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Inside The Third Floor

Thursday, April 29th, 2010 | Posted by Matt McCorkell | 7 comments

A behind the scenes look at the previz work for Star Wars, Cloverfield, Prince Caspian, Lair and Lost Odyssey.

Its really unbelievable how much work goes into a movie or game these days.  Not only do you have visual effects combined with actors and green screens but you also have all that core work that is done before the movie cameras start rolling (yes I know they technically don’t roll anymore but  you get the point).  Previsualization (otherwise known as previs or previz) is the key part of the process that allows the director to come in and says I want this too look like this or more like this without wasting huge amounts of money on redoing the scene on set or fixing it in post. So in a sense The Third Floor is famous for saving us all money and helping to produce quality animation, timing and effects.

For more on The Third Floor check out www.thethirdfloorinc.com

Related posts:

  1. Inside xRez Studio
  2. Inside the Mind of Daphne Yap
  3. We can do previs from an airplane over the Arctic!
  4. Pixologic’s Inside look at Mass Effect 2

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  • Fabio

    Awesome work!

  • http://www.weirdyworld.com Ryan Whearty

    LIKE!

  • Gary

    The problem with pre-vis for movies anyway, is that the final version doesn’t look a lot better, and we’re getting a lot of sequences that look like they belong in video games. The Star Wars prequels are prime examples of the garbage we end up with. I don’t think anyone can argue the prequels did anything that was better than the original trilogy, so why is there a need for pre-vis?

  • http://www.workaholicstudios.com Jacob Patrick

    There are many many reasons for previs…

    Helps the Director to share his vision, Helps the Director and DP be on the same page, helps them know what effects will be practical and which will be CG, this way they know how to prep the set & how to more accurately budget. Can help the Director find his vision.

    It makes the movie real to investors, so that you have more backing and belief in your project.

    There are many other benefits as well.

    There were a lot of sequences that looked like they belonged in Video Games before Pre-Vis became a separate industry.

    Some Video Games have Great Sequences that are better than many movies that don’t use pre-vis.

    All those sequences you don’t like, would have still looked the same without pre-vis, because that’s what the director wants. It would have just took a lot more time and money, because they would have been trying to do it all in finals.

  • Matt

    @ Gary

    Do you work in Film? If you did, i think you would understand that million of dollars can be lost when a Director is unhappy with a finalized sequence. Everything must be redone, and re-rendered. Previs enables the director to see their vision, at a close enough quality level, at a much lower cost. If you have issue with the fact that the final product is not good (in your opinion), then the blame lies on the Director/Creators. Previs is just a tool.

  • Gary

    Yes, I work in film, and I know how much pre-vis and other cg tools can actually hinder final product because of its overuse. Filmmakers rely too heavily on cg, and in my opinion it hurts the final product.

  • pavan

    amazing stuff..
    i really like how this guys is cool..

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