https://greggangemi.com Gregory Gangemi Tue, 25 Jun 2024 14:15:09 +0000 https://greggangemi.com en https://greggangemi.com/Episodic-VFX-Showreel-2024 Thu, 02 Apr 2020 14:24:24 +0000 Gregory Gangemi https://greggangemi.com/Episodic-VFX-Showreel-2024 Greg Gangemi Episodic VFX Showreel VFX BREAKDOWN (updated June 28, 2024) American Horror Stories We designed the larva and the tapeworm, and replaced their prop versions which were used in production. American Horror Story This project was fun, to rapidly age and disintegrate Kim Kardashian's face. We built on some existing Folks tech to develop a great technique of retargeting face tracking data from Keen Tools onto a bespoke face rig. All the face roto-animation for 4 shots took around 2-3 days with cleanup. We had scans of Kim K's face in different poses and we built them into the rig as blendshape targets. Again we worked hand in hand with our Folks brethren. The Changeling This project was my first big challenge at Fuse, a full-CG, minute long ocean sequence which would introduce the season of The Changeling, an Apple+ series based on the book by Victor LaValle. We had a brand new team of artists who had never worked together before, who I had just hired. This was the first project we did in the new Pitch Black pipeline which was totally new to all of us. It was the first time Fuse NY, or I, had ever done ocean work on this scale. I did previs at the start of the process, some of which made it into the cut. We approached it in Houdini, and got some crucial help from our new cohorts at Folks in Toronto and Montreal. The Toronto Dev team wrote a bespoke Arnold Ocean shader. The creative on the project changed a lot and the going got extremely tough. But the team persevered and made something that I am very proud of. I supervised up to around 15-20 artists between the different Pitch Black locations, on asset work for the boat, animation, shading and lighting, and ocean and atmospheric FX, and although the lead time was around 9 months, due to creative challenges we did most of the heavy lifting in the last 3. American Sports Story Every stadium and crowd in this series was fully CG. We built at least 5 full stadiums for this long season of football games. I oversaw all aspects of the CG from the outset, bidding and rebidding the entire season as things shifted. I scheduled and managed a team fluctuating from 5-10 artists. I managed the asset build of all the stadiums, the development and implementation of the crowd system, and the final look. We delivered around 80 crowd shots for the season. Dickinson Trains: I was on-set for the train sequence, which includes the shots in the station. The two other shots were based on stock footage. For the train approaching camera we covered a real train with our period-specific train, and for the aerial we used a combination of matte painting and a 3D train and smoke. Flies: This season had many fly shots and some of them were pretty interesting. I supervised the animation, lighting and rendering of the fly on the window and the fly going up the nose. I did the swarming shot myself, using Houdini to create, light and render the fly swarm elements. Balloon: I oversaw the look development of the balloon, the simulation of the tassles, as well as the lighting and rendering. Ghost horses: This show was my first big challenge at The Molecule, and the ghost horses were the toughest part. I picked a freelance Houdini artist I had worked with to be the main artist on the horses, and together with the VFX supervisor we went through many iterations of look and feel until we arrived at this solution. It is a particle effect driven by a smoke simulation. I supervised the animation of the horses and the cloth and rigid body simulation of the harness as well. I also developed additional lighting passes that we needed to integrate the effects into the shots. Billions Robots: I supervised everything in this sequence, from the design and modeling of the robots from concept art, to the animation, lighting and rendering. I was on-set for the sequence and captured grey and chrome balls, color charts, set measurements, and HDRIs. This made re-creating the lighting very straightforward. My lead artist did an excellent job of translating concept art into the models of these robots, and also of doing look development of both, which I supervised. This was the first work for Billions that The Molecule had ever done, and after it's completion more work for Billions came through. Soundtrack: "Orb" by Glass Beams https://greggangemi.com/Commercial-Showreel-2018 Tue, 02 Jun 2015 21:01:39 +0000 Gregory Gangemi https://greggangemi.com/Commercial-Showreel-2018 Greg Gangemi Commercial Showreel BREAKDOWN (updated July 24, 2018) Skyrim "Claws" -The Mill