Unlocking Creative Horizons
SJSU’s Master of Design, Specialization in Animation in the Heart of Silicon Valley
Raquel Coelho, Program Director of the Master of Design Animation Program at San José State University, and Virginia San Fratello, Design Department Chair, discuss the school’s innovative and state-of-the-art educational approach:
Can you tell us a bit about the Master of Design, Animation program at SJSU?
Our vision for this program is to support new voices in animation. We are interested in students with unique and original ideas for new TV shows, short films, or video games, and we want to nurture their ideas and elevate them to a higher professional level. In parallel, we also want to equip students with a solid understanding of digital tools widely used in animation. We want our students to use digital technology creatively to produce their content, exploring unique styles and narratives.
Why was the program established, and what makes it unique?
We have a very successful B.F.A in animation and illustration program. Our alumni work in the best animation studios in the U.S. and abroad. For a long time, we wanted to broaden our program offerings to include a master’s degree program. The primary motivation was to have a space dedicated to encouraging the development of students’ original ideas and have a strong focus on the creation of new and groundbreaking content for animation, with a second focus on digital tools and technology. The Department of Design at San José State University has decided to start the first Master of Design program in the California State University system. SJSU is uniquely located in Silicon Valley and is known as Silicon Valley’s public university.
Who makes up your faculty?
The animation program at SJSU currently has several faculty who work in the industry. We also hire lecturers who come from animation studios in the Bay Area and California at large. Our faculty are seasoned industry professionals and independent filmmakers. We are very rigorous when hiring faculty, as we want to offer students the best possible classroom experience, one that is hands-on, well-informed, and connects our students to opportunities in the field.
How do you prepare students for the brave new world of animation when they graduate? Students participating in the Master of Design, Animation program will have access to industry-standard equipment and software, including robotics, 3D printers, AR and VR setups, and computer labs. Our program is very well connected to the animation industry. Students will have access to monthly presentations with industry professionals and recruiters - broadening our students’ networking and portfolio review opportunities. Students will also have an industry mentor to help them with their capstone projects. We also offer guidance on creating a solid package when looking for jobs, including a strong portfolio, a well-written resumé and interview skills. In addition, we have a strong alum community, most of whom work in the field and support our current students.
What kind of advice can you give prospective students who want to apply to your program? We advise that you prepare an excellent portfolio and carefully craft a pre-proposal for your final project. The pre-proposal gives us an idea of the creative project you want to develop. We are interested in students with original ideas, a vision, a personal style, and the desire to create something - a short film, a game, a pilot for a TV show... something they are passionate about creating. That project might completely change during the two years of the master’s, but it will show us your interests and ideas. We want students who have a passion for the field and want to bring their own stories to life.
Do you offer job placement support to your students?
We offer guidance on putting together a site, a portfolio, a resumé, interview preparation, and contracts. We often connect our students with recruiters and recommend our best students to them. In addition, we often bring industry speakers to campus, providing students with networking opportunities.
What would you like our readers to know about SJSU’s Master of Design, Animation program?
We want them to know that we offer real opportunities for students to develop their ideas and stories, hands-on training in digital tools, and several opportunities to interface with industry professionals. Our community is welcoming, our professors know the industry, and we offer a professional-level degree program to set you up for success in the animation field. ◆
For more info, visit sjsu.edu/design/graduate-programs/animation-master
1/23/24 1:59 PM
Re-creating a modern disaster on the screen can be a tricky affair. Such was the case with director J. A. Bayona’s adaptation of Pablo Vierci’s book Society of the Snow, which documents the Andes flight disaster of 1972 in which the survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 had to endure 72 days of wintry conditions before their rescue. The filmmaker tapped visual effects supervisors Laura Pedro and Félix Bergés to oversee the digital augmentation of 900 shots for the Netflix survival thriller, which included
producing a mountain range environment and a dramatic plane crash.
“Laura was always with the main unit, and I was more with the second unit where I have a lot of experience capturing material,” explains Bergés. “The previs was designed together, and in postproduction we split the shots in half.”
According to the duo, their responsibilities were interchangeable.“We were like one person because Félix and I were thinking in the same way, so at the end it was easy for us to work together,” notes Laura Pedro. “During the process we were mixing [our roles] the whole time.”
The creators adopted two different approaches for principal photography.“The accident was a technical shoot where we did a lot of previs, while J.A. wanted do the rest of the movie in an organic way,” states Bergés. “Laura and I put no restrictions on him.”
One of the film’s most important symbolic images is of the passengers’ families watching their loved ones fly away with the plane reflected in the top lefthand corner.“The power of your visual effects is proportionate to the idea,” observes Bergés. “It’s always good to work [with] J.A. because he has a lot of good ideas.”
