On March 14, the DGA’s Special Projects Committee presented the seminar VFX 101: Making Creative Choices in the Guild’s Los Angeles Boardroom. Presented by AD/UPM VFX/Digital Technology Committee Chair Susan Zwerman, the seminar was a primer on making budget-conscious, creative VFX choices beyond CGI, providing members with information needed to expand their creative toolkits with a variety of visual effects techniques.
With a detailed PowerPoint presentation accompanied by visuals, Zwerman covered subjects such as: Stop Motion Animation, Matte Paintings and Created Environments, Models with Rear Projection, Motion and Performance Capture, Blue/Green Screen Composites, In-Camera Practical Effects, and more while answering questions from the audience as they arose.
With credits on more than 50 major films, Zwerman has produced the visual effects for works such as Alien Resurrection, Around the World in 80 Days, Fat Albert, and The Guardian. She is also the co-author, with Charles Finance, of the manual, The Visual Effects Producer: Understanding the Art and Business of VFX. A DGA member since 1979, Zwerman received the 2013 Frank Capra Achievement Award in recognition of career achievement and service to the industry and to the Directors Guild of America.