A Visual Effects Reel - Vancouver Film School (VFS)

[880728leonjf]

the effect its very realistic, congrats!! but the camera movement was unrealistic, the camera in the reality moves more slowly and natural shaking,

[KillasaurusArcade01]

no effence guys but this school isnt really good at effects im in a video production class in highschool and our effects look alot more real than these

[joeysipos]

In real life that asteroid would have done a lot more damage to that building. That's my input. have a nice day :)

[kadedson]

on ur next video use color correction on the explosions ;D

looks more real

(sorry for my bad english..iam from brasil)

[genieea]

His last name phails, but the spider at the end wins.

[IamTheEditor]

They charged you actual money to teach you this?

[AkoolStick]

usually a visual effects reel should be uploaded in HD so we can see the fine details of everything they created. i wonder what that says about vancouver film school?

[mashedpenguin]

@AkoolStick This was made in 2006 in NTSC resolution. HD was not the standard for demo reels then. It still isn't really the standard now as film productions only supply artist reels in sub 1k res. If you have access to a time machine so that you can go back in time and re-render everything in HD be my guest :)

[AkoolStick]

@mashedpenguin but HD DID exist back then, and i'm just saying that if i want to make a demo reel showcasing my talent, i would certainly make it in HD. If you look at all my videos, they're all HD resolution(except for one and the camera quality isn't very great). and if they had access to high end 3D software, im sure they're capable of HD exporting.

[mashedpenguin]

@AkoolStick It didn't affect my job hunt at all back then. Seeing that in 2006 you had to send DVDs out to studios they wouldn't even look at work on the web all reels were produced to DVD specifications which are not HD. Trying to say that a demoreel from 2006 not being in HD says something about VFS as a school is silly. Trust me though that recruiters and supervisors at studios today still don't worry if the reel they are looking at is SD. If the work is good it will do just fine.

[TWODOORFXorlando]

Great visual effects, I really enjoy the breakdowns.

Diego Torroija, Visual Effects Supervisor

Two Door Fx

[TWODOORFXorlando]

Great visual effects, I really enjoy the breakdowns.

Diego Torroija, Visual Effects Supervisor

[chalky08]

you have so copyed this off video co pilot, using after effects and 3ds max :)

good try tho

[VancouverFilmSchool]

@chalky08 The creator of this reel has actually commented on the similarities between this clip and the video copilot tutorial. If you are interested, you can see his response regarding video copilot below (username mashedpenguin). Thanks for watching!

[eckstudios]

if it thats so. i must regret what i said. im sorry hopefully you can delete that comment. and then this should be a really good job my apologies

[patrickisready]

Awesome, totally awesome!

[XXLILxxJOKERXX]

this is like something you would see in the scifi channel.

[eckstudios]

no offense but something based on a 1 hour tutorial at Videocopilo... its on a 1 year intensive program portfolio... :S

[mashedpenguin]

@eckstudios I can't say that I check in on this thread much but this work is not based on any tutorials. From what I can find on video copilot their meteor tutorial is from 2008. I did this in 2006 and it is 100% my own work. I won't claim that it is an original concept but I was quite proud of it at the time and it got me my first job in the industry suffice to say I have done a lot more professionally since then. So in summary Offense taken. Please keep your baseless accusations to yourself.

[bouchandre]

@mashedpenguin hey! I have a question. Did you had a Job quickly after leaving Vfs, what actually happened? thanks

[mashedpenguin]

@bouchandre I got hired at Image Engine a couple of days after finishing my reel. I met one of the producers there while I was at VFS. He asked me to send my stuff in after finishing. I was there for Two and a half years before moving on after finishing District 9. I have been at MPC Vancouver since then.

[RossHildick3D]

Vancouver Film School = PRO.

[Willsuitt1]

Forgot color correct but still good

[darknessb930]

Animation was kind of fake... im just throwing it out there...

[iJunkizz]

@darknessb930

of course, made by one person lol

And animations are always fake...o.0

[TheFXGuy]

lol he McPhailed

[NeonGlobeProductions]

Your name is james mc phail but this wasnt a fail

[7Royalty]

very awesome, the only thing you miss was color correction on meteor and debris after impact. it should had been a little blue like the building since that is the light being reflected. otherwise, great angle and everything. remember that is all about lightning.

