[Oracle]

VFXTalk is pleased to give you the opportunity to interview Josh Saeta, Lead Compositing TD at Rhythm & Hues! In this interview we will be asking him questions about his recent work on Ben Stillers Night at the Museum, the next-generation technology he was exposed to on Superman Returns and life as a Lead Compositor!

Josh has worked for a number of companies in his eight years in visual effects, including Banned From The Ranch, Tippett Studio, Square USA and Digital Domain has been involved in some of the hottest visual effects films from Final Fantasy and Matrix Revolutions to Elektra and Chronicles of Narnia. He was also nominated for a Emmy for his work on Steven Spielbergs SciFi mini-series, Taken. Josh is now working on The Kingdom, which stars Jaimie Fox and is due to release in April.

Please read the introductions below and then post your questions at the end of the article!

Joshua Saeta
Lead Compositing TD
Rhythm & Hues
Marina Del Rey, CA.

Josh’s VFX career started at a small house in Santa Monica called Banned From The Ranch Entertainment where he had the lucrative position of being an Office Production Assistant. Beyond learning the fine art of coffee making BFTR gave him the foundation he needed to break into FX. It was a small After Effects house where most of the work consisted of greenscreens, crowd duplication, and wire removals done in Commotion.

His first project was Soldier. From BFTR he went on the Digital Domain where he worked as a 3D tracker and set surveyor. He had the opportunity to set up tracking geometry on set, shoot stereoscopic photographs, bring it all back to DD and build tracking models; ultimately providing the animators with a solid track.

Missing compositing, he went back to 2D where he went through a stream of different companies. He worked at Pixel Magic on Charlies Angels, went on to Square in Honolulu for Final Fantasy, bounced back to LA to work on a mini-series called Taken for Dreamworks where he received an emmy nomination for outstanding VFX. After that he headed to Rainmaker in Vancouver, BC for Good Boy and then back down to Berkeley for Matrix Revolutions at Tippett Studio.

He finally settled down at Rhythm and Hues, and for the last three years has worked on such projects as Night at the Museum, Superman Returns, The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, Garfield, and Elektra. For more about Josh you can check out his IMDB listing here!

About Rhythm & Hues
At Rhythm & Hues we believe that the highest quality work is created in an environment where people enjoy working and where people are treated fairly, honestly and with respect. Recognizing the collaborative nature of our medium, our designers actively seek input and advice from others, but ultimately a single individual is responsible for the final design decisions.

http://www.rhythm.com

Night at the Museum
Night at the Museum was an incredibly fun project to work on. The sequences we did consisted mostly of the t-rex shots, Massive crowd duplications, and greenscreens with Owen and Ben. We also did a number of exterior matte painting shots where animals were to be strolling down the street in a snowy New York City, all shot on greenscreen. Technology wise we used much the same tools from Superman for Night. Being able to import camera motion virtually eliminated the need to track in 2D, and being able to pin elements to cards and add parallax all within one node made the compositing much easier yet more accurate using zdepth information.

Superman Returns
Superman Returns really stood out as a awesome project for Josh, particualrly since some of the technology used was absolutely incredible. It really sheds some light on how advanced compositing has become and where the industry is going. For example, they were able to import geometry into a comp, work with vertices on a model to attach a card or element to, import 3D cameras, texture and projection map, etc all within the composite!


Tools and Technology
As far as software goes, Rhythm and Hues uses proprietary software all the way around so his main compositing tool is ICY. He has also used Digital Domains proprietary tracking software TRACK3 and in his personal life uses Shake, After FX and Fusion.

Post your Questions!
We will be taking questions for 2 weeks before sending them over to Josh to answer. Feel free to ask him anything you like, you can talk about tools, workflow, life in the big city, working at large facilities and in large teams, and of course anything related to his work on Night at the Museum, Superman Returns, Taken, or anything else!

