Skunkworks Digital

So close and yet so far!

2009-11-01T14:37:00.000-08:00

Hello all, Vinnie here! I guess it's been way too long since the last time I posted! Here's an update. I'm still working on Bong of the Dead. I can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel but it's still a long ways yet. The special effects are improving a lot since the very first shot so that's a good sign. My goal is to make it seamless so I hope no one will notice the shots. However, flying meteors and explosions and stuff is a bit hard to make realistic especially on our budget so I hope it looks alright. I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween! Oh...speaking of which, I have some news...whether it's good or not, you guys can decide. in the upcoming episode of Fringe, I, Vincent Yoshida will be in it... err... well not me but a dummy version of me. I am playing a dead Chinese immigrant with a giant parasite coming out of my mouth. So if you can, please watch it. Plus I built the animatronics parasite for the show as well. I hope it looks good!! Crossing my fingers!! Anyways... I gotta go work on Bong of the Dead... until next time!

The Official Bong of the Dead Teaser Trailer!

2009-02-28T19:04:00.000-08:00

Hello Folks, I am proud to present the Official Teaser Trailer of Bong of the Dead!

A new Month

2009-02-01T13:39:00.000-08:00

Hey gang, well, it's February 1 2009, well, I'm still tooling away with Bong of the Dead, nothing really new to post. Nothing really exciting happening in my life at the moment, but I'm hoping something really wonderful will happen soon. Anyways, Here are some cool pics of my work and also from Keith and Howard Lau's work from that awful awful movie "The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon" Enjoy!

Until next time!

Happy Holidays Everyone!!

2008-12-23T13:47:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone, Just wanted to wish you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope you all have a safe holiday. Take care and stay safe and warm!

What a Weird couple of months!

2008-11-19T02:26:00.000-08:00

Hello all, It's me again, so sorry for not posting on a regular basis, it's been quite a ride. We finished filming Bong of the dead, and now it's in it's editing stage along with everything else. My personal life has been a roller coaster ride, but things have somewhat went back to normal... I think. I dunno. But anyways, Bong of the Dead is motoring along quite nicely so I don't see any problems with it being complete around March. Crossing my fingers. Now it's up to the Gods! LOL! Anywho, I just wanted you all to see what's been going on these past few months. Check out www.bongofthedead.com for more info.

Week 1 was a sucess!!

2008-09-21T22:36:00.000-07:00

Well, we survived week 1 of Bong of the Dead. Everyone pitched in and it was glorious!! The Director got all of his shots. There were some minor mishaps and things didn't go as planned but overall it was great. Mike Fields and his team did an awesome job with the Zombies and gore, BrantFX and team did an equally awesome job. Jodi and Mary fed us really well with some good ol' home cooked meals. The acting was total BOSS!! The dailies look fantastic, and I know the cast and crew will be proud to have worked on this production. Everyone went way beyond the call of duty to get the shots done and we at Bong of the Dead really appreciated that. Now, tomorrow we will start week 2. I hope everything will go nicely. Wish us luck!! ^_^

Bong of the Dead is in Full Production!!

2008-09-03T14:39:00.000-07:00

Hello all, sorry for not updating my blog, been quite busy with work and making film. Well, I am proud to announce that "Bong of the Dead" is now in full production. We will start day1 of filming on Sept 15th, and will end sometime in October. Quite exciting!! The official Website has been launched, check it out here.

We are off to the races!

2008-08-03T19:43:00.000-07:00

Greetings all, Vinnie here, I am proud to announce that the shooting of our film had begun. A lot has changed over the few weeks. The first thing is, we are not doing Lawn of the Dead, however, from that script, we are now doing another genre film, but this time with zombies. I cannot reveal the title or the plot as of yet due to the fact that we haven't gotten our script and title copywritten. Until then, you'll just have to wait. Sorry. ^_^ I will post pics of our first and second day of shooting shortly.

