I was a guest on the CG Pro Podcast, specifically in Episode 55, titled “Machine Learning and the State of the Film Industry with Andrew Cochrane”. We talked about a bunch of different topics, mostly centered around AI / ML and the sad state of the entertainment industry these days. It was a pretty wide-ranging…
There is a lot of noise and hand-wringing about AI in general right now: it’s going to steal jobs, it’s going to be smarter than us, it’s going to kill us all, etc. There are especially loud discussions around generative AI – neural nets that can transform the style of a given image or turn…
For Comic Con 2016, Within and Here Be Dragons partnered with Sam Esmail to bring his show Mr. Robot into virtual reality. Andrew supervised post production stitching/cleanup, CG ceiling replacements, and a stylized dream sequence montage for Mirada’s portions of the 13-minute 360º video. The experience was ‘simulcast’ in a specific synchronized time window across Within’s VR apps and at a live event at Comic Con, then shown exclusively at the convention in a recreation of Elliott’s apartment.
in 2014 Apple and U2 teamed up to make an epic commercial for the launch of the iPhone 6, and Andrew was the VFX Supervisor.
Experience Michigan Football like never before. These 360º Virtual Reality experiences brings you into the huddle, onto the field and inside the program from an incredible player’s perspective. Andrew helped to lead the technical supervision of the experience, aiding in the stitching and organization of the huge amount of video 360 data.
I was interviewed during NAB by Steve Waskul about the traditional and interactive work currently happening at Mirada. This interview explores my winding path to end up leading digital and interactive projects and covers some of the trends affecting traditional and immersive content production today. We also talked about how Mirada approaches projects using emerging…
I had the distinct honor to be interviewed by David Gidali a little while ago, and the result was last week’s episode of The Post Post Podcast! The PPP features interviews with post production artists who have managed to move onwards / upwards from VFX or other parts of post to become writers, directors, producers, and other forms of content creators. Previous episodes have featured Aaron Nee (Masters of the Universe, Minecraft), Tomer Eshed (Dragon Rider), Kevin R. Adams and Joe Ksander (Next Gen), and – honestly completely randomly – one of my good friends and classmates from film school Ethan Shaftel!
Anthony Magliocco from Digital Tech Today recently filmed an interview with me about the art, business, and technology of VR and AR. He has released a series of videos from this interview, divided into various topics and collectively covering a wide range of my thoughts on the industry as it develops. We talked for several hours and the conversation covered a lot of ground, so there’s 7 videos in the VR interview series.
Mettle just posted part 3 of a series of behind the scenes interviews with John and I about the “Vegas:Alter Your Reality” project (part 1 here, part 2 here). This time it’s a close-up on our process for bringing Signal Noise‘s vision of Las Vegas to life in “Vegas Rising”. This immersive film features the most artwork directly from its featured artist due to James’ ability to create most of the buildings using his normal weapon of choice: Adobe Illustrator.
In part two of a series of posts about the recently-completed “Vegas: Alter Your Reality” 360º video art project, Mettle has taken a plunge into the process that brought Fafi’s vision of Las Vegas to life. Of all five artists, Fafi’s style was the most ‘analog’, which presented many creative and technical challenges for the team to solve.
3DArtist recently interviewed John and I about our use of Maxon’s Cinema 4D in creating five animated 360º films for the Vegas: Alter Your Reality art project. This interview dives into the details of how we used C4D and its integrations with Adobe products, Octane, and plugins such as X-Particles and RealFlow to bring the vision and style of each artist into VR.
NVIDIA recently asked me to provide some thoughts about our use of Octane in the Vegas: Alter Your Reality 360º animation project, seen in the above-embedded video. This was the largest project I have used GPU rendering on to date, and the amount of refinement that we were able to do due to the insanely fast render times was a luxury that I just simply have never had. GPU rendering has massively changed the speed at which CGI can be generated and iterated, and it is only getting better and faster. Renders that literally took hours a few years ago are now almost realtime, which is allowing experimentation and refinement that was previously just simply too expensive to attempt.
FMX 2016 has come and gone and left us completely jetlagged (but inspired). This is the first time that I have made it to FMX, and after years of hearing great things from those who have gone I can say first-hand that it is a great conference and you should put it on your radar!
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
This commercial uses seamless compositing to combine a single long take with real and CG food. Andrew served as VFX supervisor for this commercial and the two shorter versions that were created for the same campaign to introduce the new Taco Bell mobile app.
Andrew was the VFX supervisor for this CG-based commercial, created in Maya/Maxwell for the launch of the Nintendo 2Ds.
Andrew supervised the shooting and VFX for this series of commercials announcing 4 new computers for HP. He simultaneously oversaw the creation of very large still frames for print and billboard use for the products in this campaign.
Andrew supervised the VFX for this series of commercials, as well as the imagery used in print ads for United Healthcare’s “By The Numbers” annual campaign.
Andrew supervised the shoot and VFX for this DiGiorno Pizza commercial.
Andrew was the CG supervisor on this animated spot for the announcement of Hershey’s Drops. Choreography was provided by Charles “Chucky” Klapow, who worked closely with Mirada’s animators to give each drop a unique character and a role to play in the final coordinated dance number.
Andrew supervised the fluid simulation, rendering, and compositing for the end tag and print components of the launch for Chase’s new Liquid credit card.
Andrew supervised the VFX on this campaign of commercials for Michelob Ultra beer.
The task at hand was to create photoreal CG of popcorn, coke, and ice in stereoscopic 3D for a commercial that would play before every 3D movie at Carmike Cinemas. Maxwell Render offered a universal platform that worked and rendered out of all software packages on the project, delivering a product that looks sexier and…
This beautiful cinematic spot, by Motion Theory for the Audi R8 via San Francisco-based Venables Bell & Partners, leads viewers on a Darwinian pursuit, covering 300 million years of biological and technological evolution in 60 seconds. The creative team built on the realism of live-action footage—that included capturing practical effects like rainwater-filled footprints and the tracks of a galloping horse—and enhanced its breakneck pace and blended the evolutionary leaps. The result is a seamless pursuit that heralds Audi as the apex of the phenomenon of forward motion that pushes technology and human society ahead.
Andrew co-supervised the shoot and VFX on this commercial for Mott’s new Garden Blend vegetable drink with John Fragomeni and Marion Spates at Mirada.
Andrew was the CG Supervisor on the fun and over the top Katy Perry video for her hit song California Gurls.
This article from FX guide is full of details on the massive amount of VFX work that went into the launch commercial for Disney’s World of Color: When the initial idea of a commercial for the Disney World of Color show was presented to Motion Theory, we knew up front that the strength in our…
Andrew was the fluid sim supervisor on the complicated production on the spot to announce the World of Color exhibit at Disney’s California Adventure. The World of Color production spanned February through June, 2010. The visual effects teams were charged with conceptualizing and designing the story for all animations – including directing Mickey’s animation with…
Andrew directed this three-minute sample to convey the tone and look for a TV series pitch about Medal of Honor recipients.