To ask a question just reply to this post by hitting the reply button below and post away! Feel free to ask multiple questions if you like. Once we have some good questions we'll gather them and forward them over to Josh!

Thanks,
The VFXTalk Team

[srproductions]

Hey Josh!

Very nice work on both films!

Was After FX used at all in either films?

What kind of reference was taken on set?

Were mulitpass renders handed over to you guys to work with?

Thanks for taking the time!

[atrane]

Dear Josh,

What were the biggest obstacles to overcome in obtaining your goals? Was it having to deal with tight deadlines, harsh critiques, lack of job security in the industry?

Which of these were the most difficult for you and how did you overcome them?

[chandra_sidhanise]

Hello sir,
I am chandra sekhar (vfx compositor) as well as a faculty in After Effects,Shake.I am from India basically in indian films compositing is not that much get into existence. I am going to teach the subject in such a way that they want to know how the compositing will deeply exists in present world.
My question is how far the compositing will go than animation. Many people in INDIA they are intereted towards animation . How to overcome this situation.

[ronnie.s]

hi
can u plz tell me , specfic which software u have used for hi end compositing.for Night at musem .
what was the role of Afx & Fusion......
How u have done all the pre production work....?

[chandra_sidhanise]

Which software is better to do for film compositing in a deadline situations and what kind of software used for Night at the museum

[mboden]

Hello Josh, welcome, very glad you are here.

I was just wondering What keeps you motived? What inspires you as an artist? What can students and junior artists do in your opinion to better train their eyes to "see"?
Thanks.

[CRoNoS`]

Haloo josh... thats great u r here...

ok... my question are...

1. What the most important for comping to make the whole scene are real ??
2. Do u have a reference or book that u think very important ??
3. What the most important basic skill for comping ??
4. Give us some advice how to be a great compositor like u ??


So glad can interview with u
Sori for my bad english

Thanks,
CRoNoS`

[Aruna]

Hey Josh... Do you feel that having a grasp on programming or scripting has improved the way you work? Do you often create tools for other artists to use while in production, and as a lead, how often do you get a chance to composite your own shots as opposed to overseeing other compers shots?

[Varun]

hey josh.. my questions would be..
- do you get enough flexibility with the programmers when you need something adjusted in your software / plugins?
- which software did you use for compositing (proprietary or something licensed?)
- how does the interaction between other departments with you occur? As in, if you need the animation layer, or even the lighting or fur etc.
- do you get complete freedom as to how you want the look of the shot to be like, including the CC..

and finally..
hows it like to be a Lead Compositor?

[finalcomp]

josh, first of all, awesome headshot!!!
-what would be your best advice for someone who is interviewing with a professional company for the first time? (how can you give yourself a bettter chance of landing that job?)
-how IS life in the big city???
hope all's well,
cheers,
jordan

[alive]

My question is very much in the lines of Aruna.

When you encounter problems with a particular shot, and create a recipe for it, how do you file it? So it may be used by everyone in the pipeline? Also, is this information shared between studios who work a very large projects?

[metalrahul]

Here goes my questions:

R&H is pretty good at creating and compositing digital animals but how was it to composite miniature 3d characters with real characters, is there any particular challenge you have faced in Night at Museum?

Can you explain bit more about technology which enables to export camera motion?

[CGnews]

just a heads up that we only have a few days left to take questions in for Josh so if you have them, post em!

[shonofear]

Hi Josh,

I noticed that the next "Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" is in production now,
however you guys were NOT mentioned as one of the Post Production facilities working on it...

You guys did a lot of really good work on the creation of Aslan and the last battle scene.
I'm a little surprised that R&H didn't get the part... why is this?

Aslo do you think that its really beneficial to have a good background knowledge in lighting for 3D that could help as a 2D compositor.
I heard that ILM uses their 3D lighters to do compositing work...correct me if I'm wrong though.
Whats your thoughts on that?

Thanks for your time.

Cheers