Mission: Maximum Realism
The team relied on photographic elements for the backgrounds to ground the visual effects within the real world. “In that sense, Society of the Snow is 100% photographic,” explains Bergés. “The only fully CG shots are of the plane going through the clouds. We used a lot of details to put more scale. And that was exactly the same for the Valley of Tears.”
Traveling to the actual site of the accident was a crucial decision. “We had to be there to be able the understand the dimensions and scale of mountains,” says Pedro. “Since we went there with J.A. and the DP [Pedro Luque], it was easier to know which type of shots work better to cinematically convey a prison with enormous walls.”
The duo says that there was room for visual experimentation. “One of the most beautiful scenes was done with a macro probe lens where everything is completely deformed, but to change the background for these types of lenses was difficult,” says Bergés. “However, when it works it is amazing. The camera language of this movie is one of the best things. I saw it with my 16-year-old nephew, and he said, ‘This is like a documentary; it has something that is true.’ The main goal for all of the departments was to be real.”
Three sets were used for the plane crash. “The first one is an entire plane from the beginning of the sequence to the initial turbulence,” reveals Pedro. “This part of the sequence is 100% real; there are no visual effects at all. The second set was the broken fuselage where we can make the most extreme movements and turbulence. The third set is for the end of the sequence when the plane crashes and everything collapses and the bodies in the seats collide with each other.”
The production mixed various techniques
to get the best results. “We had stunt performers, actors and dummies,” says Bergés. “Every shot was different [to confuse the eye] because if you have five or 10 shots in a row [of the same technique] then you’ll say, ‘One stunt performer, one dummy and three actors.’” Pedro adds, “We tried to mix stunts, special effects and visual effects to find the perfect way for each shot.”
One of the film’s most terrifying sequences depicts passengers in the backseats flying out of the open fuselage. “The beginning of the shot was two different plates,” reveals Pedro.“We shot the plate with the three guys who fall out and the second plate with the actors in front. Those were mixed together. When the crash happens, we replaced this with CG. But the beginning of the shot is real with the actual actors.”
This approach was commonplace in the production. “The beginning is actors or stunts, and the end are digital doubles,” remarks Bergés. “You see the actor, and when the movement is very fast, then we make a change to a digital double.”
Pedro points out that continuity was never an issue with editorial. “Since we planned the whole accident in previsualization, we shot exactly what J.A. wanted, so the accident is more or less the same since the first day until now in the film,” she says. “We only shot what was needed.”
The crash site scenes were captured elsewhere. “In the mountains, we knew that there were going to be a lot of days with bad weather, so we made a set of 60 meters of snow in a parking lot,” recalls Bergés. “It was small, but enough.”
LED screens were preferred over greenscreens, which would have contaminated the white snow with green spill. Pedro explains, “The material that we put on the LED screens were the original pictures from the valley, so the light was real.”
Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of snow to be simulated. We had a crew of 200 on set with the footprints accumulating over the course of shooting. The most technically challenging part was the snow surrounding the actors which had to be changed a lot of times. The footprints were tricky because you had to be precise.”
Details on Ice
The solution was found in the plate photography. “It was easy, in a way, for us,” notes Pedro, “because we had a lot of footage of real snow in the same mountain, so we could take some parts to produce the same snow in CG.”
Cold breaths were also inserted into 200 shots.“We did a plate shoot of Laura’s breaths in the cafeteria. On the top of the mountain there is a lot of humidity and [it] is below zero. It’s a good place to make steam, and Laura is a perfect source of steam,” says Pedro.
El Ranchito VFX was the main vendor with additional support provided Glassworks, Lamppost VFX, Miopia FX and Twin Pines “El Ranchito designed an asset of the backgrounds in an easy way to share with the other vendors, because in the beginning we knew that more help would be needed,” remarks Pedro. “Also, they worked with an application that we built with El Ranchito based on Unreal Engine. It showed inside the valley and the geometry of the Sierra Nevada so they could move the camera in this application and see where we were in the Valley of Tears. Because of this, they were able to work without us.”
The most complex shot was the final one of the plane crashing. “The total number of shots is 35,920!” says Bergés with a laugh. “In two years, I will be comfortable in watching the accident. The same thing happened to me when we did The Impossible and A Monster Calls. Another challenge was designing the valley in a realistic way. We made a good decision to make everything photographic. Now it seems easy, but it wasn’t that easy!” ◆
Society of the Snow is is currently currently streaming streaming on on
Netflix. Netflix.
‘One of the most beautiful scenes was done with a macro
probe lens where everything is completely deformed, but to
change the background for these types of lenses was difficult.'
— VFX supervisor Félix Bergés