mike fink x-men 2

In 1982, when some of our users yet had not taken their first steps, Mike Fink already was working in the special effects of popular 'War Games'. Later he worked in movies like 'Braveheart', 'Mars Attacks' or 'Batman Returns', with which even he was nominated to the Oscar.

More recently, Mike has been working at Cinesite as Supervisor of Visual Effects at both spectacular movies directed by Bryan Singer with the X-men.

We have had the opportunity to speak with him on his beginnings, the films in which have worked, his involvement in 'X-Men 2', the Visual Effects generated in Cinesite for this film, his projects...

El Portal del 3D y la Animación - When some of our users still had not born, in 1982, you already were working in the 'War Games' Visual Effects. How you entered at the world of VFX? What had You done up to this moment?

3DA - After 'War Games', films like 'Braveheart', 'Lethal Weapon 4', even the nomination to the Oscars for 'Batman Returns' in 1993. Which are the films in which you have enjoyed more working throughout your career? And which have made you suffer more?

Mike - The films I enjoyed the most were WarGames, Batman Returns, Braveheart, Mars Attacks!, and X-Men 2. The films that made me suffer the most I’d rather not speak about.

3DA - Nowadays, you have participated in the creation of the VFX for the X-Men's films. What has changed between the effects of the first part and those of second? Which you think that it is the most remarkable difference?

Mike - The two films were greatly different in scale. The first film was more intimate, more claustrophobic. X2 depended on the effects to lend scale and substance to what the characters were going through. The best thing about both films is that we get to create effects that are character driven. This gives me an opportunity to really help tell the story with the visual effects. So, the most remarkable difference is in the scale of the effects (Nightcrawler, the Tornado chase, Cerebro, the Plastic Prison, the Big Water in the end sequence).

3DA - Many more effects, new characters... All this caused that it had to distribute the work between Cinesite, Rythm & Hues and Kleiser-Walczak. What effects Cinesite worked in? What scenes?

Mike - Cinesite worked on the Nightcrawler effects, Cerebro, Pyro, the Cyclops/Jean Gray fight, The Jean Gray/Phoenix effect, and many other shots. About 300 total shots were at Cinesite. The supervisor at Cinesite was Stephen Rosenbaum, who worked with me on the design and execution of the shots.

3DA - This second part opens with one of the most impressive effects of all the movie, the teletransportations of Nightcrawler in the White House. Many spectators, followers of cómics of the X-Men, we waited for smoke clouds but we were surprised with a nice effect of fading. How long took in obtaining the final result? How many people worked in this effect?

Mike - Thank you. This effect was done at Cinesite with a core crew of maybe 10 people for both tail animation and 'Bamfs'. We started development of the 'Bamf' effect in June 2002, and had a pretty good looking Bamf in November.

3DA - As we said in the previous question, the Nightcrawler's 'Bamf' effect is one of most spectacular. How is made? Is Alan Cumming who appears and disappears more than 40 times between jumps or it's a digital double generated in 3D?

Mike - The Bamf is a particle effect which uses volumetric rendering to de-materialize Nightcrawler into a rapidly expanding cloud of smoke that is his color, then additional volumetric elements are used to expand this cloud violently as if air were rushing into the vacuum formed by the absent body and disturbing the smoke. The software used was Houdini and a proprietary particle system written at Cinesite by Jerry Tessendorf called 'Partman'.

There are no digital doubles in the sequence sometimes it is Alan Cumming, and sometimes it is his stunt double – depending on the needs of the shot.

3DA - In reference to Cerebro, what is real image and what is CG? How was generated the effect of tracking of mutants?

Mike - Hmmm... I’d have to go over each shot with you shot by shot to tell you what was real and what was CG. Shots done on the set before Cerebro or Dark Cerebro are activated are live action set pieces with digital set extensions (some of which required the replacement of all of the practical set with a digital set). The sequence in which Magneto re-arranges Dark Cerebro is entirely CG once Magneto starts to levitate. Of course, all of the 'search' sequences are fully CG.

The effect of tracking mutants is fairly complicated. We shot 16,000 feet of film of people in different angles and positions with different camera moves for the sequence. The environment is once again volumetric particles, with passes for the different layers of atmosphere, and the different functions. The people were mapped on to 'billboards' and animated through the scene in 3D. Of course, Xavier, the Little Girl, and Mutant 143 were shot green screen. All the animations were designed by me in computer pre-visualizations that I went over with Bryan Singer.

3DA - Another one of the new effects incorporated in 'X-Men 2' is the one of the fire dominated by Pyro. Is all the fire generated in CG? How was generated this CG fire and what was the most difficult creating this effect?

Mike - Some of the fire is CG and some is real. We shot special elements for the real pieces against black, and composited them into the live action backgrounds, along with other fire elements. Most of the CG fire is for when Pyro is shooting those long columnar tubes of fire. These were also based on particle software developed at Cinesite.

