At the global level. Interview with the head of the Filmdirection FX special effects Andrei Emelyanov

08 December 2016kin and TV shows

Work on visual effects in the cinema is an ungrateful thing. Very high requirements are put forward to the graph, it can also exal and bury the film, and the breaks -down extends for the preparation of the effects. Moreover, people working on graphics, as a rule, remain in the shade.

Today, one of these people will leave the dusk. We talked with Andrei Emelyanov, General Director of the Studio Filmdirection FX , which is now engaged in the visual effects of the film "Viking".

In the personal dossier of Andrei Emelyanov – "Night patrol" , "Daytime patrol" , "Particularly dangerous" , "One and a half rooms, or a sentimental trip to homeland" , "Paper Soldier" , "Black Lightning" , "Generation P" , "Metro".

Filmdirection FX was engaged in projects "Hammer" , "Icebreaker" , "Vysotsky. Thank you for alive " , "Vii 3D" , "Battle for Sevastopol" , "Quiet Don" , "Groom" , "Courier from paradise" , "Obli Sheep" , "Christmas tree-1914" , short film "Experiment-64".

Something more spectacular

From the "Night Watch" to "Viking" – a rather long road for both you and the market. How you evaluate changes in your work and how the industry works today?

Andrey Emelyanov: The changes are striking. “Night Watch” was created even when the industry was in our bud. And “Viking” is a project that is already done by a mature studio, a mature industry and … probably, it will sound pathetic, but still at the world level. Including regarding VFX – visual effects.

This phrase often sounds: "On the world level". We seem to go out and go to this level … and how?

Andrey Emelyanov: We are equal to this level, and, importantly, those people who order us a graphics and call us for projects. The viewer is used to a certain quality of graphics and effects. And we want, having come to the Russian film, he did not think, “Is this our movie?". So that he see something spectacular at the level that he is used to, or even higher. This is our goal.

Therefore, saying that we are “at the level”, I mean that the quality of graphics on this project visually complies with Hollywood standards. That is, it is clear that the industry is different. We are much less, we have less experience in different projects, but we do everything to take the bar set by both the viewer and the customer. Like this.

And within the framework of the Russian industry, Viking goes to where? How progressive is this project?

Andrey Emelyanov: I think that this project is not only progressive, it is unique in its advancedness: there are few historical cinema on the market, and in general, we did not have such a scale and level of paintings. From the point of view of production, post -production and graphs here are a number of tasks that are solved for the first time on this scale. An increase in the number of digital masses, the expansion of locations, the tasks that it is historical cinema as a schedule – all these are issues resolved here on an unprecedented scale and quality, taking into account the challenges of historical cinema and its specifics.

Please give an example.

Andrey Emelyanov: If we say that we need to propagate the mass and make digital doubles, then there will be one amount of mass in the action movie and there are only requirements for it. And in historical cinema, like Viking, where large battal scenes, where thousands of people participate in battles, are already different. The tools are similar. But the quantity and filling of what is happening in the frame is noticeably different.

Eternal race

But these special tasks are new for your studio or for the industry as a whole?

Andrey Emelyanov: It will probably be more correct only for yourself to answer. We are here with completely different problems. Many tasks were completely new, we never worked with such. And they had already done something before, but on this project they looked at these tasks on the other hand, because the requirements for the result have changed. Therefore, we had to change something in the approach and in tools.

You can give an example besides the extras?

Andrey Emelyanov: Passing is precisely from the tasks that they demanded to raise the bar. I will explain now. In principle, Filmdirection FX has long been specialized in the production of characters, especially those whom we call “woolen”, with wool, that is,. A tour rushing through a snow -covered forest is a character who, even with our experience, turned out to be one of those new tests for the studio. He was too significant for the frame to make it as before. The approach had to be changed – both in terms of animation, and in terms of technological solutions regarding how wool should look like.

Before that, we solved some problems with our self-signature tools. And when they started working on the tour, we realized that we could not do what the director and producer are asked from us, with the tools and technology that we have. Everything had to be redone. For all the time of work on the project, we remade the tour from scratch three times. Everything in order to get exactly what we were asked for.

The technology race is very felt? Say, with a tour is an isolated case, or in all areas like this?

Andrey Emelyanov: Everywhere. People solve some problems in our or foreign market and, according to the results, share a certain technology. And the technology, as a rule, either gives the best visual result, or more capabilities in settings, or just works faster. If we understand that we can take this technology to work, then, of course, we take.

"We tried almost everything"

And there is already at this stage what can be said “we are proud of this” or “it was interesting to do”?

Andrey Emelyanov: It was interesting that we did on this giant project, on which I have been about five years old. We tried almost all of what we knew, and from what we did not know. Something was cut off, left something, changed something. Wherever you are a shirt, something original and unusual turned out everywhere. On this project, we began to use a photogrammetry on an unprecedented scale, which allowed us to get detailed 3D characters based on real people. We took a real mass on the site, organized the pavilion … And the whole mass went through the apparatus of the photogrammetry.

The factory is such?

Andrey Emelyanov: Yes, the factory. This was the only right decision. At that time, we did not even know how correctly we did. Because at first everything was at the level of “this is just in case”, “it can come in handy”, and when a movie began to take shape … in the frame, when you have a shooting day, it seems that everything is fine, and everything is really fine with segments. When the cinema develops, when the installation appears, the director with the producers watch it on the screen and understand that people are not enough, that he wants more, and this is less. But they did not specifically display anything, did not prepare for this. When the frame was filmed, he did not at all assumed graphs at all. Having got the base of photogrammetry, we no longer asked ourselves the question: “And where do we get these people?"She allowed to increase the number of people against the background and make a frame richer.

