We're proud to announce that Lost Boys Learning 2008 graduate
George Kyparissous is the winner of the
Best Visual Effects in a Student Project at the
Elan Awards, hosted by Tom Kenny (voice of "Sponge Bob Square Pants") and held in Vancouver at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver on Saturday April 25.
The 3rd Annual Elan Awards honour the best in Videogames, Animation and Visual Effects, with additional VFX awards going out to Spin VFX, The Embassy VFX, Pix Ray VFX, Supervisor Jim Lima and Moving Picture Company for shows including Max Payne, Iron Man and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
George's project “Space Bar” began as a creature head modeling exercise. Once the monkey head was created, using Maya, it naturally had to be used in a shot. George conceived the idea of two guys sitting in a bar, after work, looking at girls. It evolved into a “space” themed bar, shot in the school's lounge in front of green screen.
Two students in the class had an acting and comedy background and were recruited as actors. Wanting an interactive challenge with the actor, the beer bottle and the CG head, we shot using real beer bottles. Initially we were going to hide the labels, but decided to make a simulated Budweiser commercial, with a product shot at the end. The challenges included modeling a photo-real monkey with Maya Fur; tracking and animating the CG head onto the live-action actor; lighting the CG head to match the scene; replacing the green screen with a stylized environment; and transitioning to the product shot in the space shot.
George, his wife Dimitra and Lost Boys Learning's Gillian Benard attended the gala event. Congratulations, George!
