{"id":2076,"date":"2018-09-27T12:37:16","date_gmt":"2018-09-27T10:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/?p=2076"},"modified":"2018-09-27T12:37:16","modified_gmt":"2018-09-27T10:37:16","slug":"welten-schaffen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/2018\/09\/27\/welten-schaffen\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Creating Worlds"},"content":{"rendered":"Digital Art Compositing at Film Academy Vienna<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reading one\u2019s own name in the credits of a major Hollywood production: it\u2019s a dream that\u2019s not at all that far off for those who study Digital Art \u2013 Compositing (DAC) at Film Academy Vienna. Martin Stegmayer and Valentin Struklec, who teach master\u2019s degree students, provide insights into the everyday life of this mdw programme and explain just what a compositor actually does.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Digital
\u00a9Martin Stegmayer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhen you have to get a house burning on set, you can\u2019t set fire to a real one\u2014you have to find other ways to make that house fire happen,\u201d is how Valentin Struklec once explained his job to his grandmother. Burning down houses is, of course, just one of the many things that a compositing artist does: \u201cEverything we can\u2019t do on set during filming\u2014because it\u2019s too expensive, too dangerous, or maybe just plain physically impossible\u2014we do on the computer,\u201d says Martin Stegmayer, who\u2019s led the compositing master\u2019s degree programme at Film Academy Vienna since October 2012. Financial aspects of a film\u2019s production are often the main reason why a compositor is used\u2014after all, inserting a cityscape in postproduction is often less expensive than actually travelling to that city with an entire film crew. \u201cBut then there are also the creative aspects, which are of course what we find more interesting. Like when it\u2019s about creating special atmospheres or visuals,\u201d says Struklec. Completing historic buildings that haven\u2019t been preserved in their entirety, creating whole worlds that show a future that doesn\u2019t yet exist in the required form, or making someone age by 20 years\u2026 compositing can achieve all this and much, much more.<\/p>\n

\"Martin
Martin Stegmayer \u00a9Valentin Struklec<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The students in the mdw\u2019s compositing master\u2019s programme, which is unique in this form, come from all over\u2014and they need not have done their bachelor\u2019s degree at Film Academy Vienna. It\u2019s much more important to bring along passion, creativity, and a certain talent, as well as an eye for pictorial composition. Martin Stegmayer is convinced: \u201cAs far as we\u2019re concerned, the computer as such is simply a tool\u2014a tool that can be learned. What it really always depends on is the other kinds of experience that applicants bring with them.\u201d Having a technical understanding of the programs is helpful and makes it easier to get started. But an extremely positive effect in recent years has been had by the diversity of the occupational fields from which the students come: \u201cIt\u2019s the wildest combination you can imagine. Which is great, because the team-building that goes on benefits everyone. The students learn a lot from each other because each of them comes from a different area,\u201d says Struklec. Stegmayer adds: \u201cWe had one person, for example, who\u2019d studied journalism before and had already done a lot of editing. His work stood out in the entrance exams, and nowadays, he\u2019s working abroad as a very successful compositor.\u201d This openness towards applicants has paid off: of the altogether 19 students currently enrolled in this programme, most are already quite successful professionally. \u201cWhich is unfortunate!\u201d says Stegmayer with a laugh. \u201cEven after just two, three semesters, our students already find themselves quite busy with paid work.\u201d The two are proud, of course, that their students attain a level that\u2019s in international demand so quickly.<\/p>\n

But even so, they do want everyone to return\u2014to finish their studies, but also to bring their know-how back to Austria: \u201cThe experiences they can contribute are of benefit to everyone. And they\u2019re also able to use what they\u2019ve learned towards their master\u2019s degree projects\u2014a film of their own, for example. Which is often the last project they\u2019ll get to do where they enjoy complete creative freedom,\u201d explains Stegmayer.<\/p>\n