[craig931509]

thats a pretty cool film

check mine out its pretty funny

[mallumayavi]

"MAYA" !

[98p98p98]

like his last name: FAIL

[MoMo11791]

how long would this take?

[timofreee]

like how the building that got hit by a comet didnt have any glass sounds... just saying

[ChIvOxD]

what program did they use?

[SpOiK2]

Looks awesome, but I would have added a bit more shakycam, so it looks a bit more like the perspective of an pedestrian.

[damianfors]

I want to go this shool :'( :p

[AussieCop1987]

Beginning looks like the scene from the movie Armageddon lol

[nuahsx]

do you have to know a lot about coding to do stuff with the destruction to things or is mostly using models and keyframing with other effects?

[Inglorious6Maximus]

Very cool, im sure it takes time to learn it but once you have the hang of it you can go ape shit with it :D

AWEEEEEEEEESOME!

[vincentvandoorslaer]

Looks great! :D

Wish you the best of luck!

[sheepkilier]

Name = James Mcphail. lol

[TheDarkPrince28]

wow! i love it...hope i would make that too.i like to make effects...!

[riveraluciano]

great production, however i think the debris from the explosions (specially the first one) were in need for some more speed, and direction (they fall more towards the camera, when they should be flying in the direction of the meteor), and some more smoke could have been better there. (my two cents =))

[66Oder66LORDVADER]

whot the name on this programm?

[ylimani]

ahahhaha -der spider

[pur3blackang3l]

Pretty cool =]

[GeniusOfaMathKid]

I'm not trying to be critical but I think that the fire didn't look realistic and the meteor's trail also sisn't look quite right, however, the debris was very good and detailed.

[cadp2000]

@GeniusOfaMathKid : You have to take into account that it was made by a single student.

[GeniusOfaMathKid]

I don't mean to be ignorant or rude but I think I have done better.

[94stig]

WOW!!!! Thats incredible! :D

[htdWebMarketing]

Excellent. Also like the music and the picture in picture ending mixing real footage and animation. Great stuff.

[Phaileen001]

well this isn't a McPhail at all ;D

[1StTubeYou]

2:40 wow thats nice made! good job!

[PivotmasterE2100]

well, i thin that more glasses would have broken but its already pretty nice.

[bouncingsoul100]

like teh code you showed - are you writing script in max ? be interesting to to see how you do that cos theres so little documentatition on this web thing

[hippodance88]

Hi, it is cool.

wonder is it using of only Maya autodesk software for this? or is there any other programs needed?

[batthsutej7395]

@hippodance88 he's probably using adobe after effects

[rofish117]

pretty kewl

[organizmfx]

wack

[obiwanjedis]

watch programs is?

[paulmc8623]

u mean "what program" ?

Iguess "Maya autodesk"

[gen8]

Blastcode powa!

[Aidonian]

,, ?? too mush error in thee scenes take a look at 9/11 world street center tower when aircraft explosion and see how such tower react to explosion

[LeoShowOfficialChnl]

Those are PLANES. Were talking about METEORS here. Besides, it doesn't have to be COMPLETELY realistic. The planes blew up because they had ENGINES. Meteors don't have engines. The WTC collapsed because they weakened by the explosions.

You have no life, just bagging on any video on the net you can find. Smart people have good grammar. Smart people do research. Therefore, you aren't smart at all.

[HavokDelta6]

dude that was like nearly 8 years ago, and metors have ALOT of force behind them, unimaginable amount

[LeoShowOfficialChnl]

The unimaginable force behind the meteor is EXACTLY what would cause it to simply fly through instead of exploding. The building isn't dense enough to cause an impact, the meteor just pushes the matter aside. But the Earth's crust is hundreds of times thicker and denser, and more capable to making the meteor stop. THAT'S when it explodes.

