John Gaeta
Encyclopedia
John Gaeta is an academy award winning visual effects
designer best known for his work on the Matrix film trilogy and Speed Racer
, where he explored and advanced the effects methods known as "Bullet Time
", "Virtual Cinematography
", and "Photo Anime".
with honors from New York University
's film school, he was introduced to the industry as a staff production assistant for the Saturday Night Live
film unit. Following NYU, he began camera and lighting work for a variety of media types including stop-motion animation, nature documentary
, and holography
.
A few years later, he was drafted into the camera department of the newly formed Trumbull Company, founded in Berkshire County, Massachusetts by Douglas Trumbull
. Trumbull was visual effects supervisor for such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey
, Blade Runner
, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind
, as well as the director of such films as Silent Running
and Brainstorm
. It was at Trumbull Company that Gaeta was introduced and educated in a spectrum of innovative film format
s such as 48fps VistaVision
, 70mm
Showscan
, IMAX
, OMNIMAX and stereo
CGI
(partnered with Kleiser-Walczak). These were all applied to pre digital special venue-immersive and simulator "ridefilm" projects often accompanied by powerful motion bases in which the audience was placed upon or within.
Following this special venue period (1991-1994), Gaeta became interested in applying computer-generated animation
as a means of visualizing
content and visual effects concepts for directors as well as for custom camera-path planning. This led to experimentation with emerging forms of space analysis including photogrammetry
, stereo
and laser radar
(a.k.a Reality Capture). Trumbull Company was renamed Mass Illusion and started feature film effects for movies. Gaeta continued there as an associate supervisor under the senior supervision of Oscar-winner Joel Hynek.
After co-supervising development for 3-D paint effect stylizations and LIDAR laser scanning for What Dreams May Come
(1998 Visual Effects Oscar
winner), Gaeta began his first solo effects supervision project for Larry and Andy Wachowski's film, The Matrix
.
Designing and testing The Matrix bullet time
effects began in early 1996. This work directly overlapped R&D for What Dreams May Come. Shortly after the release of the original Matrix in 1999, Gaeta continued his exploration of content design through CGI visualization by developing fully "virtual" scene and action layouts for use in realtime interactive composition. Scenes ran on the GS Cube, a machine consisting of 16 parallel processors each based on a PlayStation 2, but with HD rendering resolution. The research was demonstrated at Siggraph
2000. Later, in 2006, partnered with Rudy Poat, he would return to real time cinema experimentation by inserting, possibly the first ever, real time composed and rendered, full resolution/2k content into a theatrically released movie, Trapped Ashes.
In 2000, Gaeta was brought on as the senior visual effects supervisor to complete the Matrix Trilogy including The Matrix Reloaded
and The Matrix Revolutions
. This pair of films were created in parallel and featured over 2000 visual effects shots. Many photographed and post processed at a custom built complex called ESC, located at the Alameda Naval Base near San Francisco. Overall conceptual design as well as research and development was initiated for the final two installments in January 2000. There were a wide range of effects content from large-scale man vs. machine-type battles, to anime
-styled hyper-real
moments. The centerpiece innovations and new methodologies presented through the Matrix universe was the creation of "Virtual Cinematography" and "Virtual Effects," phrases coined by Gaeta in 1999 and 2000.
In fully synthetic scenes within The Matrix sequels, all aspects including principal characters, elaborate performances, dynamic events, and deep surrounding scenery were computer generated by way of customized "image based" rendering techniques. Content components were constructed from "universal capture" sources based upon real actors, production design and cinematography
, in a "sample cinema" type process more analogous to producing virtual reality
than to film making. Impact, evolution and expansion of these once emergent content forms can be seen in later breakthrough films such as Benjamin Buttons and Avatar as well as ongoing interactive research happening in games and military simulation.