More Changes Happening...

2008-07-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

Hello all. Well, we have once again changed some of the story line so the original title is looking more and more unusable to the point where we have to come up with another one, but that's ok. As long as the story is good, the title doesn't really matter as much. I am quite happy with the current storyline so do not fret if you are worried. We have come up with some real cool shots which I think you will all love! No fool'in! Anyways, yeah... I cannot reveal what the storyline is quite yet, sorry, but if you read my last post, it'll give you some ideas on where we want to take this. I am also currently trying to figure out how to do some of the shots so stay tuned and I might even post some test shots here.

Fresh Idea

2008-07-14T21:30:00.000-07:00

Hello all, It's been awhile again... sorry for the delay. I've been pretty busy, with work and my own projects. We, and when i say we, I mean, myself, Thomas and Mike, have just figured out most of the story of Lawn of the Dead, and I think you guys will love it. I am not saying anything else. LOL. Ok, I'll give you a hint. It's in the styles of Peter Jackson, The Coen Brothers, with a hint of David Fincher. Whatchu think about that? Pretty nifty eh? Well... I hope it won't take another few weeks to post more info. I'll try to find some more time. Anyways. Take care all.

Been busy working

2008-06-29T23:31:00.000-07:00

Hello all, Vinnie here, sorry for not posting regularly, been quite busy working at MastersFx. Two weeks ago we finished work on 'The Thaw' and now I jumped on board to working on Stan Hellsing. I can't really tell you what specific gag I'm working on until it's done and the movies out, you'll just have to wait and see, I don't want to spoil anything. The only thing I can say is, it looks like it's going to be a fun movie. In other news, I am currently working on a feature with my buddies, Thomas Newman and Mike Fields on a project me and Thomas came up with called Lawn of the Dead. Here's a teaser poster I made for it. As you can see, it's an homage to the late 70's, early 80's slasher movies that we all loved from our childhood. This feature is about a Mexican gardener that goes on a killing spree. Why is he upset? Well, for that answer, you have to catch the movie. It is a gore filled splatterfest but with comedy, just the way we like it. However, there will not be any Zombies as the title might suggest, and there will not be any parodies of any Romeroesque scenes, we just thought the title sounded cool. The funny thing is, Thomas came up with the idea, and I came up with the name after he told me what his next project was going to be. So there you have it, maybe someday we would like to make a zombie film, but as of this year, we'll stick to something more doable and within our budget. We will be shooting in mid August, and hopefully we will have the film wrapped up from post sometime near the end of September or early October. It's a cute little film, with a modest budget. So stay tuned for more information about this film. Thanks.

Pics of Master Chief from Halo3

2008-06-04T20:55:00.000-07:00

Greetings all, well, here are some pics of a project I did along with Keith Lau and Howard Lau of Pipeline Studios. This was a done in about 1 month, from start to finish. The shot on the left is the humble beginning of the project. We started with the main understructure, and in this case we didn't have a huge budget, in fact, we didn't have a budget at all, so we decided to go with PVC pipes, good ol' plummer's strapping, some screws and wooden dowels. We had to design it so that it would split around the torso area so it would be easier to transport to the location.

We started the project in the garage of Keith and Howard, then about a week later we moved into their studio since we needed some more space to work. The picture on the right is us pouring out the foam, in the rain,

