- Initial stages of the movie: Concept artist
- For all of the advertisements and PSA's in the movie: Visual Effects Supervisor.
- animator and compositor on Lexus, Reebok, Century 21, the pre-crime PSA and a VFX shot showing the Pre-Cogs that played in a diorama that was later cut out of the film.
This project was like the heavens parting and the glory of all that is, pouring down upon me! Ok, maybe slightly dramatized but because i loved this project so much I'm going to pour out a couple of the fun stories that I hold dear! View Studio, The visual effects company i worked for had a great camaraderie with 3 Ring Circus, a design and branding company headed by Jeff Boortz. I did a fair amount of work over the years for 3 Ring and one day Jeff says to me, how would like to spend the next month concepting the world in the year 2088 for a new Steven Spielberg movie?! Practically every beat of my heart supports ponderings of the future and anything futuristic, so this was beyond exciting to me! A perfect Cory project in every way.
Back Story
Initially Minority Report was to be set in the year 2088 which was later changed to 2045 in part to avoid the inevitable onslaught of genetic alterations and implants. Spielberg is good at quickly trimming out unnecessary things that may detract from the story. During the early stages 3 Ring was heading several aspects of concepting the world in 2088 so they gathered 4 artists from different disciplines, among them was myself, Jeff Boortz, Scott Matz, and a well known graphic artists who's name i can't remember. We all had the same task of concepting the interface of the future, i.e. how people interacted with computer technology, wether it be some futuristic computer interface, virtual agents, etc… and individually we were given specific aspects of the urban future to tackle. For me it was future graffiti, street art, posters, teen age life styles, pedestrian traffic systems, street kiosks, and again, the future computer interface or how people interacted with computer technology.
They gave me a storyboard artist and 2 weeks for my initial concept stage…. quite nearly the most amazing, sleepless two weeks of my life to that point. I was in heaven. I sat in my bed day in and day out with a book about the future written by MIT experts for inspiration, my sketch book, pencil and just unloaded an endless stream of thoughts, ideas, and sketches until my time was up. We had a big meeting with Alex McDowell (The production designer on the movie) and his team at FOX. We arrived at FOX studios and were led to a large secret room with every inch of the wall coated with amazing concept art, future technology studies from MIT, tables of experimenta bendable lcd screens and monitors showing early R&D movies of the traffic system that was seen in the movie with cars traveling up and down the sides of buildings. I was awestruck... and super nervous about having to present my work. Sitting at a large conference table, surrounded by Alex, his team and my team mates, It was my turn to present so i let loose on them all of these futuristic thoughts and ideas. During the presentations before me Alex and his team had been asking the other artists lots of questions as they went on, but with me, there was utter silence. Not a peep of a question from anyone. They just sat, listened and nodded from time to time. Inside i was thinking how terribly i was buckling and how they must hate everything I was saying so I stopped every once and a while for a breath and to ask if i was talking too fast or if they had any questions. They smiled and said all is good, keep going. In the end the other presenters finished and we said our goodbyes and left. Jeff stayed behind and talked with Alex for a while. I was outside devastated, thinking somehow i was just way off base. When Jeff emerged it was with great news. Alex was blown away by all that was presented. He thought there was a great balance of visual ideas and concepts and was particularly excited by some of the ideas i presented. I was terribly relived…. and this turned into a very memorable day!
Unfortunately the film was put on hold. I think Spielberg was not happy with the script yet and decided to do A.I. first. I think maybe a year (or less) later Minority Report was back on and this time the movie was set in 2045 so most of what we concepted was out the window. Also 3 Rings' roll had evolved (At least by the time i was brought on). They were to do concept, design, shoot and execute all the advertising and PSAs within the movie. Various spots like Lexus, Reebok, the fake Cops commercial, Century 21, the Pre-Crime PSA that ran in the beginning, Bulgari, Guinness, etc…. I was brought on as Visual Effects supervisor for all of these and the animator and compositor on Lexus, Reebok, Century 21, the pre-crime PSA and a VFX shot showing the Pre-Cogs that played in a diorama that was later cut out of the film. The final compositing into the film was done at Asylum in Santa Monica.
© 2012 Cory Strassburger.