[HavokDelta6]

Exactly, but because of the steel structure, which would be wrenched out of place too, the result above is quite plausible

[LeoShowOfficialChnl]

That's what I meant.

[fearlessmudhu]

ya thats great

[apocalypticalguy]

Sorry but the parts that come out of the building should be more slow, and fall doen more in a straight line right at the building. Look at 9 11.

Dont get me wrong stioll nice vid.

[lebello]

its from a fucking astroid douchebag shit isnt gona fall straight down the blow is going to force shrapnal everywhere

[googboog]

the guy who made this video is now an instructor at vfs, he did the opening credits for the hulk movie

[Driedeeman]

Is your name really James McPhail?

I'm sorry, but that's the best I've ever heard... Great work btw, really got my hands itching!

[GERMANETCHEVERRY]

Espectacular! Trabajo soberbio

[ericjhinson]

good work, but way too long for a reel. shorten it up, keep your future employers engaged.

[mashedpenguin]

I haven't been using this reel for fair while now (I did it over two years ago). But this is actually the schools graduation cut. The cut I used when looking for work was much tighter, came in at 2:10 I think.

[graphattic]

One big, problem is, almost all the windows of the towers should have broken, amazing job though

[baller14v]

Wow!! thank you so much for this video!!

This possibly changed my life.

I now know what I want to pursue.

thank you!!

[Nuker1337]

McFail, hahahah... But anyways nice matte paints.

[smilie120]

I lol'd at his name.. Then read your comment.. And lol'd some more..

[llewsub]

and stuff seemed to come straight at the camera and not to the left where the meteor thing was headed

[Nuker1337]

Well, things could come straight like that, but they would not move straight, more in a parabolic curve.

[llewsub]

needed more smoke

[sewick4]

lol his name is McFAIL

[Eskali96]

It IS Maya 3D :)

[maston999]

where could i download this program? do u know

[GumbyDude7]

AWESOME!l Just put some more texture onto the debris composite and maybe some reflection in the building?

[DrDoomFate]

Excellent, anybody knows what program this was.

[ScottRoseVideo]

was great just needed more glass to fall.

[ExtremeDesignStudio]

absolutely AWESOME !!!

[darkclaw888]

toma zIVANOVIC

[JRajashekar]

Great!!

[ZzZJPZzZ]

what name of program????

[JediHardSkull]

hahahahHAhahaA LOL at 2:35

[vegetanum1]

indeed ,.. lol!!

[knoxman3]

great like the majority said, sound effects didn't really match

[asnsys]

awesome work, VFS is great place to study Visual Effects,

by the way can i have the Mel script u showed in 1:57.

thank you.

Shaf

[bbqnigra]

PHAIL!

[bkstudio01]

pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee­eee

tutorial

[AndrewBeedle]

The debris is too big, the building is quait far away but the rubble looks a few meters away.

Overall really good though

[McKIllaG5]

Hmmm... The explosion was comprised of like wood pieces when the building is made of glass. It also makes the sound of wood.

[chahr86]

from a visual stand point the video holds up pretty well. there are maybe just a few things... for one the light shining on the church seems more powerful than the light that is being reflected from the trail of the meteor. There is hardly any light play on the trail. volumetricly light particles would take care of that. Also, when the meteor hits the building it does plenty of damage to the one side but what about the point of entry? it should maybe crush in the side a bit leaving debris.

[popaddict]

Really nicely done. The meteor and debris look very realistic.

I think maybe the fire from the explosion extinguishes to quickly (?) also I would have made the sound of the explosion more 'forceful' the rattling is a bit too 'wooden' sounding (imho).

[johsbond]

Mr. McPhail - you have an EPIC name! And your video is really good - looked in many ways as good as some professionally done big flick effects scenes, but I think the debris had some pretty weird physics. Not that I'd know for real, of course.. Never seen a building explode after being hit by a flaming projectile descending from the sky.

[toughalliance86]

Very good

[sapirsapir1]

very nice but u have some things that u need to fix

u need reflection of the explode on the building

and the meteor...

look very bad after burn can create amazing meteors quickly

[mohaaracso1]

so bad the smoke

[Darkcompy]

hahahha loved the last part

[MewHaX]

what is name of that program ? 2:05

[cdgj5131]

Autodesk Maya

[MouthofSaurons]

Autodesk Maya. Costs around 4000$ dollars.

