John Rogalski - Compositor

Reel is live!

2011-10-04T03:25:00.000-05:00

I burned a little midnight oil and just finished uploading my new reel to vimeo. It's in the process of being converted, so in about 30 minutes, it will be open to the world to see. Enjoy! Just click the link to the Reel above.

Time slips by

2011-09-10T19:04:00.000-05:00

I have to admit that I let this blog slip for quite too long. I have been working feverishly at work cranking out more and more commercials that I can't disclose in their entirety at this point, but I am now working on a new reel. I'm going be enlisted the assistance of a great friend of mine, Luca Fusi, to provide some audio engineering and tailoring on my show reel for 2011.

Stay posted as I slowly start cutting this bad boy together in the hopes of knocking your socks off.

Long awaited updates

2010-12-09T16:18:00.001-06:00

So my time in the apprenticeship with Reel FX is coming to a close, but they have offered me a staff position with the company. I have learned a lot during my time here so far, I hope to continue to learn and grow within this environment.

The official Katy Perry Fireworks video has been out for a while now. You can check out a quick behind the scenes blurb on it that was done by Side FX (Houdini) who did a quick commentary with one of my coworkers, Anthony Chappina. link

I also worked on an arena banner for Home Depot that is being shown in some sport's arenas as well as a project that will be going public on the 15th. I'll have some images for these in the future once I can track down the final stills to show publicly.

Updated Workings: Katy Perry Music Video

2010-10-26T10:12:00.000-05:00

So some of the things that I have been working on in the past couple months have launched publicly, and some have not yet. What I can show, is the teaser trailer that we have out for the new Katy Perry music video, Firework. http://www.radiumreelfx.com/commercial/work/katy-perry-firework-teaser

When the actual music video goes live, I'll be sure to post about it here. I have 2 other projects waiting in the wings also, so keep your eyes out for updates here.

Kit Kat

2010-08-27T15:34:00.001-05:00

So here is the first project that I was working on when I arrived at Reel FX. It was a commercial for Nestle and their Kit Kat product, using CG squirrels set to the theme of some Indian music. Enjoy!

What I've been up to...

2010-08-12T13:07:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a couple months now and a ton has happened.

Right around the same time I posted in June I got offered an apprenticeship position with Reel FX in Dallas, TX. I accepted and moved before the end of July.

Since I've been working here, I have learned an immense amount to both strengthen and improve my speed and skill set with compositing. I have had the pleasure to work on two projects since I have been here for the Commercial department of Reel FX. The most recent project that I was a part of has aired on the web for the Philips Cinema TV competition "Parallel Lines" in which submissions are made using the exact same script of dialogue. It is up to the directors to choose the subject, story, and placement of the dialogue. The submission that I was a part of the post production on is called "Iris" by Rob Groenwold. The Movie can be seen on both youtube and on the Philips Cinema TV website.

The project was very fast, probably a production cycle of less than 2 weeks.

When I work on more projects that go public I will announce them here :)

In the near future, I hope to be learning and getting more experience with both stereoscopic workflows and more in-depth utilization of Nuke's 3D systems. See you all on the flip side.

"Stay Fresh" Projects

2010-06-22T13:42:00.000-05:00

I've been on the hunt for some free footage lately to continue working on some projects to simply keep my skills up.

So far, I've come across a few shots from Pond5 on their weekly free footage that I'm going to be using for some roto projects. I really want to stay away from using Hollywoodvideo footage for green screening, but I know they have a ton, and that it's all free. We'll see. With any luck, I'll have a roto project done before I move out of Florida.

Nuke + Python Scripting

2010-05-26T13:52:00.000-05:00

Well, my most recent endeavor is going to bring me into the realm of scripting for Nuke. This was largely brought out by the fact that while I was working on my student reel at college, I constantly would have to remap my read node connections because of file pathing hierarchy changes. My plan now, is to simply learn how to script a node that will allow me to set a global variable in Nuke that can then be called into read nodes. Functionality will be similar to that of setting a project in Maya.

I plan to get myself set up with some nice scripting interfaces like Eclipse, for the the scope of this particular project, I think that jEdit may be all I require. I also read that pyDev might be another great addition to my arsenal for these types of scripts. Lots to look into and plenty of reading.

Evolve CG Weekend

2010-05-14T19:56:00.000-05:00

Heading down to Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow morning for a weekend jam-packed with all the tips that us fresh and hungry industry goers need! Looking forward to learning a ton and meeting some great people.