The years 2005-2008 marked a deepening of the pursuit of sample cinema with new ground covered in the feature Speed Racer
. The advent of a new genre type, dubbed "Photo Anime", was the centerpiece of a retro-modern universe in which optimistic pop art design ("Poptimisitic") threaded through dramatic collage based editing and motion graphic heavy kung fu car action. Inspired in part by the production attitude of Sin City
, the expressive animated cinema of Hayao Miyazaki
and Andy Warhol
, the Wachowski brothers focused Gaeta's sensibilities once more toward new forms of post cinematography, deploying end to end high definition pipelines, comprehensive greenscreen/virtual set processes, fully computer generated race worlds, "2 and 1/2 D" layering methodologies, "faux lensing" as applied to vr photography and "techno color" in pursuit of a different movie experience. In addition to visual effects design for the film, Gaeta was additionally enlisted to creatively produce the Wii game counterpart.
Gaeta is an avid proponent of enabling image based realtime virtual cinematography and pushing it toward "Hybrid Entertainment". Hybrid Entertainment could be described as unified content forms and formats found between cinema, interactive games, simulation, mobile media and other alternatives. With additional focus on "universalizing universes": the centralized conception and production of worlds, settings and content components, upon which could be layered dynamic story and social paths, overlapping real or virtual performance and channeled in parallel toward passive and interactive distribution.
To that extent, in 2009 he had formed a new type of UX (user experience) design, incubation and development entity called FLOAT (hybrid Entertainment).
Float Hybrid Entertainment is leading edge in rapid protoyping new content and control formats, methods and applications(apps) for current, emerging, connected platforms(cinema, television, games, web, mobile).
Previous areas of focus include low and high level gesture based character navigation, tactile virtual environments for gaming, navigable cinema / broadcast, "NUI" based social experiences, sensor and sound "driver" design.
John Gaeta is additionally active in the conceptual design of currently undisclosed film projects.
Visual effects
Visual effects are the various processes by which imagery is created and/or manipulated outside the context of a live action shoot. Visual effects involve the integration of live-action footage and generated imagery to create environments which look realistic, but would be dangerous, costly, or...
designer best known for his work on the Matrix film trilogy and Speed Racer
Speed Racer (film)
Speed Racer is a 2008 American live action film adaptation of Tatsuo Yoshida's 1960s Japanese anime series of the same name, produced by Tatsunoko Productions. The film is written and directed by the Wachowskis...
, where he explored and advanced the effects methods known as "Bullet Time
Bullet time
Bullet time is a special and visual effect that refers to a digitally enhanced simulation of variable-speed photography used in films, broadcast advertisements, and video games...
", "Virtual Cinematography
Virtual cinematography
Virtual cinematography is an umbrella term used to describe cinematographic techniques performed in a computer graphics environment. This includes a wide variety of subjects like photographing real objects for the purpose of recreating them as three dimensional objects or algorithms for automated...
", and "Photo Anime".
Career
John C. Gaeta's career began in New York City. While acquiring a BFA degreeBachelor of Fine Arts
In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...
with honors from New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
's film school, he was introduced to the industry as a staff production assistant for the Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
film unit. Following NYU, he began camera and lighting work for a variety of media types including stop-motion animation, nature documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, and holography
Holography
Holography is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that when an imaging system is placed in the reconstructed beam, an image of the object will be seen even when the object is no longer present...
.
A few years later, he was drafted into the camera department of the newly formed Trumbull Company, founded in Berkshire County, Massachusetts by Douglas Trumbull
Douglas Trumbull
Douglas Huntley Trumbull is an American film director, special effects supervisor, and inventor. He contributed to, or was responsible for, the special photographic effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner and The Tree of...
. Trumbull was visual effects supervisor for such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
, Blade Runner
Blade Runner
Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...
, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...
, as well as the director of such films as Silent Running
Silent Running
Silent Running is a 1972 environmentally themed science fiction film starring Bruce Dern and directed by Douglas Trumbull, who had previously worked as a special effects supervisor on such science fiction films as 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Andromeda Strain.-Plot summary:Silent Running depicts a...
and Brainstorm
Brainstorm (1983 film)
Brainstorm is a 1983 science fiction film directed by Douglas Trumbull and starring Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood...