in the end of Nov or was it the beginning of Dec. I can't remember. Oh well. Anyways, we needed a structure to pour the foam (biscuit foam) into so we constructed one using cardboard, hot glue, and duct tape, then we poured it in. Due to the cold weather, it didn't set up quite as fast, so it took quite a long time. But that's ok because it all worked out in the end. We ended up using quite a bit of foam since it didn't rise as much due to the coldness. So there's a lesson to be learned, make sure the temperature is at least room temperature orelse you will be spending a lot more money. With that said, since it didn't rise as much, the foam was much more denser than usual, with helped us later down the road when we were carving it
out so I guess it worked out for the best, lol. I jumped forward about a week later when we had the bulk of the sculpt done, so this picture is us piecing everything together. I started construction on the base, which was made out of Styrofoam sheets a wooden base with wheels, some wood and some hot glue. The guys kept on motoring with the character. He does look a little skinny, but we had a plan. we were gonna construct the armor using plastizode, a flexible foam material that's great for fabricating.
Here is a shot of the finished construction of the base and the character, minus the pain job. We did the base coat on the base but nothing on the Master Chief. We also coated him with fiberglass resin to make it strong and durable. It worked out pretty well as it became hard as rock and still very light. I was pretty happy how it all worked out.
Here is the finished shot delivered on time. Done and done. Oh by the way, we had to do some changes to the original gun so we cut it in half and extended out and added some little nicknacks to it. It was a fun project and it was great working with Keith and Howard. Hope to do some more work with them soon. By the way, Keith and Howard did the paint job and it looks absolutely stunning, these pictures don't do it justice.

Gimorah Handycam

2008-06-02T04:55:00.000-07:00

I found an old footage of a neighboring motel on fire, so naturally I added a CGI creature that I named Gimorah to be in the shot, that is why he is not in the center. I animated the giant penguin in 3dsmax, did the compositing in Adobe After Effects, enhanced some sound fx in Adobe audition, and finished everything up in Adobe Premiere all in a couple of hours. I also want to give a special thanks to two people, without them, I couldn't even do stuff like this. Thanks Andrew Kramer of videocopilot.net and Jerzy Drozda Jr from Maltaannon.com. You guys are awesome! Thanks so much for your tutorials!

It's not Godzilla but no complaints here.

2008-05-31T01:42:00.000-07:00

OK, I don't have anything cool to show you guys just yet, however, here's something to tide you over with until I upload something, so ... enjoy! It can't get any better than this, eh?

My thoughts on The Andromeda Strain

2008-05-28T04:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I just finished watching A&E's The Andromeda Strain and you know what, it was pretty cool. The ending was a bit cliche' but what are you gonna do? I never read the novel or watched the original so I have nothing to compare it to.
The movie was split in half, the first part was shown on Monday, and the second part the following night and I must say, I was quite entertained by it. Sure there were scenes that were quite cheesy, but it wasn't enough to ruin the rest of it, in fact, it sort of enhanced the other scenes. I'd definitely want to own this on DVD when it comes out, not because I worked on it (uncredited) but because it is actually worth watching the second time around, I'm sure it warrants repeat viewing with all the technical jargon they were throwing around, which, I'm assuming were quite accurate. I'd like to do some research on what they were actually talking about. I'm such a nerd! LOL... But anyways, I recommend it to those who like a good suspenseful Sci-fi flick with good acting and good FX, so check out A&E's The Andromeda Strain. You won't be disappointed. (BTW, you won't find the picture anywhere else, I made it in photoshop using shots I found at the A&E website... I hope they won't mind... it's not like I'm gonna sell the poster)

A&E's The Andromeda Strain

2008-05-24T16:29:00.000-07:00

Well, if you haven't heard, A&E has made a movie based on Micheal Crichton's book of the same name. Now, all of you are wondering, "...but they already made a movie about that in the 70's or 80's", yeah, I know, but you know what the new trend in Hollywood is, it's all about doing remakes and sequels, so I guess they thought it was time to make a remake of this movie. Oh well, at least I got to work on a Ridley and Tony Scott film. Over to the top right, you can see the satelite that was built at Iguana Designs by myself, Ed Ko, and Eron Carruth. Pretty cool, eh?
Here on the left is a more detailed picture which I took from the A&E website, don't tell anyone. But hey, since we made the damn thing, I think we are entitled to something since we weren't paid all that much to make it. I think it looks pretty cool, but most of the detail was on the bottom of the satelite as you can see on the picture top right. Oh, by the way, the two night television event premieres Memorial Day 9/8c, so that means: Monday May 26 from 9-11pm ET/PT and Tuesday May 27 from 9-11pm ET/PT
If you want more information and other cool stuff from A&E, check out their website here

Freddy vs Vinnie vs Jason ... guess who Won?