Student Reel

2010-04-27T09:49:00.000-05:00

The reel is now complete! 5 months in the making, and I learned a ton through the experience alone.

Hope you enjoy it.

Almost to Graduation

2010-04-25T12:10:00.000-05:00

So I've been busy getting this reel cut together. That mixed with tweaking and improving my shots for it. But the important part now is that I'm done :).

I'll be putting the student reel up on vimeo in the next few days, so stay tuned! The rest of my work now lies in the paperwork aspect of becoming a professional artist.

I will also be working out my graduation speech, as I was voted by my peers as the Advanced Achiever for our class, which gives me the opportunity to deliver a speech. So much to do in the remaining week and a half at Full Sail.

PCC3 Bay Harbor

2010-03-27T14:52:00.000-05:00

Here is the current status of my 3rd project asset for my student reel. Still a work in progress with some color fixes and aliasing issues on the renders, but otherwise coming together.

PCC3 - Bay Harbor (WIP) from John Rogalski on Vimeo.

Compositing Goodness

2010-02-14T16:07:00.000-06:00

Well, I have been busy since this was last updated. I'll post here a few projects and work that I have been prepping for my portfolio creation.

Compositing and Scene Finishing Class Final:
For this project we were given a bunch of different shots of one of our instructors with tracking markers on his face and other scene elements. From them, I picked out a shot and did a scene replacement behind him as well as replacing his head with a helmet. I had to track the elements with SynthEyes for a steady replacement. Comped in Nuke. Here is the breakdown video:

csf final from John Rogalski on Vimeo.

Portfolio Creation:
This is from the first month, where my goal was to expand my skills in the primary areas of compositing; rotoscope, keying, and tracking. These elements are still a WIP.

Key:

Matt Dancing over mountains from John Rogalski on Vimeo.

Roto:

PCC1 Rotoscope from John Rogalski on Vimeo.

Track:

PCC1 Tracking from John Rogalski on Vimeo.

More to come as I continue my work on my portfolio.

Final Short

2009-08-30T22:11:00.000-05:00

So I got a little lazy with updating as my group was completing the project, but here is the final product. I'm alright with how it came out but there is a lot of room for improvement. The character model was handled completely by one of my classmates, and considering it was the only thing he had to do for this entire short, I feel that he really slacked and gave the group some rather crappy work.

The animation could have been better as well, but we didn't get an animatable version of the model for about a week and a half. that being said, the mocap that we got to record and apply to the model was pretty decent although most of the capture seemed plain and lacking interest.

overall I am still happy with how it turned out, but like all things, more time spent on it would likely have made it a ton better.

without further ado, here is our Skating video.

Skating from John Rogalski on Vimeo.

Animated Short Project

2009-08-08T21:43:00.001-05:00

This month's class is structured towards learning to apply a production pipeline that we are familiar with using in a group and using it in software that we are not familiar with using yet. Transitioning from Maya to using Softimage is a drastic change for me, but I have kept and open mind and so far I'm enjoying modeling an environment in Softimage.

My group's project is based around ice skating. Our short is going to showcase our character, Su-Z, a female android trying to ice skate for her first time. The principle that we are thinking for the story will have her step out onto the ice, make some moves, and then probably lose her balance and fall. Here is what I have created so far in Softimage for our environment. I will be compositing in background plates of a skyline with trees.

Animation Final Part 2

2009-07-30T02:51:00.001-05:00

I composited the rest of the clips together, added some motion blur to the renders and did a couple fades. the song Adam picked out and he made the title image. all in all, i am rather pleased with how this turned out. enjoy.

Baseball Final from John Rogalski on Vimeo.

Animation Final part 1

2009-07-28T20:25:00.000-05:00

So here is my half of my animation final for APR. I'm happy with some aspects like the fall and the swing, but some of the other mechanics still look too clunky and uneven. But with the time deadline, I wasnt able to get that stuff fixed in time for turn in.

shot 1 - introduction of character

(http://www.vimeo.com/5812263)

shot 2 - swing

(http://www.vimeo.com/5812263)

shot 3 - reaction

(http://www.vimeo.com/5812263)

I might get the resources together and build a breakdown of my completion on animation passes, but right now im just focused on compositing this video together for the deadline. cheers for now.

-JMR

Hello World!

2009-07-26T01:03:00.001-05:00

I needed a place to post my thoughts/progressions/work to share with family, friends, and followers, so what better place than a blog :).

Things to look for in the future: some video links to my work, images and break downs as I am working over time, and random rants.

Thanks for stopping in and taking a look

-JMR