. It was at Trumbull Company that Gaeta was introduced and educated in a spectrum of innovative film format
Film format
A film format is a technical definition of a set of standard characteristics regarding image capture on photographic film, for either stills or movies. It can also apply to projected film, either slides or movies. The primary characteristic of a film format is its size and shape.In the case of...
s such as 48fps VistaVision
VistaVision
VistaVision is a higher resolution, widescreen variant of the 35mm motion picture film format which was created by engineers at Paramount Pictures in 1954....
, 70mm
70 mm film
70mm film is a wide high-resolution film gauge, with higher resolution than standard 35mm motion picture film format. As used in camera, the film is wide. For projection, the original 65mm film is printed on film. The additional 5mm are for magnetic strips holding four of the six tracks of sound...
Showscan
Showscan
Showscan is a cinematic process developed by Douglas Trumbull. Similar to 70 mm wide-screen processes, it uses 65 mm film, but photographs and projects it at 60 frames per second – 2.5 times faster than standard movie film...
, IMAX
IMAX
IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
, OMNIMAX and stereo
3-D film
A 3-D film or S3D film is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception...
CGI
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
(partnered with Kleiser-Walczak). These were all applied to pre digital special venue-immersive and simulator "ridefilm" projects often accompanied by powerful motion bases in which the audience was placed upon or within.
Following this special venue period (1991-1994), Gaeta became interested in applying computer-generated animation
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
as a means of visualizing
Previsualization
Previsualization is a function to visualise complex scenes in movie before filming. It is also a concept in still photography...
content and visual effects concepts for directors as well as for custom camera-path planning. This led to experimentation with emerging forms of space analysis including photogrammetry
Photogrammetry
Photogrammetry is the practice of determining the geometric properties of objects from photographic images. Photogrammetry is as old as modern photography and can be dated to the mid-nineteenth century....
, stereo
Stereoscopy
Stereoscopy refers to a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by presenting two offset images separately to the left and right eye of the viewer. Both of these 2-D offset images are then combined in the brain to give the perception of 3-D depth...
and laser radar
LIDAR
LIDAR is an optical remote sensing technology that can measure the distance to, or other properties of a target by illuminating the target with light, often using pulses from a laser...
(a.k.a Reality Capture). Trumbull Company was renamed Mass Illusion and started feature film effects for movies. Gaeta continued there as an associate supervisor under the senior supervision of Oscar-winner Joel Hynek.
After co-supervising development for 3-D paint effect stylizations and LIDAR laser scanning for What Dreams May Come
What Dreams May Come (film)
What Dreams May Come is a 1998 American supernatural drama film, starring Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Annabella Sciorra. The film is based on the 1978 novel of the same name by Richard Matheson, and was directed by Vincent Ward. The title is taken from a line in Hamlet's To be, or not to...
(1998 Visual Effects Oscar
Academy Award for Visual Effects
The Academy Award for Visual Effects is an Academy Award given for the best achievement in visual effects.-History of the award:The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences first recognized the technical contributions of special effects to movies at its inaugural dinner in 1928, presenting a...
winner), Gaeta began his first solo effects supervision project for Larry and Andy Wachowski's film, The Matrix
The Matrix
The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
.
Designing and testing The Matrix bullet time
Bullet time
Bullet time is a special and visual effect that refers to a digitally enhanced simulation of variable-speed photography used in films, broadcast advertisements, and video games...
effects began in early 1996. This work directly overlapped R&D for What Dreams May Come. Shortly after the release of the original Matrix in 1999, Gaeta continued his exploration of content design through CGI visualization by developing fully "virtual" scene and action layouts for use in realtime interactive composition. Scenes ran on the GS Cube, a machine consisting of 16 parallel processors each based on a PlayStation 2, but with HD rendering resolution. The research was demonstrated at Siggraph
SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974. The conference is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals...
2000. Later, in 2006, partnered with Rudy Poat, he would return to real time cinema experimentation by inserting, possibly the first ever, real time composed and rendered, full resolution/2k content into a theatrically released movie, Trapped Ashes.
