Hydraulx enters pressurized LA market: this new studio lends its visual effects energy to films, spots and music videos - Open House - Brief Article

Post, Nov, 2002 by Ann Fisher

SANTA MONICA -- Hydraulics is the science of liquid affecting motion, or more specifically the pressure created when liquid is forced through a small hole. Now, take that concept and apply it to computer graphics: A lot of brain waves poured into a little CG workstation. The result? Hydraulx, a new visual effects company that powers high energy music videos and commercial spots.

Greg and Colin Strause started Hydraulx in April 2002, fresh from Pixel Envy, another visual effects house that they had owned with a third partner. The partnership dissolved and the core talent followed the Strause brothers.

As they had in the past, the Strauses concentrate on creating, directing or supervising visual effects for feature films, music videos and are pushing more into commercial work. They do 3D production design, creating digital sets for projects like Jennifer Lopez and Will Smith videos, Both are visual effects directors and supervisors, and rep themselves out as regular directors, too, under the moniker "The Brothers Strause."

BUSINESS IS JUMPING

They have absolutely no qualms about opening up in the current economic climate. "This is a very relation-based business, and we've been able to build up a lot of strong relationships with producers, studio executives, directors. It's taken years but we're at the point now where we know a lot of people. We believe that the best people are busy even when the town's slow," says Greg.

These guys have been in the business a decade, and clients rely on their experience and expertise. "Being directors, we're very sympathetic to the production process," says Greg. "One of the reasons people like working with us is we always find solutions in terms of technical approaches, It doesn't require outlandish amounts of time on set We can actually get in there and direct the effects shots for people--we have the knowledge, we operate the cameras, Our stuff is much more helping and coming up with the creative rather than just executing someone else's idea."

Hydraulx retains five full-time staffers, plus a half-dozen more freelancers as needed, working on 10 Alias/Wavefront Maya workstations (V.4 and V.4.5), all 2-gig custom-made Linux boxes. Compositing is done in Discreet Inferno, Flame and Combustion. The artists use the automated 2d3 Boujou for camera tracking.

HIGH ON HIGH DEF

Hydraulx is a fully HD set-up with D-5 HD feeding into Discreet Infernos. Both Infernos have HD broadcast monitors. The Strause brothers started working with HD four or five years ago at Pixel Envy.

"What we're starting to see is a lot of TV commercials getting mastered at 24p and then output back to film," says Greg. "So in the right circumstances we'll do them in high def. Last year we did the Destiny's Child girls in a Target ad, we did it in HD and made one version out to film for the theaters and downrezed it to NTSC for broadcast. You're starting to see commercials going out to different media formats."

An interesting service Hydraulx offers is a Polhemus hand-held 3D laser scanner that works like a barcode reader when its wand is waved over a real model. "It automatically generates a 3D model" in realtime, says Greg. "You can do objects and people and clothing. You get very high resolution data sets out of it."

THE WORK

Current fun projects include Laoney Tunes and Torque, a Nike campaign and directing a second music video for Disturbed. Other high-profile jobs include the video of Will Smith's Nod Your Head: Black Suits Coming, a song from the summer feature Men in Black II. A monumental $2 million job, it had to be posted in five weeks and contained 380 effects shots, almost all greenscreen with an entirely digital stadium filled with 20.000 people, replicated from 20, There was no motion control, just lots of camera tracking. There were also screen graphics, CG aliens and set extensions.

Hydraulx used the Polhemus on the video to scan the Men in Black creatures because the union wouldn't let the puppeteers work on the music video. "We just took the laser scanner, scanned the puppets and then made digital ones and had our animators do it," says Greg. The client was production company DNA,

Hydraulx also did a :30 Pepsi spot for DNA called Dance. They wanted a modern, pristine look with Pepsi colors. There are four environments, representing different urban areas of the country, though dancers were shot all greenscreen.

RELATED ARTICLE: MAKE CONTACT

Hydraulx

1230 Montana Avenue

Santa Monica, CA

90403

310-393-9011

www.hydraulx.com

Clients: Warner Bros, Pepsi, Nike

Principals: Greg and Colin Strause

Equipment: Alias/Wavefront Maya; Discreet Inferno, Flame and Combustion; 2d3 Boujou; Polhemus 3D scanner