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Above: The Marvels – © MARVEL
At SIGGRAPH Asia 2023, we sat down with Sabine Laimer (Sequence VFX Supervisor – Wētā FX) to discuss her work on The Marvels. We also asked her about her background, and her day to day job.
3DVF : Hello Sabine ! At SIGGRAPH Asia 2023, you had a talk about the work done by Wētā on The Marvels. Which sequences did you handle ?
Sabine Laimer – Wētā FX : I was on the show from the very beginning, from the preproduction phase. That was really interesting for me, because usually comp is sort of the end of the line, you finish the shots but you don’t have so much to do with the asset creation.
While Sean Walker (VFX Supervisor at Wētā FX) was away on set, I managed the day-to-day work at the studio in Wellington.
Later on, we split into two teams, and I took on the sequences taking place on the planet Aladna, which were a little more 2D heavy and suited my skillset. I also worked on another sequence when the Marvels crash on a grassland planet. We had to do lots of set extensions, and create this bleak grass environment.
Sean, on the other hand, looked after the destroyer battle in the end sequence, which was more technically challenging.
But we still worked together closely, and I was involved in both parts. We always work together, do our meetings and reviews together.
3DVF : You are working at Wētā FX as a sequence VFX supervisor. Can you tell us about your day to day job ?
I am basically doing the same work as a regular VFX Supervisor. I do dailies in the morning, I do rounds in the afternoon. I creatively direct all sorts of departments that are involved in the project. And when it comes to send off in the evening, I prepare the lists of shots that we want to send to the client, in collaboration with the overall VFX Supervisor. We decide what is good to send, what isn’t.
When it comes to client calls, I also get to present my own sequences, the work of my teams to the client representative, which is always the overall VFX Supervisor on the show.
This means that I get the guidance from the supervisor, but I still have the freedom to direct my own teams creatively.
3DVF : Could you expand on the advantages, for a studio, to hire Sequence VFX Supervisors? Because this is a position that you don’t find in every studio.
Some studios use the name associate VFX Supervisor for the same job. It’s kind of the junior version of a VFX Supervisor.
My background is in compositing, and I used to be a comp Supervisor. When I moved to the overall VFX Supervision, there were a lot of disciplines that I was not an expert in. There was a lot to learn, coming from the 2D side, and it was really a steep learning curve for me.
Becoming a Sequence supervisor allows you to have an interim step between department Sup to Overall VFX Sup, a training period when you can learn while still having the support from somebody senior, who can steer you in the right direction if needed.
3DVF : You recently worked on the short film WOACA as a VFX supervisor: how different is this new job from a sequence VFX supervisor? What are the pros and cons of each position?
I can’t really talk about the project itself at the moment, but while working on The Marvels I did a small show on the side as a VFX Supervisor. It was a small independent project, a short film directed by Mackenzie Davis, which is known as an actress (The Martian, Blade Runner 2049, Terminator: Dark Fate). She wrote and directed this short film.
The main difference between this project and The Marvels is that I was my own boss. Mackenzie Davis, the director, was very new to the VFX process so I had to build a relationship with her, and she trusted in me to make decisions for her.
Being able to work with the client that closely was really interesting, it was a really cool thing to be able to do it.
3DVF : Can you tell us about your background?
I’m from Austria originally. I didn’t have any special education, just a generalist high school. I was always interested in photography and in filming, very early on I starting filming lots of little videos of my friend’s punk bands, their concerts, I played with in-camera effects.
At that stage, I didn’t think this could be a career, because I just didn’t know that there were jobs in the VFX industry, I only knew about directing, editing, camera work.
I wanted to study something media-related. I did an internship at ARRI in Munich, and they had a little VFX department, maybe 10 people or so. They gave me DVD tutorials for Shake [Editor’s note: Shake was a compositing tool used in the VFX industry, with a nodal interface that inspired several other tools. It was discontinued by Apple in 2009.]. I realized that this was what I was interested in, like Photoshop but for moving pictures, and used in movies. I fell in love with the compositing process, did a Master’s degree at Bournemouth University in the UK which specialized a bit more in VFX, and then had my first job as a compositor at Scanline VFX in Munich.
I started travelling, met my husband (also a compositor!). We wanted to work in various companies, to work on cool movies. And we ended up in New Zealand!
3DVF : What are your thoughts on SIGGRAPH Asia 2023? Are there any projects that you found especially impressive or inspiring?
To be honest, this was my first time at SIGGRAPH, I haven’t been to the one in the US. SIGGRAPH Asia 2023 was really nice, it’s not too crowded for me!
I had a busy schedule with the job fair and the meetings, which means I haven’t been able to go to many talks.
What inspired me the most was seing all the young people, the student volunteers coming up to me with so much fire and enthusiasm and drive to start in the industry. This was a good reminder that we’re actually doing some really cool funky stuff! I’ve been working in the industry for 20 years, and you sometimes kind of forget that it’s still very exciting for people on the outside. That gave me a lot of drive to improve and do better work.
