Special Effect Brings Live Cinema to the Museum of Moving Images

Last year, Peter Burr approached me with an intriguing Kickstarter campaign he was starting for a travelling show, and wanted to know if I would contribute a video. The concept was that a group of video artists would each make 30 second videos about "the Zone" from Tarkovsky's film Stalker, and/or the book it was based on Roadside Picnic.

I immediately jumped in and started reading the old Russian science fiction novel. Before I even sat down to watch Stalker, I had a clear view of the visual style and process I'd use, and in fact never bothered to watch the movie (highly recommend it) until after my video was finished. I'm excited to be included in a really fantastic group of artists and what promises to be a pretty great show. For my part, I created a 3D animation with Maya that was exported as a Collada file and then brought into Jitter's jit.gl.model object. In Max, I created particle effects, applied generative and animated textures, and created a number of other special effects using OpenGL geometry.

Still From "Into the Zone" - Andrew Benson

This Friday, the touring Max-driven live cinema show will be making it's first US stop at the Museum of Moving Images in New York. For some more info, check out this interview with Peter Burr at the Creators Project.