John Gaeta

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John Gaeta (born c. 1965) is a visual effects designer best known for his work on the Matrix film trilogy, where he advanced and popularized the effects known as "Bullet Time" and Virtual Cinematography as well as pushing the boundaries of computer-generated imagery pre visualization.

1 Career
2 Awards
3 External links
- 3.1 Virtual cinematography

[edit] Career

John C. Gaeta's career began in New York City. While acquiring a BFA degree with honors from New York University's film school, he was introduced to the industry as a staff production assistant for the Saturday Night Live film unit. Following NYU, he began camera and lighting work for a variety of media types including stop-motion animation, nature documentary, and holography.

Five years later he was drafted into the camera department of the newly-formed Trumbull Company, founded by Douglas Trumbull. Trumbull was visual effects supervisor for such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, as well as the director of such films as Silent Running and Brainstorm. It was at Trumbull Company that Gaeta was introduced and educated in a spectrum of innovative film formats such as 48fps VistaVision, 70mm Showscan, IMAX, OMNIMAX and stereo CGI (partnered with Kleiser-Walczak). These were all applied to special venue and simulator film projects.

Following this special venue period (1991–1994), Gaeta became interested in applying computer-generated animation as a means of visualizing content and visual effects concepts for directors as well as for custom camera-path planning. This led to experimentation with emerging forms of space analysis including photogrammetry, stereo and laser radar (a.k.a Reality Capture). Trumbull Company was renamed Mass Illusion and started feature film effects for movies. Gaeta continued there as an associate supervisor under the senior supervision of Oscar-winner Joel Hynek.

After co-supervising development for 3-D paint effect stylizations and LIDAR laser scanning for What Dreams May Come (1998 Visual Effects Oscar winner), Gaeta began his first solo effects supervision project for Larry and Andy Wachowski's film, The Matrix.

Designing and testing The Matrix bullet time effects began in early 1996. This work directly overlapped R&D for What Dreams May Come. Shortly after the release of the original Matrix in 1999, Gaeta continued his exploration of content design through CGI visualization by developing fully "virtual" scene and action layouts for use in realtime interactive composition. Scenes ran on prototype Sony PlayStation 3 technology (then called GS Cube). The research was demonstrated at Siggraph 2000. This would be a short segue between the first and last two pieces of the Wachowski-driven Matrix trilogy.

Gaeta was brought on as the senior visual effects supervisor for The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. This pair of films features over 2000 visual effects shots. Overall VFX conceptual design as well as research and development was initiated for the final two installments in January 2000. There was a wide range of effects content from large-scale man vs. machine-type battles, to anime-styled hyper-real moments. The centerpieces of this expanded universe was the creation of "Virtual Cinematography" and "Virtual Effects," phrases coined by Gaeta in 1999 and 2000.

In fully synthetic scenes within The Matrix sequels, all aspects including principal characters, elaborate performances, dynamic events, and deep surrounding scenery were computer generated. Virtual elements were constructed from "universal capture" sources based upon real actors, production design and cinematography, in a process more analogous to producing virtual reality than to filmmaking.

Today, Gaeta continues to imagine through a complement of directing, visual development and exploration of emerging creative technologies. He is an avid proponent of realtime virtual cinema(also referred as Navigational or NAV Cinema) and "Hybrid Entertainment". Hybrid Entertainment are unifying future content formats found between cinema,interactive games and other alternative media.

[edit] Awards

2000 Academy Award for Visual Effects, for The Matrix
2000 BAFTA Awards for Best Achievement in Special Effects, for The Matrix
- Above two shared with Steve Courtley, Janek Sirrs, Jon Thum

2003 Visual Effects Society Award for Best Single Visual Effect of the Year in Any Medium, for The Matrix Reloaded (trailer "Top Crash"), shared with Dan Glass, Adrian De Wet, Greg Juby

2003 Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Visual Effects Photography in a Motion Picture for The Matrix Reloaded (U-cap facial photography), shared with Kim Libreri, George Borshukov, Paul Ryan

Hollywood Film Festival: Hollywood Visual Effects Award, 2003 [1][2]

Nominated, 2003 Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Motion Picture for The Matrix Revolutions, shared with Kim Libreri, George Murphy, Craig Hayes