[MewHaX]

WoW ;D More than fucking Adobe ;DD

[ThisPersonSaid]

Very good..But wouldnt of the building of fallen down

[yitih]

I think that usually takes some time.

[Sipowas]

Incredible, amazing, effects...

[sonnycrissangel]

nice work! you used maya and softimage, very perofessional programs.

I use 3ds max

[Aikimans]

Nice work, I especially like the little alien critter at the end.

[ZemogTorrents]

lol. I'd make fun of the name McPhail, but the video is too good... I can't say that McPhail fits to his name...

[SkulllordX]

as soon as i read the description. The explosions were not too great.... tracking too. I guess its a mcphail.... :( Well i got to use it!!

[tidilati]

I am very interesed in learning this technique that you show the breakdown from 1:57...I d like to learn that in 3ds max...since I dont use maya as well as no scripting

[mashedpenguin]

I'm afraid that I don't use 3Dsmax. It would certainly be possible to do this in MaxScript. But if you don't want to script it you would have to set the keys by hand which would be very time consuming.

The script isn't very complex really. All it is doing is animating the visibility of the blocks, with a row by row offset. If you have done any programming before it wouldn't take that long to learn.

[garycalgary]

i liked the music

i don't understand what the blue hous has to do with anything

And making a video of blowing up the Sheraton Wall Centre to me is idiotic

but i do wonder how you got the detail of all the concrete floors exposed you must have had plans of the building....

hmmmm

[mashedpenguin]

The blue house is an exercise to demonstrate scripting. This reel was intended to demonstrate my skills in FX animation to get a job in the industry. Nothing more, nothing less and it did its job. I don't see how blowing up the wall center is idiotic. I live in Vancouver, I like the building it is very photogenic, I wanted to hit a building with a meteor, I chose the wall centre.

I didn't have plans for the building. I did find some photos though of the building during its construction.

[contractwalnut]

fantastic!!

[GetaIife]

explosion was too fake.. Good try though

[losdiketown]

thats amazing... but, me adding a little bit of physics here..

shouldnt those comets asteroids or missiles be going strait through the building too? i think that will make it look more realistic

Those comets are flying at a pretty good speed itll look siicckckk if they just fly through the building! hope my advice was good!

[xiaopengyou13]

not as realistic as it could be :P keep it up!

[typhoongun]

wow u guys over at vancouver film school do some pretty awsome stuff! Maybe i should try my hand at animating. who know i might be pretty good at it. ^.^

[kataclipse]

nice animation but not very realistic. you should make some of the debris white, as that would simulate shattered glass / plexiglass. keep in mind that the building is made out of reinforced glass or plastic, thereofore some of the debris should be white and/or transparent. also, the debris are too dark i find. there is too much contrast with the blue building

[MaplezMoviez]

awesome

program?

[TheOnly1Ever]

I thought that was quite good :D for sure some minor details but for a student I think this is very impressive experice will improve your skill for sure :). Great Work.

[SpiroEx]

Speaking as a viewer with no particular experience in this field the overall impression I got was of a clip from a computer game. There's something unreal about it that doesn't convince me. The short clip of the robot zapping you at the end was more convincing (probably because it was easier to construct).

[degemeny]

the explosion is not realistic,generally it should be also window not just roks and you need color correction...work more..

[ljoenjoy]

please let me know the software/coding used for the transformation effect

[sertyyyy]

Better than ur fakin fart joke.

[CalBrettJack1995]

what softaware did u use

[Garfler]

maya

[tokoyaiv]

wow best one ive seen so far. reminded me of 9/11. was that an aspect of it?

[mashedpenguin]

I guess I should address this because it keeps coming up. 9/11 Did in no way serve as inspiration for this reel. My main inspiration was drawn from Armageddon and other disaster type films.

