CG Artist Interview: Marco Iozzi wins VES Award with Fight for Life. Pag.5
What about the project which won you the Award?
“Fight for Life” is a six episodes docu-drama for BBC Discovery about real cases of people and how their body reacts to traumas. Each episode covers a life period and there are different cases of illness or injuries. The editing is fast-paced and we used computer graphics and miniature effects to re-create what happens inside the body, as never seen before.
I worked on this project in London in years 2006 / 2007 and I served as a Lead Shading and Lighting artist and Look Development Lead. I was called to work on the pitch first, because the job had not been awarded yet. To win it we had to create this “beating heart” shot, I textured, lit, rendered and composited the shot.
After having some meetings, my visual effects supervisor, currently CEO of Jellyfish Pictures, agreed on allowing me to lead the team and to organize the pipeline. He really trusted me and I will always be thankful to him. I’m proud of the result also for this: I feel the ownership of this project. It was one of the first times in which I could really put on the table the experience and production ideas gained in previous projects.
Marco Iozzi, Jellyfish Picture. Fight For Life. BBC Documentary. 3D rendering passes for the baby character
Copyright © 2008 BBC and Marco Iozzi.
So many times I was working on something and I was part of a pipeline and I felt that certain things could have been done in a more efficient way, and this was the time to prove I was right.
How do you approach 220 shots on a tight budget / time schedule? You don’t overcomplicate things as usual but you keep everything as simple as possible and you try to diminish the risks and the technical problems, while keeping flexibility for quick turnarounds.
You really need to see what’s at your disposal, in terms of staff members and skills. The team is technical oriented? We follow this path. The team is artistic oriented? We don’t waste time on technical mumbo-jumbo but we find a 3D/2D pipeline that allows us to deliver on time and with the best look. That’s it.
After 2 months of developing complex renderings and shader trees to achieve the right look, I then split everything up into 10 to 15 different passes, and re-created the output in Shake, building scripts that would be need just few touches and tweaks.
Of course, as always happens, this was rarely the case, because of all the problems that always arise at production time, but that’s exactly why you need to force yourself and the pipeline to be as simple and efficient as possible, to diminish the risks and headaches.
Marco Iozzi, Jellyfish Picture. Fight For Life. BBC Documentary. Final 3D composite of the baby character
Copyright © 2008 BBC and Marco Iozzi.
Would you tell us more about the workflow in the studio?
We were 12 to 20 people on the show and my first task, helped by very smart guys on the team, was to concentrate on the look development, while we were working side by side with directors for previz. The central shots of the show were some shots of babies and their organs, all full Computer Graphics. Plus some microscopic shots, Matt Chandler took care of.
Of course they had to be photoreal and we had to keep continuity with the miniature work in some cases. Without going too deep it has been a great experience to lead this project and work on some very interesting shots, and win the challenge of delivering and making clients happy, which is always our goal.
Seeing the edit on TV (I was in Australia when I first saw it, one year after completion) I had a very good feeling because you could actually see computer graphics working well with proper editing and live action, so every area was working side by side to tell these interesting and moving stories, and I was happy to be part of that.
Fight for Life won the Royal Television Award in London and the VES for Outstanding Visual FX in a TV Series in Hollywood.