In 2000, Gaeta was brought on as the senior visual effects supervisor to complete the Matrix Trilogy including The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix Reloaded is a 2003 American science fiction film and the second installment in The Matrix trilogy, written and directed by the Wachowskis. It premiered on May 7, 2003, in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, and went on general release by Warner Bros. in North American theaters on May 15,...
and The Matrix Revolutions
The Matrix Revolutions
The Matrix Revolutions is a 2003 American science fiction film and the third installment of The Matrix trilogy. The film was released six months following The Matrix Reloaded. The film was written and directed by the Wachowski brothers and released simultaneously in sixty countries on November 5,...
. This pair of films were created in parallel and featured over 2000 visual effects shots. Many photographed and post processed at a custom built complex called ESC, located at the Alameda Naval Base near San Francisco. Overall conceptual design as well as research and development was initiated for the final two installments in January 2000. There were a wide range of effects content from large-scale man vs. machine-type battles, to anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
-styled hyper-real
Hyperreality
Hyperreality is used in semiotics and postmodern philosophy to describe a hypothetical inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies...
moments. The centerpiece innovations and new methodologies presented through the Matrix universe was the creation of "Virtual Cinematography" and "Virtual Effects," phrases coined by Gaeta in 1999 and 2000.
In fully synthetic scenes within The Matrix sequels, all aspects including principal characters, elaborate performances, dynamic events, and deep surrounding scenery were computer generated by way of customized "image based" rendering techniques. Content components were constructed from "universal capture" sources based upon real actors, production design and cinematography
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
, in a "sample cinema" type process more analogous to producing virtual reality
Virtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
than to film making. Impact, evolution and expansion of these once emergent content forms can be seen in later breakthrough films such as Benjamin Buttons and Avatar as well as ongoing interactive research happening in games and military simulation.
The years 2005-2008 marked a deepening of the pursuit of sample cinema with new ground covered in the feature Speed Racer
Speed Racer
Speed Racer is an English adaptation name of the Japanese manga and anime, which centered on automobile racing. Mach GoGoGo was originally serialized in print form in Shueisha's 1958 Shōnen Book, and was released in tankōbon book form by Sun Wide Comics, re-released in Japan by Fusosha...
. The advent of a new genre type, dubbed "Photo Anime", was the centerpiece of a retro-modern universe in which optimistic pop art design ("Poptimisitic") threaded through dramatic collage based editing and motion graphic heavy kung fu car action. Inspired in part by the production attitude of Sin City
Sin City (film)
Sin City, also known as Frank Miller's Sin City, is a 2005 crime thriller film written, produced and directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez...
, the expressive animated cinema of Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
and Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, the Wachowski brothers focused Gaeta's sensibilities once more toward new forms of post cinematography, deploying end to end high definition pipelines, comprehensive greenscreen/virtual set processes, fully computer generated race worlds, "2 and 1/2 D" layering methodologies, "faux lensing" as applied to vr photography and "techno color" in pursuit of a different movie experience. In addition to visual effects design for the film, Gaeta was additionally enlisted to creatively produce the Wii game counterpart.
Gaeta is an avid proponent of enabling image based realtime virtual cinematography and pushing it toward "Hybrid Entertainment". Hybrid Entertainment could be described as unified content forms and formats found between cinema, interactive games, simulation, mobile media and other alternatives. With additional focus on "universalizing universes": the centralized conception and production of worlds, settings and content components, upon which could be layered dynamic story and social paths, overlapping real or virtual performance and channeled in parallel toward passive and interactive distribution.
To that extent, in 2009 he had formed a new type of UX (user experience) design, incubation and development entity called FLOAT (hybrid Entertainment).
Float Hybrid Entertainment is leading edge in rapid protoyping new content and control formats, methods and applications(apps) for current, emerging, connected platforms(cinema, television, games, web, mobile).
Previous areas of focus include low and high level gesture based character navigation, tactile virtual environments for gaming, navigable cinema / broadcast, "NUI" based social experiences, sensor and sound "driver" design.
John Gaeta is additionally active in the conceptual design of currently undisclosed film projects.
