Gillian George

DECEMBER 2017 /   The Mill Blog  - Behind the Project: Geico ‘Star Captain: The Lost Keys'

"Matte Painting & Environments Supervisor Gillian George worked on set to capture extensive reference photography whilst working closely with Randy and Bryan Newman, Director of Photography, to visualize what could be accomplished with set extensions. To construct the vast hanger, detailed matte paintings were projected onto 3D models to enhance their texture, lighting, and scale. Gillian’s work significantly helped the 2D team as it gave them the flexibility to move and adjust elements within the environment on a moment’s notice."

JANUARY 2016 /   SHOOT  - The Mill LA Staffs Up

"The CG department at The Mill in L.A. has staffed up as head of 3D John Leonti and Robert Sethi have added a combined 75 years of industry experience to the team. Coming aboard are VFX lead artist Erik Zimmermann, rigging department supervisor Sean Comer, and VFX artists Gillian George, Jason Monroe and Charles Storniolo."

APRIL 2014 /   Image Engine - LONE SURVIVOR

"Gillian George headed up the matte painting team at Image Engine. 'Many of the matte paintings were used to establish important points in the film’s narrative, but relatively little photographic reference existed for the remote region where much of the action took place,' she explained. 'One of our biggest challenges was re-imagining the Hindu Kush environment in a way that would allow our matte paintings to blend seamlessly with the plates, while giving a believable representation of the high mountains of Afghanistan and moving the story forward in very precise ways.'"

APRIL 2014 /   Art of VFX - LONE SURVIVOR

"For the most part the number one directive on the matte paintings was to be authentic, and make it look 100% real. This is where the vast amount of reference photos we took on set came into play. Together with some stock photos of mountain ranges from Afghanistan and Pakistan this was the base for all our matte paintings. The only matte painting that allowed for a bit more artistic freedom was Murphy’s death sequence. Pete really wanted to infuse an emotional element into the matte painting, which we achieved by a low backlit painting where we also pushed all elements, such as depth haze and lens flares, to the limit of realism."

MARCH 2014 /   fxguide - Case Studies in Invisible Effects

"Shot mostly in New Mexico, the film relied on visual effects to expand some mountainous environments, incorporate gunfire and show U.S. bases and flying vehicles – all within what is a mostly handheld and sometimes ‘run and gun’ shot film."

OCTOBER 2013 /   CINEFEX ISSUE 135 - A Tale of Two Cities

AUGUST 2013 / 

My matte painting work on the Deportation Hangar, earth and shuttles is featured in several articles highlighting the visual effects of Elysium:

Hollywood Reporter - 'Elysium':  Inside the Visual Effects

CG Society - Production Focus: Elysium

Creative Cow - Elysium:  Insights from the Visual Effects Supervisors

Art of VFX - Elysium

Including a before-and-after of the plate and the final shot:

JANUARY 2013 /   ART OF VFX - Zero Dark Thirty

"It was interesting that a single military academy in Jordan actually served as the location for all of the 3 major military locations (Bagram, Chapman, FOB) … different corners being dressed separately for each one. Typically we would start with a helicopter shot of the academy, then we would go in and create a rough layout using simple geometry with a fast paintover so that it had a better representation of the direction we planned to take the shot in. Using these paintovers we were able to quickly get to the place where Kathryn and Mark were happy. From there the real work would begin. That layout would get cleaned up and put through our asset system receiving simply lookdev and rendering for handoff to the matte painters. They would then start the laborious job of recreating these extensive environments each with its own signature look. "

JANUARY 2012 /   CINEFEX ISSUE 128 – Steel Works 

OCTOBER 2011 /   ART OF VFX - Final Destination 5

"So you could literally point a camera in almost any direction and have a true 3D re-creation of the landscape. Of course this would also be art directed shot by shot (...) Being a 5 minute drive from the bridge itself was also a great help, as we were able to make frequent visits to obtain additional reference material."

AUGUST 2011 /   ART OF VFX - Real Steel

"Our environments team led by Geoff Baumann and Justin van der Lek modified the design to fit the footprint of Cobo Arena in Detroit where the sequence was shot. Then the entire interior was model in detail, textured and lit to match the practical, partial set. We then populated then arena using a crowd system developed specifically for REAL STEEL."

MARCH 2011 /   ART OF VFX - Tron Legacy

"We received some initial geometry from DD as well as a DD internal lookdev shot for reference on style for the city exteriors. We then took this geometry and up-rezzed it, added detail to various areas and then created a series of very detailed and large projection paintings in the Matte Painting department..."

JANUARY 2011 /   CINEFEX ISSUE 124 – Legacy System

MAY 2008 /   VRMAG’s Speed Racer Feature

"In post production, back in Los Angeles, we assembled a new team for some local pickup shoots and for final HDR image stitching. Our LA team consisted of David Miller as photographer and image stitcher, Jill George as image stitcher / matte painter / photography assistant and Karla Ventocilla Curby as image stitcher and compositor. (...)  So in the end we shot over 10,000 individual bubbles. That amounted to around 10 terabytes of data including the processed HDRs."