Stereo Conversion at Gener8

Most of the visual effects companies in Vancouver had a quiet spell this summer, so it was hard to find work, especially at a company that would get me a work permit. Gener8 was one of the few places that were really busy.

Although I hadn’t worked at a stereo conversion company before, I realised I had a decent amount of stereo experience. I had done native stereo roto on Avatar, worked on some conversion for Harry Potter, and composited native stereo footage on Jack The Giant Slayer.

Gener8 have written their own software to setup the stereo scene for each shot, based on 3D geometry. My job, as a compositor there, was to take the existing stereo setup, and existing roto, and produce the final stereo shot in Nuke.

This mainly involved painting in areas of the background that were revealed when the foreground objects were moved sideways, and treating the edges of each layer to reduce any artefacts that the conversion might create.

The office was a large, open plan, building that was light and spacious. The facilities were good, including a good space to store bikes, a nice space to eat lunch and a fussball table.

I guess movie studios are still wary about the stigma surrounding stereo conversion, because of all the companies I have worked for, Gener8 is the one most concerned about non-disclosure and I am not allowed to mention any of the projects I worked on there until they are out in theatres.

Unfortunately, they didn’t pay very well and I didn’t find the stereo conversion process very stimulating. I’m glad it was only a summer job.