Jeremy Birn, in a relatively short career to date, has managed to teach, write a book, do feature film work and a line of commercials that makes you burn dinner to watch. You will see him making his way through the crowd, quiet and focused with a constant wry smile, a crisp button-down shirt and a quick and determined walk. When you stop him to talk a moment, he will oblige politely with that same smile, but his eyes will dart on a regular basis to the path he was on. You may never know what he is thinking, but you know he is always on his way somewhere. And he is getting there fast.

Jeremy has just joined the Pixar staff as a Lighting TD, starting this week (November 18, 2002). I can think of a lot less exhilarating ways to start a Monday! His impressive climb seems to stem from being very true to his goals. He is mostly self-taught and self-motivated, keeping his eye on the target without compromising his path. It's worked well for him. He has produced an excellent portfolio and managed to do great things with his own knowledge and skills while sharing those talents with others who have similar aspirations.

I am sure all of us who will most definitely watch Pixar's films will benefit from Jeremy's knowledge and talent. It's a very good match.

  Give a brief overview of what you do:

I am a Lighting Technical Director at Pixar Animation Studios.

  Where does your job fit into the production pipeline?

Basically a TD lights and renders shots after they have been animated, before they are composited or output to film.

  How long have you worked in the field?

I got out of grad school in 1995, so I guess that makes 7 years I've been working professionally -- although I was heavily into 3D graphics for about 7-8 years before that and did lots of work as a hobby and as a film student. I still have some of my student work on my website, and it doesn't suck as badly as most work done 7 or 8 years ago.

  What software or equipment do you use? Do you have your own setup?

I mostly use Maya or Softimage, with the Mental Ray or Renderman renderers, and Shake for compositing. Plus some proprietary tools here and there. I don't have my own setup; I sometimes run 3D software at home for the purposes of illustrating a book or article or preparing a class or presentation, but not for real production work.

  What have been your projects to date?

Before getting hired at Pixar, I had done a lot of freelance work here and there, had worked at Tippett Studio on the movie Evolution and on those Blockbuster commercials with the rabbit and guinea pig, had worked at Wild Brain on some animated Hershey's Kisses.

  What was your favorite project so far?

A good rule of thumb is: if your latest project isn't your favorite project so far, then you're wasting your time or not moving forwards. A lot of the projects I've worked on, from my thesis project at the Art Center College of Design, to some of the productions I worked on at Palomar Pictures, to projects at Tippett Studio and now at Pixar, have each held that status.

  What are your perfect working conditions?

I don't know. I have to say that Pixar's building in Emeryville is among the nicest digs I've seen for a computer graphics business.

  What size team do you prefer, and what sort of location?

There are pros and cons to different size companies. I used to want to do everything by myself, from modeling to rendering, and was afraid of getting pigeon-holed into too narrow a position at a large company. I remember staring at this contract that Disney offered me, to come work on the movie Dinosaurs, but the contract was binding, it wouldn't let me quit for 4 years (so I couldn't leave unless they fired me), and it basically said that Disney owned everything that I created or thought of over those four years. I didn't sign it, although I did leave Palomar to do freelance work, write my book, and other ventures. After a while, though, I really got tired of the kinds of projects I could get as a one-man-band and wanted to move on to bigger projects, which require bigger companies. Opportunities that I might have turned down when I wasn't ready for them have turned out to be the right move more recently, and I am very happy about getting to work on bigger film projects.

  Is there a list of people you would like to work with again?

I'm sure most of them. Most.

    What are some of your favorite movies?

God, there are so many that I wouldn't know where to start. In particular categories, such as animated films, I really liked Iron Giant, Toy Story, and A Bug's Life, and Chicken Run, but it's hard to compare how much I like those with films in other categories.

Also, I sometimes love a movie for some aspect of the production, even if it is flawed in other areas. For example, I have total respect for the awesome visual effects work in Reign of Fire (which otherwise had the kind of script and acting that you'd expect for any action movie with dragons in it), or so many of the visuals in Final Fantasy (maybe the humans didn't work, and the story was something written by the head of a video game company like “you must collect seven things to save the world”, but still - there was so much good work in there. If you cut the people out, even as abstract work Final Fantasy still beats Fantasia 2000 any day.)

    What scene would you have loved to work on, and what would you have done with the scene?  (This doesn't necessarily mean on a project you were involved with, it could be anything.):

I'll have to think about that one.

