Page 94 - 3D Artist 110 - 2017 UK

industry insider

Sid Harrington-

Odedra

The lead 3D artist from The Mill
talks working on VFX for The
Chemical Brothers’ music video
Job title Lead 3D artist
Location The Mill London
Website
themill.com taying at one company for 11 years can be a rarity in this
Education BA in 3D Animation industry, however sid Harrington-Odedra has worked at
at Swansea Metropolitan sworld-leading content creation studio the Mill ever since
University (2001-2005), plus
a ive month course trialled at he secured an internship at their London base. “there’s
Escape Studios in London. something about the environment that i really like,” he says. “i
Biography Sid Harrington- enjoy working on commercials – as i generally prefer shorter
Odedra joined The Mill in
2006, and is a highly projects.” But when he learned one of his favourite bands had
experienced CG lead based in entered the building, his ears pricked up. “i’m a huge
the London studio. Recently he
led the multi-award-winning Chemical Brothers fan so i was really interested in working on
promo, Chemical Brothers a music video for them. When directors and long-term
‘Wide Open’ as shoot
supervisor and LG’s ‘World of collaborators with the Mill dom & nic told me about the
Play’ featuring Jason Statham. concept, i fell in love with the prospect even more.”
Portfolio highlights that idea was a concept for a unique, elegant music video 01
• Three ‘Go Binge’, 2017 for the band’s single Wide Open. in the video, a dancer,
• Chemical Brothers ‘Wide played by sonoya Mizuno, gradually transforms into a mesh
Open’, 2016
model while performing. “the idea came from the directors,
• Sky ‘Q’, 2016
they wanted to explore the idea of augmenting human bodies
• Call of Duty ‘Ghosts’, 2014
• BBC ‘God Only Knows’, 2014 with 3d-printed structures,” says Harrington-Odedra.
Working with a small team, Harrington-Odedra had his
work cut out for him. “there are a lot of different aspects
which were highly challenging,” he remarks. “One of the
things that comes to mind is that we were relying on a whole
range of cutting-edge technology working together, and if one 01
of them failed, then everything failed – it was a house of
cards.” the main challenge the team faced was matching the BREAKING INTO VFX
VFX to Mizuno’s graceful performance. “trying to get the
body track working, in a position where it felt realistic, and all Landing a job in VFX can be tough,
the poses felt realistic, was the hardest part of the project,” however Harrington-Odedra is on-
Harrington-Odedra reveals. “Anyone who has tried to do it in hand to offer some expert advice
the past will tell you it is extremely dificult. We had to have a
key body track for over 5,000 frames of the whole sequence, “Have an absolutely kickass showreel, put everything
which was painstaking. it effectively meant that we weren’t you can into it and make sure it relects your current
able to cheat and it had to be just right.” ability. A lot of people who want to enter this industry
the effects in Wide Open were achieved using a cocktail of put together a showreel and pad it with three years of
different software. “it wasn’t a case of having a standard set university work – stuff you do in your irst year and inal
of tools,” Harrington-Odedra says. “We used Maya, ZBrush year are quite different in terms of quality. And if you’re
and photogrammetry scanning to create cool shapes as well just interested in modelling, you don’t need to worry
as Marvelous designer for cross-modelling and cross- about shading or anything about that. Concentrate on
simulation. We also used Flame for the clean-up operation.” the aspects you’re interested in.”
Harrington-Odedra also enjoyed the freedom of the work.
“it’s fun to do the promo work because it’s where you get to
try new things, you can be experimental – which is exactly
what we did on Wide Open. We tested a suite of tools that
we wouldn’t normally test on a big campaign.”
though Wide Open has been a highlight for Harrington-
Odedra, there is one other band he’d like to work with. [My
favourite project] will be Wide Open for a long time until, of
course, i get to do a video for radiohead,” he laughs. “That will
be my favourite video, it will be lifetime ambition: achieved!”
Sid Harrington-Odedra was speaking at the BFX Festival.
Tickets for this year’s Festival are on sale now and 3D Artist
readers can use the code FUTURE20 to get a 20% discount. 03
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