Let's all redo it all

And often such "Wishlist" arise when you have to finish something or redo something?

Andrey Emelyanov : Constantly. Both us and the people with whom we work … Cinema is our common brainchild. And everyone tries to contribute to make it more spectacular, larger. Everyone tries on his part: the director complements with his vision, we also help and put forward proposals. And, of course, everyone wants to constantly add something, somewhere to redo, embellish. Sometimes in the scenes, as a result, 20-30% of the shot remains, and we redraw the rest.

And you, of course, when such a “Wishlist” comes, so joyful: “Hurray! Redo!"

Andrey Emelyanov: (laughs) differently. Some tasks of those that we have already run around, we perceive quite calmly. Sometimes even agree that the frame from this will only become better. If we understand that we can do this efficiently and meet the deadlines, we certainly do so. But, as a rule, everything always rests during. Here you need to find a compromise, decide what we will do. If you give an infinite amount of time and resource, not a single movie, probably, would not have been completed. There is always what can be improved. And if we talk about technology, then in five years there will be a jump again, you will have to redo everything again.

To the question of a long project and your contribution. Immediately recalled a fairly famous joke from Alesi Petrovna, which EPRST2000. Once they also did a historical project-and everyone was so tired of drawing cavalry that they attributed to each spear … uh … the name of the male genital organ.

Andrey Emelyanov: I understand where you are. Let's say, I don't know for sure that one of ours was so fun, but I do not exclude. After all, this will not be seen in the frame (laughs). Everyone may have already been noted, but only he knows where and how.

We and them

A more global question: a couple of years ago there was a big scandal in the special effects industry around the Rhythm & studio Hues, ruined after a breathtakingly beautiful Life of Pi. Then they said that the market has a difficult situation, since there is cheap labor from other countries, including from Russia and Eastern Europe; These are the same people who are ready to do everything with high quality and cheap. This opinion is true?

Andrey Emelyanov: At the moment, we can confidently compete with foreign quality companies. Question in the amount of our industry, in its readiness for such a stream production. Another moment is the experience that foreign companies have in certain tasks.

There is a turnover of people from Russia in foreign studios, they are actively attracted, hired, because people are talented, they know a lot; Our average specialist can go to the level of the project manager. Abroad, a fairly low basic level of each performer. Just such a specificity of production. There is a large turnover, people are hired under the project, while the rotation occurs painlessly and very quickly. This allows foreign companies to quickly gain people with thousands under the project and just as quickly switch them or throw them out of the team when you need.

The industry lives all the time. But lives very large blocks. I think that if we now calculate the number of people in Russia throughout the industry, then we will hardly collect as many people as it worked on one Hollywood blockbuster. We have all small studios.

On large Hollywood projects, we make small pieces of work. So far there are enough local orders, Russian, because they are becoming larger and more complicated. And this is very cool, because it is on such projects that the industry is swinging, people get experience, knowledge and all-all-all.

Where did we come

This is a slow process, progressive?

Andrey Emelyanov: In recent years, Russian projects saturated with complex graphics have become an order of magnitude more. And this is due, it seems to me, with a number of reasons, including the fact that the producers began to trust the schedule of our studios. Not all projects that were in the tanning of the producers, not all those scenarios could be implemented in our market.

However, going to the Americans, Canadians, to someone with our budgets is problematic. Now it's just a huge problem in connection with the course. Therefore, someone wanted Professor Wins sister sites, but could not, or wanted, but did not trust. And now it turns out that the industry copes: already ours give a good result, in which the producers believe. And everything can be done with those budgets that they have. Therefore, more complex projects went, more ambitious, and this automatically began to develop the industry. People grow in the skill. If the studio has done well some type of effects and developed its specialists in this direction, then they will be able to do something similar much more efficiently, faster and cheaper.

It's like with fur and hair in your studio.

Andrey Emelyanov: Yes! This is also not a quick story. There was self-written software, we developed it, somehow coped. It was even in the context of another studio. It's about the project Wanted : For him, everyone created it and then gradually improved. And at the moment we do not use the self -signature, we have gone to standard solutions, which have become much better at that time and now meet the requirements of the market.

Here we can talk about a fracture in perception from the inside of the existence?

Andrey Emelyanov: Global fracture, so that everyone suddenly began to think differently, probably was not. But, based on my own experience, I can say that seven years ago, when any project was developed, it was not easy to convince producers and sell it to the VFX-Supervizer site so that it controlled everything.

Now it is hard to imagine without this shooting?

Andrey Emelyanov: Yes, but this was introduced by a teaspoon in the mind of all people participating in the filming process. Because the old school of directors and operators generally thinks on the principle of “graphics-graphics … and they shot before you!". The new school is better, but at that time it, too, is still not strong enough to go out with her opinion. With blood, they achieved that our man was on the site.

And now seven years have passed, and now it is impossible to think in a project where there is computer graphics, there is no person responsible for visual effects on the set. This is nonsense. Because people already understand that everything that will be removed not so on the site, then it will result in an increase in budgets. And most importantly, this can affect quality. Not everything that is removed can be redone qualitatively to get the desired result. This happened.

* * *

After the conversation, Andrei showed us the studio. We walked up and down on a cozy building, which, like Tardis, is much more inside than it seems outside … And everywhere people, bending over the monitors, concentrated the graphics for Viking. “The deadlines, as always, are squeezing,” Andrei says coldly. “But nothing, we will have time”.