Now that we’re done, it’s hard for me or Stephen Rosenbaum to remember just by looking which shots had CG fire, and which used real elements. The most difficult part of CG fire is controlling the speed of the fire and its detail. Also, since most of this software is designed around fluid dynamics, it’s best if you’re doing shots which require the fire to act naturally. We, of course, needed to animate the fire in very specific ways.

3DA - For a movie with Visual Effects as those of 'X-Men 2' must be necessary specific software for each effect. What software has been used to create the VFX? Have you created some specific tool?

Mike - I’m sorry, but I’ll have to give you the short answer to these questions. The full answer will take many, many pages. Generally, the major commercial 3D packages used were Maya and Houdini. Quite a bit of custom software was written to augment these programs, and some shots used entirely custom tools.

We rendered in many different renderers, but depended quite a bit on Renderman. Again, custom render tools were written for things like Cerebro, the Big Water, Mystique, the Tornadoes, and the Plastic Prison. Since many of the effects were particle based, they required custom code.

Composite packages included Shake, Cineon, Inferno, and many proprietary packages written at each facility.

3DA - How have been generated the effects like those of rays sent by Cyclops or the one of freezing of Bobby Drake, Iceman? And the one of Kitty through the things?

Mike - Wow, this is difficult to answer because all of my data for these is on an archive disc that is in my office at Warner Bros. So, I’m pretty sketchy here. Cyclops’ blast was a combination of particles, shaders for some twisty shapes, and animated noise fields.

The ice was mostly done in Houdini, if I remember right, and used some custom code to make the shapes propagate like ice growing. I can’t remember what the specific routine was in the growing of the ice, I’ll have to get back to you on that. The vapor (more particles) was fairly simple particle animation done in Houdini and Partman.

The Kitty passing through the walls shots were composited in Cineon from photographed elements. We added some subtle warps, and did some scaling and speed manipulation to match foreground green screen elements of Kitty with the separately shot backgrounds. There were no 3D elements used in the Kitty shots.

3DA - Undoubtedly, another one of the most spectacular effects are the Mystique's transformations generated by Kleiser-Walczak, that in some scenes gets to repeat several times, like in the one of the tent. How was generated this effect? What was the most complicated with this character?

Mike - Wow, you ask very hard questions.

Rebecca was cyberscanned for an accurate model both in body stocking and in wardrobe. The scales are all separate geometry and had custom software to control their animation. Custom shaders were written for the layers of skin, shiny patches, and scales. The reveal was driven by what we called a 'crack map' which spread up and over her body depending on the needs of each shot. Special software was written to accomplish the skin motion and 3D deformation around the reveals. The whole system was built by Frank Vitz to work procedurally, so that once we liked the speed and shape of the transition, the other effects pretty much followed along. She was lit using HDRI images captured while shooting. I can’t remember the renderer. We recreated the environments for the lighting using Paul Debevec’s HDR Shop.

The most difficult thing was that although the transformations are fully 3D, it was difficult to keep them looking that way through the shots. The transition where Logan becomes Mystique and kicks the soldiers was very tricky because it was so short. I would have preferred that we had some more frames to make the animation better for that shot.

3DA - In the last scene, in that Jean Grey makes levitate the X-Jet while the dam break up and she undergoes her... transformation (already we want to see the third part), worked Cinesite and Rythm & Hues. How and why was made this joint work? What was in charge of each one of the studios?

Mike - My carpal tunnel syndrome is kicking in here. Whoa!

Cinesite began the film knowing they were doing some kind of Phoenix effect. The scene with the water was not written until we were shooting the movie and Rhythm and Hues stepped in to do that because Cinesite could take no new shots. So, we wound up with two effects by two facilities in the same shots.

Stephen Rosenbaum was the supervisor at Cinesite, and Richard Hollander at Rhythm & Hues. The three of us worked closely together to make sure that elements went back and forth with little trouble.

3DA - After a project like this one, and seeing the quality of the projects in which already you had worked throughout your career, what would you like to do? In what project you work at the moment and what you can tell us about this?

Mike - What I’d like to do is keep working. I like what I do. Currently, I am working on 'Constantine' at Warner Bros. It’s a contemporary supernatural film. Not my usual stuff, but a great opportunity to do some very cool work.

3DA - In order to finish, we would request you that you gave an advice to our users who dream about being able to participate someday in projects like in which you have participated?

Mike - My strongest advice is to keep at it. It’s very tough and competitive, but if you really want to do work like this, then keep on trying to do your best work and work with the best people you can find. Don’t be shy. Also, don’t be afraid to turn down work on projects you may find objectionable. In the long run, your body of work is what you make it, and you want to be proud of what you create. But, always go strongly for work that will stretch you and increase your skills.

From 'El Portal del 3D y la Animación' we would to thank Rita Cahill and Mike Fink for making this interview possible. We wish the best of luck to her, and that she continues working on such quality projects, and even more.

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