2008-05-23T17:08:00.001-07:00

I won!! Well, ok, I didn't win the battle but I got a photo of me together with two Horror icons. How cool is that? Now, if I can get a photo of me, Godzilla and Gamera, then my life is complete and I can die a happy man. Until then, I shall walk the earth, searching for it. Oh, btw, this was taken on Set of Freddy vs Jason, if you already haven't clued in, lol. I worked on this movie at WCT Productions, under the supervision of Bill and Maureen Terezakis.

Here is a Bunch of guys I worked with on Freddy vs Jason; Chris, Chris, myself, J.P. and Corey. Great group of guys to be in the trenches with while on set. When the photo was taken, we've been up for 2 days straight getting these dead body's made to be on set the next morning, so that's why we looks so bloody tired. Well, I guess i can laugh about it now, but back then, I was ready to jump off a bridge with a wire attached to a steel beam on one end and the other end wrapped around my neck, but we all made it. I think it made us stronger because of the experience, so that's a good thing, right? ...just say yes and move on. LOL

The Old gang with Director John Woo

2008-05-23T16:45:00.001-07:00

Here's a picture of us with Internationally Acclaimed Action Director John Woo, whom I admired since watching the movie "The Killer" way back when. What a nice guy! This was taken at WCT Productions while we were working on the Lost In Space pilot, John Woo was Directing. I have yet to watch the pilot but I heard it was pretty good from some of the reviews I read on the net.

The Old gang at WCT Productions

2008-05-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a group photo of the gang at WCT Productions. In the center of the photo is none other than Frodo himself, Elijah Wood! Nice guy!

My Cameo in the movie "The Martian Child"

2008-05-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

Now, I know this has nothing remotely to do with CGI or compositing... but I just wanted to post this because I am cool... lol. Well, here's two pictures of me from the movie "The Martian Child", starring John Cusack. Now, why am i in the movie you ask? Well... I was asked by the Producer... or was it the Director, can't remember, to be in it to make the scene look more authentic... heh heh, I think they didn't want us just sitting around wasting their money, so they threw us in the flick for free, lol, but nonetheless, I am now forever immortalized in the film.

As you can see, picture one is a blurred picture of me in the background, so I thought I'd circle myself so you can tell where I am... and yes, I am looking at the camera, heh heh... yeah, I know, but I couldn't help it. The second picture you can see me more clearly. Oh, behind my gigantic head is none other than Oliver Platt, Sorry dude. What I'm doing in this scene is, I'm adding some lenses in an Alien mask that was made at WCT Productions under the supervision of Bill Terezakis. The Mask was sculpted by Bruce Houston. I helped out a bit. I made the lenses of the Aliens, I think there was 8 heads all together. I can't remember that far back. lol.

Here's some of my CG "work in progress"

2008-05-22T13:47:00.000-07:00

I've been interested in CGI and compositing since the first time I watched movies/TV shows like Tron, Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, Young Sherlock Holmes, Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park. Over the years, I purchased several animation programs to see what I can do. Here are some examples of my work in progress stuff.

The Snowman was my first attempt in make a short CGI film in one weekend, to see if I could. I started this on a Saturday and finished it on Monday morning. The animation is a bit sloppy but I think I accomplished what I was set out to do:

I pushed myself once again, to see what I could do in just a day, so I made this in about 12 hours. It was mostly render time that took so long. Yes it's another snowman short, lol:

First day of blogging

2008-05-22T13:44:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, welcome to my first day of blogging. I'll be posting some pictures and video up here so be sure to check back periodically. Comments are welcome!