User Interface Design for Hollywood

We’ve all noticed the really bad “you’ve got mail” computer and data display screens that pop up in Hollywood movies. What we tend to miss are the really good ones, which are realistic. (Fun fact: Stanley Kubrick insisted that all of the displays shown in 2001 be plausible, including reflecting the correct state of the planets etc. at the point during the trip when they appear.)

One of the best designers of these screens is Mark Coleran (who currently designs real-world user interfaces for Gridiron Software, including Flow). Mark was recently interviewed by both NPR and Spark, where he shared some insight into his craft. (I’d suggest following the above links in order, as it starts with the eye candy and ends with his unabridged analysis.)

Interesting is that there’s been a lot of backlash to his NPR interview, as some have used him as the public face for all of the bad movie screen design that is out there. Some of the criticism is unfounded; some of it is simply the result of the common situation we all face in delivering what the client wants, for better or worse. As Mark recently commented in his defense on an After Effects forum, “I and the others who do and did this stuff spend a long time trying to haul it back to reality. Perhaps the story aspect is a post-hoc rationalization, but the requirements are very different.”

Regardless of whether or not you like the result, Mark is one of the best After Effects artists out there, with a fantastic emphasis on both detail and efficiency. If you ever get a chance to see him talk live about screen design, do so.

Masters of Visual Effects - Online

Matt Silverman, Creative Director of Bonfire Labs, is a certifiable After Effects old-timer (although he also has experience in many different systems), particularly known “back in the day” as being a roto expert in addition to an all-around top-shelf motion graphics and visual effects artist. Several years ago, he took it upon himself to enlist some of the best users in the field to construct a set of timeless, concept-based, software-agnostic visual effects training videos. These VHS tapes are long out of print, so Matt has started to digitize them and place them online. The links for Series 2 (covering compositing, keying, tracking, paint, and rotoscoping presented by Ron Brinkmann, Stu Maschwitz, and Scott Stewart) are below; watch them while you can:

Tim Burton at MOMA; on Charlie Rose

Love him or scurry away from him, Tim Burton is certainly one of the most original, out-of-the-box filmmakers we have right now. MOMA (the Museum of Modern Art) in New York is currently hosting an exhibit of his work through April 26 2010. I’m not able to make it to New York, but in the meantime, I just caught a replay of his Thanskgiving interview on Charlie Rose (perhaps my favorite interviewer). It contains a great discussion of filmmaking and creativity in general, with many references back to his childhood plus early employment at Disney.

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