[tokoyaiv]

yea u used two meteors, hence planes, to crash into skyscraper just like 9/11

[zeldalovingfreak]

u can't do no better

[MikaTheBest12]

really intresting

[walker3216]

good but the particle rendering was off

[stunnermax]

hahaha crazy cool!

[stroppytube]

Very clever...I loved the ending too! You guys are clever!!! I hope JJ Abrams hires some of you to the VFX on Star Trek XI.

[KasumiKetchum]

THE ENDING ROCKS MY SOCKS!!!!!!!!!

[rollfizzle]

cool. but yeah the physics are off and the asteroid would have went through.

[Daisygurl33]

Do you need to be great at art to do these?

[arrozconsalsa]

not very good , dont give up yoru day job... seriously i would just quick right now. your not oing o make it in the indusrty. no creativity... and the physics is off

[RainxTree]

Well... Guess what? I don't see you doing any better. Or doing anything at all.

At least I don't post comments when I know I can't do any better. Let's see YOU post one of your greatly made movies.

Dork.

[drawnzer54]

just shut up man, he can do whatever he wants to pursuit in life, im considering this aswell and im only 13 years of age.

Even as old as i am i can tell you probably didn't make it in your career choice and now your trying to make others follow your road because he has potential to become great.

[gonzo1275]

First off, its great that you are considering getting into this line work work, but you have to have a thick skin and be able to take criticism well. I'm not sure what arroz said, but it gets brutaly honest out there.

My opinion is that the physics and partical effects just didn't look right, but good enough SF shows you see on TV or cable.

[benjfeb]

awesome

[KurlySmurf]

There are almost 20 people involved in this video. Professional software has been used. You should do better than that.

[joetigger]

perhaps you could share with us what you have done before being a smack.critic

[KurlySmurf]

Common sense is not very common. Look at the video with your eyes not nose.

[goreboy291x]

Coool!

[maritah100]

It's ok, i wold have been inmpressed if i didn't know how easy it is to mask and moddel with 3DS max and adobe master collection cs3. It's a 4/5.

Still tho, pretty nice work=) Keep it up and you will be able to make movies.

[tdk7086]

the asteroid part was lamer then langoor shit

LAME bro really Lame

The breakout was torture.

You could do that in anim8or

The spiderbot was good should've used it for the main theme

[TAfTfilms]

Probably, but it is still cool! He could have added more complex smoke and debris, but he is just a student. If he used a construction modle of the building it would work a bit better maybe. I don't know I though it was good animation. Anim8tor could probably do that though.

[thisnoteislegaltende]

physics people PHYSICS!!!! the debris would not travel toward where our POV is. Follow the trajectory of the asteroid and the debris should have traveled down and away. something that large traveling as fast as the first asteroid would have went all the way through the building and hit the ground(i say the 1st asteroid because the 2nd one came in slower physically impossible).I hope the people making this type of stuff are reading this because not even the SCI FI network would use this garbage

[serloinz]

hehe take a pill man ;p

[DoctorWorm92]

party pooper

[Tchyrizel]

Movies/games/etc offer a freedom from physics constraining laws. Don't take that away.

[TAfTfilms]

Yeah I though the debris was a bit close to the camera. The debris would go in the direction of the asteroid then downward, but this isn't supposed to be 100% realistic. It is just supposed to look cool.

[etie50]

wow

i liked it cause it went bam!

[gastonboggio]

Excellent

[the11thnickel]

Whoo I don't even want to know what kind of classes it took to accomplish this,...

[dlax1]

like the added bit at the end too, whole thing was pretty rad

[mbg1211]

Very cool.

[livardo]

dude, you destroyed the Wall Centre!

[69burns94]

I'd love to know how to make animation like that right now im only working on building maps for games and stuff like that

[mustafabean]

just 911

[4theUSA]

that, is amazing! 5/5!

[CaffienatedSweetie4]

even the smoke and debri look

real

i can even see the shapes while the debri is flying

it reminds me so much of discovery channel quality when the building blocks came up

good job

[pandalover89101]

sweet

[ronlas1]

To reminiscent of 911! Very inapropiate!

[HomeyLovesChachi]

What a wank. Really.