NY -Director: Wayne McClammy, Hungryman -I was CG co-lead on this job with Christian Nielsen, overseeing roughly 10 CG artists and matte painters. I was engaged in all aspects of the project, from early discussions with director Wayne McClammy, to the tech-scout in and around Toronto, to the production of all CG elements, and the co-ordination with the comp team, to deliver this exciting spot. I also was engaged in many shots as lighter and environment artist, using Houdini, Maya, Arnold, and Nuke to create, shade, and render mountain elements and clouds, the background ruins behind the Dragonborn, digidoubles with hair grooms for both the gamer and the Dragonborn, saliva for the dragon, and background snow and trees. -Awards: D&AD Wood Pencil - Film Advertising Crafts - Visual Effects OFFF by Night - Antwerp 2016 - Titles -The Mill NY -Director: William Arnold, The Mill+ -I was involved as one of a small team of artists who got to undertake this fun and creative project to create the title sequence for OFFF by Night, an offshoot of the well known design festival OFFF that originated in Spain. With no rules, no brief, and the only deliverable being due a few days before the festival, we created an animation sequence that features a psychedelic style and fluid transformations. Using Houdini and Maya, I created original setups and also used existing setups to create shots for each of the artists featured in this innovative design festival. I was also one of the group that traveled to Antwerp, Belgium to oversee the installation of our work and support William Arnold who was a featured speaker at the festival. -Awards: Communication Arts - Award Of Excellence - Winner in Motion Graphics The One Show - WINNER: Bronze | Motion Graphics / Title Sequences AICP - Winner in Design "The Human Race" -The Mill NY -Directors: Rama Allen and Westley Sarokin, The Mill+ - I was one of a group of Mill artists who participated in this groundbreaking, one-of-a-kind project in close collaboration with Epic Games, makers on Unreal Engine. Being engaged as a fairly non-technical CG lighting artist, I used a bespoke lighting setup to light, render, and composite the CG cars into this film in realtime using Unreal. The film employed The Mill Blackbird, an invention developed to enable CG artists to render cars better, more accurately, and more easily. We used the footage captured by 4 RED cameras that sit on top of the Blackbird as the CG cars' environment, so they have accurate moving reflections. -Awards: Siggraph - Best Real-Time Graphics & Interactivity Award Hennessy "The Piccards" -The Mill NY -Director: Daniel Wolf, Somesuch -I lit these shots, and rendered passes for comp. Maya, Arnold. -Awards: AICP - Winner in Visual Effects D&AD graphite Pencil - Film Advertising Crafts - Visual Effects AICE winner for Visual Effects and Best of New York Call of Duty: Ghosts Cinematics "Ghost Stories" -Modified or created shaders and lit these 2 shots. -The Mill LA -software: Maya, Arnold Call of Duty: Ghosts Cinematics "Satellite" -Sequence Lead. Look dev for tanks, ground, airplanes and satellite dishes and lit the scene. -The Mill LA -software: Houdini, Mantra Toyota Avalon "Formula" - Replicated the original set for these mostly cg shots. The room was textured with HDRIs of the set, and was both renderable and functioned as a light source. An area light was textured with an HDRI of the softbox on the set. Car and room passes were rendered, with ink elements from Houdini team and ink elements shot in a tank. The water draining shot was alembic meshes from Houdini to Maya, which I shaded, lit, and rendered in mental ray. -The Mill LA -software: Maya, mental ray, Nuke Toyota Avalon "Electricity" -Modified the car, room and lighting setup from "Formula" to render these fully CG shots. Look dev of the electrical pylons. Built an equivalent room and car setup in Houdini for rendering interactive lighting of the electricity effects, car and room. The car was rendered in both Mantra and mental ray, comped together using the car exterior from mental ray and the interior from Mantra. -The Mill LA -software: Maya, mental ray, Houdini, Mantra, Nuke Music: "Officer, Officer" by Anika https://greggangemi.com/Mountain-Dinos-2024 Tue, 25 Jun 2024 14:15:09 +0000 Gregory Gangemi https://greggangemi.com/Mountain-Dinos-2024 MOUNTAIN DINOS What a wonderful world! Mountain Dinos pass and greet each other, full of kindness and peace. There is no war in a world of Dinos, their differences are only cause for joy and celebration. If only our world was more like theirs. These looping videos were shot on the island of Mt. Desert in Maine's Acadia region. I digitally modeled, textured, rigged, animated, lit, rendered and composited them into the scenes. All