    What project or scene would you love to work on- your dream project? The one you've always seen run through your head that plays so perfectly every time?

I don't know. There are a lot of projects that are fun to work on, I look for some variety and seek new challenges. I guess I keep coming back to wanting to create more organic looking imagery, so anything that would be a dream project would have to push the state of the art in that department.

    Are there any challenges you would particularly like to take on?

I'd love to come back to some of the things I didn't quite succeed at, like the thesis project trying to create realistic human figures I was doing in 1994-1995, and take another stab at it. Especially after I get sub-surface scattering and dynamically simulated folds and wrinkles working for more realistic human flesh. I guess nobody can ever shake the feeling that projects always need to be redone, but that's one that I know I could do so much better at, and need to come back to until it is done right.

    If you could step into another crew members shoes for one day, whose shoes would you be wearing?

I think I'm in a pretty good position right now, actually.

    What would you like to do next?

I am just starting my new job at Pixar, and working on the upcoming film there is something I'm quite looking forwards to.

    Do you have any new (music, FX, projects, books, etc.) in the pipeline you would like to talk about?

Not right now.

    Do you have a list of people you would like to thank or give credit to?

If I started a list like that I'm sure it would end up being incomplete; having worked a lot of places, I've worked with a lot of people. In terms of computer graphics skills, I'm mostly self taught – there weren't all these Computer Arts programs back when I was in school. (Now there are too many of these programs, dumping thousands of extra wannabe’s on the job market, who often can't find jobs or are driving down wages when they do.) I learned 3D on my Amiga, taught myself Softimage while at Art Center, although there were a few courses in Alias, but I have learned newer programs such as Softimage|XSI and Maya at home or on the job, without any formal training.

    You have written and taught about many subjects. Do you prefer one over the other?

Not really many subjects, it's mostly the lighting and rendering material that I'm teaching and writing about in the past few years. I have some modeling tutorials on 3dRender as well, and info about the industry, but those are mostly from a few years ago. I am really fairly focused on creating images in my production work and my teaching and writing.

    Where would you like to see visual entertainment in 10 or 20 years?

I'd like to see animated films mature into multiple genres instead of being all considered one category. A lot of companies are getting into the market of making animated features, but they don't all need to be cut from the same cloth or head-to-head competitors. There's room for some more fun, friendly musicals for kids (and their parents), for more action-packed sci-fi fantasy adventures for teenagers and those who never grow up, and there's room for more experimental looks and visual styles.

I don't think the idea of CG features that are mostly mo-cap instead of character animation is dead, either, I think that can be done well. It needs to be done with respect for the actors (recording the voice and physical performance all at once for all the performers in the scene, not using different performances and dubbing them or pasting together motion clips taken at different times when characters are supposed to interact.)

It also needs to be done by people who don't see mo-cap as a shortcut but as another (very different) mode of production from character animation. A good analogy is puppet shows on TV. For decades, they were viewed as a cheap form of children's television programming, and they all stank. Then Jim Henson came along and developed the Muppets with obvious love for the characters, and brought puppet shows to heights that hadn't been imagined before.

The character's don't have to be realistic, but since mo-capped performances look human, they should be used for mostly humanoid characters, and not for ones with cartoon styles. Many forms of art (drawing, painting, sculpture) have progressed to include depictions of the human form that are solid enough to evoke a visceral response, a sense of real bodies alive with flesh and muscle and tension, without everything looking disturbingly wrong; despite some failures along the way, there's no reason to think that computer animation won't get there too and exploit it for all it's worth.

To learn more about Jeremy Birn, go to www.3dRender.com

Purchase products featuring Jeremy Birn's work here:

MUSIC:

Finding Nemo (Soundtrack) List Price: $18.98 Our Price: $14.99 You Save: $3.99 (21%)  BOOK- Buy now- $14.99	Finding Nemo (Read-Along CD) Our Price: $9.98   BOOK- Buy now- $9.98

Evolution (Widescreen) List Price: $26.99 Our Price: $24.29 You Save: $2.70 (10%)  DVD- Buy now- $24.29	Evolution NTSC Our Price: $9.95 VHS- Pre-order- $9.95 Availability: This item will be released on January 7, 2003. You may order it now and it will be shipped to you when it arrives.

Digital Lighting &  Rendering List Price: $50.00 Our Price: $35.00 You Save: $15.00 (30%)  BOOK- Buy now- $35.00

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