style shining through. 

[Shuriko]

this must have taken days to render

[HojoTheGreat]

For those looking at this out of context, go back and watch cutscenes from your favorite video games from 1998. We're talking Starcraft, Resident Evil 2, Tekken 3. Now think of the graphics of the games themselves, like Half-Life, Turok 2, LoZ: Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid. The detail Blomkamp put into his models in this is pretty astounding compared to the releases of that year.

[ControlofMoney]

He had to wait for the technology to catch up with his talent.

[ilanchico]

Considering the year this was made and the software used at the time, it is insanly good. Anyone who puts this down doesn't know the history of 3d animation whatsoever.

[xNikaXteeNx]

@happywritermillion come on now, this was a school reel... look at some of the software programs he used, photoshop 3.0 and softimage 3.7... give him a break. Those software programs are like the Nintendo and Atari compared to the PS3 and Xbox 360 of today. You should check out Blomkamp's recent short films, the VFX are much more photoreal and impressive. Hell, even for 1998, this demo reel is impressive.

[xNikaXteeNx]

lmao @ the end "inspired by Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer." Say it isn't so, there's no way a guy as smart as Neill would be inspired by two of the shittiest directors to ever grace Hollywood.

[voicetube]

Amazing!!! Man.. for 1998 technology just awesome!! This is (was) a harbinger of greatness for sure.

[nigeleckzdee]

11 years later...

[Rararariri]

greeeeeeaaaaaaaat!!!!!!!!

[h0ktar]

XSI 3.7 and PS 3.0!!! wow!

Incredible what he reached, starting with this demoreel and making an incredible awesome feature film now..

[rudgerhauer]

I remember ´98: Half Life just came out and I bought this kick ass new gfx card, matrox mystique with 4MB - 800x600 in hardware mode ! all my buddies were running HL in software mode ...... ahh, the times.............

[jeremylew416]

Wow, you can tell you're a fucking nerd when you reminisce on when you got a graphics card for a computer. LOL

[MikeLawrie]

noobs just dont understand (and by that i mean probably born in the 90s) :D

[ChrisAllanMiller]

@MikeLawrie Born in the 90's means noob hey? Im pretty sure some of my classmates could run the show today.

[MikeLawrie]

@ChrisAllanMiller i was replying to jeremylew416

[omorenof85]

inspiring... look forward for 3d81 reels ;)!!!

[Hojasdepalma]

'98 ?? WOW this is fantastic,,!

[GreekAlways]

guys, for all those people with stupid comments... this is from 1998!

[Billywalsh86]

@GreekAlways Not only is from 1998, is from a student!! :D

[fanjapanischermusik]

The Fire looks Amazing.

[flameblitz]

Rendered on

Pentium PRO 200Mhz

64MB RAM

Oh, cr@p!!!!

[tommie12P]

man 98 wow

[salientfilm]

o god the render time.

[velocitti]

That's fantastic for '98.

[NicChristie]

very cinematic - just had the chance to watch district 9 - glad to see neill is living the dream!

[nater88dawg]

Impressive considering what he had to work with.

[star0shadows]

Its amazing to see how visual effects have evolved in only 11 years!

[4zcompany]

Congratulations Neill..

[daft9punk]

wow the shots are amazing in this short are amazing...the cg is a little bit cheesy but FUCK IT!! it was 1998!!! still GREAT SUCCES!!!

[MortaniusTaijou]

Outstanding! That guy was meant for greatness from the start it seems!

[Larkskar]

the graphics are amazing considering the time he graduated!

[sonnythestuntman]

very good for 1998. and congrats!

[ladex142]

yep! lol

[trikpa]

silicon graphics aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah XD.

nice. and, well congratz to the man for job done well in District 9.

Be well

[Darkj2sp]

WTF!!!!

a CPU pentium pro 200 mghz and 64 mg ram!!!

Is a great job!!!jejeje!!

[foxtoon]

Computer have come a long way in 11 years. And this is a District 9 director and co-writer. Too, cool

[AbcSchoolOfPolish]

That's just great!

[Garfler]

lol XD cant wait to see his film!!!!!!

[JazzyFilms]

amazing

[redrumtd]

wow

amazing!!!

[Quinctius]

this is some of the best I've seen VFS create.

[taddoo7]

Great reel.. Congrats to his success... VFS is amazing... I would love to be able to attend VFS... that would be so amazing

[kukelz]

not bad for a 1998 first student production.

[henkvandervelden]

The last bit is really great! yeah 1998, wow for that time:) just look at how the shots are set up and stuff, that's really good work!

[ThaTyger]

Let's not forget that this is most likely done by one individual (modeling, animating, texturing) while the Toy Story and Final Fantasy consisted out a huge crew off people. And those large crews had more then a year to finish their movies. Also, the rendering farm available on a school in those day's was likely not fast enough to do those high quality productions in a reasonable time.

[jacks19822]

whoever made this has one thing in them, it's called PASSION.

He deserves to be successful.

[saruhara]

That's incredible considering how long ago this was made. Bravo. I can't wait until the movie actually comes out. I'm going to see it.

[Morag0]

That is still some of the best CG fire I have seen

Even current gen cheesy TV movies don't have fire that looks that good

[blah97840]

i bet that look amazing back then. cool to see another famous person coming from you guys

[rulix36]

oooo is from 1998 ooooo,sorry,is awesom

[RDJim]

I have to keep reminding myself...THIS WAS 1998!! Think about what computer you were using in '98....barely had 3D graphics.

[masterpiraka]

What about starship troopers? Released four years before this? Oh well. It's not like there was just one guy doing all that. This reel is still fucking awesome.

[alecton]

respect

[SevereRepugnance]

Well done! District 9 looks awesome, can't wait to see it

[Wynner3]

That was done with a 200mhz Pentium Pro? Wow.

[stfumarevel]

Looks amazing for a 1998 animation. o:

[04ray25number2]

Wow that's a 1998 animation that's really cool. I can't wait for District 9 and from the trailers it looks like he made the right choice when he decided to go to this school. If I was good at video making I would have gone to this school. I know I can get better if I went to these school but I think I got some type of learning problem.

[dr0e7x]

awesome

[NotoriA101]

For a '98 animation, that's pretty freaking awesome. I can't believe Blomkamp went to VFS, that's wild.

[Philinspaces]

Definitely showing its age. D9 looks wicked.

[jthree68]

sickness!

gonna watch d9 man!

[weses2]

Neill Blomkamp made this? Wow!

[snorreproductions]

Thats pretty freakin good for a 1998 animation made on school O.o

[ilikemonkeysblogcom]

Did not know he went to VFS. That's pretty cool.

[colloredbrothers]

modeling was nice and so were textures but the animation wasn't good imo, maybe because it wasn't the focus of the project, also if a rocket goes in the air there is hardly fire just by the engine and there is massive amounts of smoke.

It wasn't realistic. but good work any way.

[envoy3]

recomended that it is from 1998..

[yoran35]

True, but this is also the year 1998. It's pretty damn good in that context.

[TabarnacosFilms]

that was like in 1996 dude.. lol give it a chance.

[NobleValerian]

If you saw the credits at the end... Modeling was done in SoftImage3.7, where the industry standard now seems to be Maya, and textures were done in photoshop 3.0, where CS4 has just been released... all done on a computer less powerful than a Sony PSP... I'd say it's pretty sweet... no critiqing necessary...

[jakechapy]

maya =xsi

Ive used both . Same damn program owned by the same company just xsi has a different layout and I find it to be alot faster for modeling