sound design was done by me as well. https://greggangemi.com/Three-Moons-2024 Tue, 25 Jun 2024 13:28:16 +0000 Gregory Gangemi https://greggangemi.com/Three-Moons-2024 THREE MOONS Blackness (Nigredo), Whiteness (Albedo), Yellowness (Citrinitas), Redness (Rubedo). The daily progression, the yearly seasonal progression, the progression of life. "I write of her as the White Goddess because white is her principal colour, the colour of the first member of her moon-trinity. But when Suidas the Byzantine records that Io was a cow that changed her colour from white to rose and then to black he means that the New Moon is the white goddess of birth and growth; the Full Moon, the red goddess of love and battle; the Old Moon, the black goddess of death and divination." Robert Graves, The White Goddess, London, Faber and Faber, 1948. p 65. "...the dawn is between day and night and has two colours, namely yellow and red, and thus our science, or alchemy, produces the yellow and red colours, which are between black and white." Marie-Louise von Franz, Alchemy, Toronto, Inner City Books. p 196. Starring Raquel Nave, Music by Dallas Acid, Written and Directed by Gregory Gangemi, Styling by Annette Gallo, Props by Nico Stone, Titles by Sarah La Puerta, Visual Effects by Felipe Amaya, Aaron Wei, Sergey Polishchuk https://greggangemi.com/Hans-Joachim-Roedelius-Dallas-Acid-Mind-Cinema-2021 Tue, 05 Oct 2021 16:38:55 +0000 Gregory Gangemi https://greggangemi.com/Hans-Joachim-Roedelius-Dallas-Acid-Mind-Cinema-2021 This is the official video for the title track Mind Cinema, off the new collaborative album of Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dallas Acid. Mind Cinema will be released by Astral Spirits records October 2021. The album was written and engineered by Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dallas Acid. Mixed by Erik Wofford and mastered by Arnold Kasar. The video was created by me! The video premiered on Foxy Digitalis - click here. https://greggangemi.com/Rachel-Comey-brand-animations-2021 Wed, 13 Jan 2021 11:29:40 +0000 Gregory Gangemi https://greggangemi.com/Rachel-Comey-brand-animations-2021 I was asked by Rachel Comey if she could use some of my animations to promote the launch of her Pre-Spring 2021 collection. I contributed 2 animations. I also created this custom animation for her Summer collection. https://greggangemi.com/Tapestry-Mirror-Music-Video-2020 Sun, 05 Apr 2020 20:31:16 +0000 Gregory Gangemi https://greggangemi.com/Tapestry-Mirror-Music-Video-2020 This is a music video for a track from Melodien's latest record Apeiron. This song is called "Tapestry Mirror" and when I heard a clip of it I was immediately inspired to make a visual accompaniment. Thanks to Harry Sumnall of Melodien for his willingness to collaborate. https://greggangemi.com/Greenpeace-Animated-short-films-2019 Mon, 14 Oct 2019 10:44:03 +0000 Gregory Gangemi https://greggangemi.com/Greenpeace-Animated-short-films-2019 I was given the opportunity to create 3 short films for Greenpeace showing different ways to avoid plastic waste. Working directly with the Greenpeace team to develop the stories was a great experience for me. It was also fun to choose and work with a really talented team of artists. I am very grateful in particular to Jocelyn Tsaih who brilliantly art directed these visual stories. Her style drove the entire look. I was also lucky to get audio from James Merle Thomas, sounds that really give life and mood to the films. Joshua Merck and Will Robertson are old friends. It was excellent to have them overseeing storyboards and animation. My small team of CG artists at The Molecule in NYC completed the shots and I am very grateful to Nico DelGiudice, CJ Chun and Janice Lee for their top notch work. https://greggangemi.com/Fun-Country-Music-Video-2018 Mon, 23 Jul 2018 14:00:32 +0000 Gregory Gangemi https://greggangemi.com/Fun-Country-Music-Video-2018 Fun Country - Official Music Video I had the pleasure of writing and directing this music video for the title track off the debut album from Fun Country, a rad new band from LA. Taking inspiration from the druggy, hazed-out vibe of the palm deserts of southern CA, where the video was shot, this is a road trip video with the emphasis on trip. Video directed by Gregory Gangemi Edit by Rachel Greco Compositing by Sarah Eim and Blake Druery Color by Mikey Rossiter Fun Country is David Lantzman and Carl Harders https://greggangemi.com/Eric-Copeland-Music-Video-2017 Tue, 23 Jan 2018 14:34:19 +0000 Gregory Gangemi https://greggangemi.com/Eric-Copeland-Music-Video-2017 I directed this music video for Eric Copeland's song Mixer Shredder. Eric Copeland is an original member of Black Dice, and his new record on DFA records is called Goofballs, released 2017.