Awards
- 2000 Academy Award for Visual EffectsAcademy Award for Visual EffectsThe Academy Award for Visual Effects is an Academy Award given for the best achievement in visual effects.-History of the award:The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences first recognized the technical contributions of special effects to movies at its inaugural dinner in 1928, presenting a...
, for The Matrix - 2000 BAFTA Awards for Best Achievement in Special Effects, for The MatrixThe MatrixThe Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
- Above two shared with Steve Courtley, Janek Sirrs, Jon Thum
- 2003 Visual Effects Society Award for Best Single Visual Effect of the Year in Any Medium, for The Matrix Reloaded (trailer "Top Crash"), shared with Dan GlassDan GlassDan Glass is the current president of the Kansas City Royals Major League Baseball team.Glass is the son of Royals owner David Glass who acquired the team in 2000 and immediately installed his son who succeed Mike E...
, Adrian De Wet, Greg Juby
- 2003 Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Visual Effects Photography in a Motion Picture for The Matrix Reloaded (U-cap facial photography), shared with Kim Libreri, George Borshukov, Paul Ryan
- Hollywood Film FestivalHollywood Film FestivalThe Hollywood Film Festival is an annual Film festival which is located in Los Angeles, California, USA. The Festival was established in 1997 by Carlos de Abreu and his wife, model Janice Pennington....
: Hollywood Visual Effects Award, 2003 http://www.hollywoodawards.com/news/2003/honorees2003.htmlhttp://www.hollywoodawards.com/gaeta/index.html
- Nominated, 2003 Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Motion Picture for The Matrix Revolutions, shared with Kim Libreri, George Murphy, Craig Hayes
External links
- http://www.billdesowitz.com/?p=1969
- http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4564
- Interview: Float Hybrid Plugs Into The Matrix With Kinect
- Virtual Cinematography: Was The Matrix under-rated and Avatar over-rated?
- Speed Racer: The Future of Movies
- http://www.vrmag.org/speedracer/
- Eclectic Pioneer in Photography Connects Art and Science
- http://www.vfxworld.com/?atype=articles&id=3638&page=1
- http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/05/09/movies/20080509_SPEEDRACER_FEATURE.html#section1
- 'Speed Racer' Soars!
- New Speed Racer Technology Could Be a Radical Innovation
- Beyond Machinima: Rudy Poat and John Gaeta on the Future of Interactive Cinema by Jason McMaster, GamasutraGamasutraGamasutra is a website founded in 1997 for video game developers. It is owned and operated by UBM TechWeb , a division of United Business Media, and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine Game Developer...
. - http://anm.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/1/1/25
- http://www.darmogul.com/Qtimes/experimental/full/DL%20The%20Matrix%20-%20%2796%20Green%20Light%20Test.mov
- http://www.braintrustdv.com/essays/image-future.html
- Eadweard Muybridge and The Matrix
- Cinefex index
- The "Matrix" effects maestro fuels hybrid entertainment
- http://escience.anu.edu.au/lecture/cg/CGIntroduction/Data/matrix_bullettimewalkthru1.mov
- "One Against Many: A stunning showdown in Reloaded improves upon bullet time" (PremierePremiere (magazine)Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, Première , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there.-History:The magazine originally...
) - "The Matrix Resolution" (Computer Graphics World)
- "Matrix2: Bullet Time was just the beginning. F/x guru John Gaeta reinvents cinematography with The Matrix Reloaded." (Wired, May 2003)
- "Entertainment Beyond The Matrix" (Wired NewsWired NewsWired News is an online technology news website, formerly known as HotWired, that split off from Wired magazine when the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast Publishing in the 1990s. Wired News was owned by Lycos not long after the split, until Condé Nast purchased Wired News on July 11, 2006...
, October 20, 2003) - "A Celebration of Effects" (CinefexCinefexCinefex is a quarterly professional movie special effects magazine. It is among the first dedicated special effects magazines ever produced, at a time where computer generated imagery effects were not as common....
Weekly Update, February 24, 2004) - "'The Matrix' Revealed: An Interview with John Gaeta" (VFXPro, March 9, 2004)
- http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4402&page=9