\"Valentin
Valentin Struklec \u00a9Martin Stegmayer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The two are also supported in their work by a great team of external instructors. Struklec: \u201cWe\u2019re in a luxurious situation here, because we actually can sometimes give our students private instruction, which helps us to address their specific talents and needs.\u201d From the very beginning, the students work together closely with the other specialisations at Film Academy Vienna. \u201cHere, they have opportunities to work on projects that are all on a very high level,\u201d says Stegmayer. \u201cI think this is also what sets us apart from other such departments: the fact that we offer teamwork together with the areas of production, cinematography, directing, editing, and so on. It\u2019s fairly rare to be able to benefit from such close networking with the various departments, working on projects together with their students,\u201d adds his colleague.<\/p>\n

At the Film Academy, as in the real business, it\u2019s important for the compositor to be involved in a project from the very beginning: \u201cWord has gradually gotten around that when you do a project from scratch and know you\u2019ll need digital work in postproduction, the thing to do is to bring in someone from compositing right away,\u201d says Stegmayer. This enables discussion of everything that\u2019s possible in terms of visuals in order to tell the story\u2014which is the ultimate point, after all\u2014in the best possible way. In the large Hollywood productions of the present, it\u2019s sometimes as much as half of the budget that\u2019s earmarked for visual effects. So compositing artists most certainly are in demand.<\/p>\n

The very first visual effect was done in 1895\u2014it was a stop trick used to accomplish the beheading in The Execution of Mary Stuart<\/em>. Visual effects began appearing more broadly in connection with the ability to copy film\u2014which is to say: with the advent of the optical printer. And this particular analogue film effect was used up into the early 1990s. The technical groundwork for digital film effects, however, had already been laid way back in the 1970s: it was a circle including computer scientist Edwin Catmull, the University of Utah, George Lucas, and Lucas’s production company Lucasfilm that first developed the technique of digital image compositing, which could be used to combine several images. Later on, in 1986, Catmull joined forces with Steve Jobs to found Pixar, where all this work came to fruition in that company\u2019s initial animated film. In Austria, these technical innovations made their first appearances in the advertising industry. And even if a fair number of workarounds were necessary back then to compete on the global market, the present-day standard at Film Academy Vienna is without a doubt competitive internationally. \u201cAs long as you\u2019ve mastered English plus the standard software, you really can begin work absolutely anywhere right from your first day on,\u201d Struklec sums up.<\/p>\n

\"Studio
A film shoot at the studios of Film Academy Vienna \u00a9Martin Stegmayer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t be committed to living in any one particular place. If you want to gather a wide range of different experiences, it\u2019s important to go abroad,\u201d asserts Stegmayer. \u201cAnd this industry is often very spontaneous. It might be that 20 people are needed in Singapore as well as 10 in Vancouver on short notice, and then they\u2019ll all just get flown right in. So you really could call this profession a \u2018free ticket around the world\u2019. A good example here is Lukas Kampichler. Back when he applied, he said he wanted to do Star Wars<\/em> someday\u2014and he\u2019s actually ended up doing just that,\u201d remarks Struklec, who\u2019s cheered by such success stories. But it\u2019s not just about big names. \u201cUltimately, this is also a job that just has to get done\u2014and you\u2019ll occasionally find yourself sitting in a dark room at a computer for 40 hours a week or more working on two shots,\u201d says Stegmayer. Struklec agrees: \u201cIt\u2019s true that this is a meditative profession. But social skills are important, too. You have to know how to communicate and, above all, how to suss out just what it is that the others want so that you can realise it.\u201d Stegmayer adds by way of conclusion that no matter whether you\u2019re in Hollywood or in Vienna, \u201cpeople don\u2019t always agree on things\u2014and it\u2019s nice we\u2019re able to simulate all that with a certain safety net at the Film Academy.\u201d","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Digital Art Compositing at Film Academy Vienna Reading one\u2019s own name in the credits of a major Hollywood production: it\u2019s a dream that\u2019s not at all that far off for those who study Digital Art \u2013 Compositing (DAC) at Film Academy Vienna. Martin Stegmayer and Valentin Struklec, who teach master\u2019s degree students, provide insights into …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[595,623,624,621,463,50,622,620],"class_list":["post-2076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-2018-3","tag-compositing","tag-digital-art","tag-editing","tag-film-academy-vienna","tag-filmakademie-wien","tag-schnitt","tag-visual-effects"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2076"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2086,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions\/2086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}