It was a rare opportunity to attend a workshop where you get to hear and meet one of industry special effects guru. Working together with Apple, within 2.5 weeks, Ron Brinkmann held his Shake workshops in Taipei, Singapore, Bangkok, Seoul and Hong Kong this July 07. Hong Kong was his last stop.

A respected supervisor in the visual effects and animation world, Brinkmann's film credits include Die Hard With A Vengeance, James And The Giant Peach, Contact and Valiant.  Brinkmann was part of the initial design and development team at Nothing Real, the software company that produced the digital compositing application Shake. Apple acquired Nothing Real in 2002, and for the last five years Brinkmann has continued his role at Apple as the product designer for Shake.

He was nominated for a British Academy Award for his work on Speed, and is the author of The Art and Science of Digital Compositing, which is regarded as a standard book of reference in the visual effects industry. The 2nd edition of this essential compositing book is due to come out at the end of the year. A few chapters were shared in the workshop.

The complicated world of digital compositing was easily clarified through his few slides of explanation. Even for trainers like us in Fatbars, his workshop was highly beneficial, and will certainly help us when we teach in our compositing classes. The art of compositing lies in the heart of understanding light and shadow. Paying attention to details and the close relationship between the foreground and background.

One of the scenes shared in the workshop was from the movie "King Kong". Weta Digital, the same company that did the effects for Kong director Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, created the visual effects. And as it did for “Rings,” Weta used Shake as its primary compositing tool on “King Kong.”

Recently, we asked Ron what he thinks of his visit to some of the facilities based in Hong Kong. One of which is Imagi Animation Studios. They came up with plenty of questions for Ron, since they bought Apple Shake’s source code.  The Hong Kong based company, launched their first major CG-animated theatrical movie, TMNT was released this March.

Another was Shaw Studios. "It's really going to be an amazing place - a brand-new studio with multiple huge soundstages... all done with the latest and greatest technology.  It would be great fun to shoot a film there!" wrote Ron.

Currently, Ron Brinkmann has been appointed as special advisor to Foundry's Nuke development team. "The goal with Nuke is to continue driving forward the areas where it is already innovative - multiple-channel support and the strong 3D environment - while really working on polishing it up and making it easier to learn and use. " 

The Foundry is a leading developer of visual effects and image processing technologies that boost productivity and workflow in film and video postproduction. Nuke is an Academy Award winning compositor. It has been used to create extraordinary images on scores of feature films including Flags of our Fathers and The Day After Tomorrow.

You can hear more of Ron and friends reviewing visual effects of the latest movies, discussing the challenges and technologies of today's visual effects pipeline in Pixel Corps.tv. A great pod cast for beginners, experts, and even bystanders!