Behind the scenes

I had the opportunity last week, through an assignment for the Chronicle of Higher Education, to spend a little time with Paul Debevec at Light Stage 5 at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) Graphics Lab in Marina Del Rey. Debevec is being honored with an Academy Award for his work in creating the animated faces in Avatar. His research has lead to some pretty significant advances in the realism of digital animation and has been utilized in such films as the Spiderman movies, Hancock, and Benjamin Button. The light stage he’s standing in is comprised of 156 LED lights that enable them to study the way light hits a face from every possible angle and then create a digital representation of it that looks as close as any animation has ever looked to real. It’s also a really fun place to make a portrait. The face in the third photo is “Digital Emily,” an early animation made using the same stage. And the puzzle is made from a photo of Light Stage 6, which is held at another location and is now being used to create full body animations. His research makes me feel like I know absolutely nothing about light, but is really interesting. You can view some samples of his work at www.debevec.org