Home-grown talent: Oscar-winning visual effects artist makes Karachi look so good
By Husna Anwar
Published: June 14, 2011
Venom from Spider-Man III - 2007
KARACHI: Visual effects specialist Mir Zafar Ali started his career by creating the immaculate sheet of hair that cascades around a shampoo models face. Since then, the Beaconhouse and FAST graduate from Karachi has scooped up an Oscar for the brilliant sequences in The Golden Compass in 2007 that beat those in The Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End and Transformers. The world can also thank him for bringing the villain Venom to life in Spider-Man III. Now, hes basking in the aftermath of another success, X-Men: First Class the debuted at No. 1 in the box office in its opening weekend. If any young artist in Karachi thinks it cant be done, they just need to follow Mir Zafar Alis career.
Ali began with doing what a lot of people in the visual effects field do something unrelated. Having studied to be a software engineer in college, he quickly realised it wasnt nearly exciting enough. He spent some time trying his hand at the trade with local organisations such as Sharp Image and Nucleus Studios, always working primarily with computer graphics. Eventually, he took off to the US to specialise in visual effects at Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia.
A few years later he found himself working on his first movie with Digital Domain, a Los Angeles-based company. Alis first movie was The Day After Tomorrow in which he worked on wrapping colossal waves around buildings and making it believable. His forte is replicating natural phenomena. Its actually easier working with natural effects than the effects in X-men for which you have no reference, he explained in an interview with The Express Tribune while on a personal visit to Karachi this week. You have to come up with things from scratch.
In the latest X-Men movie, that has been attracting crowds at cinemas in Karachi and internationally, Ali was primarily in charge of the character Banshee as effects technical director with company Rhythm and Hues (R&H). The mutants voice scream shatters solid objects, kills, and allows him to fly. I created a basic tool for the sound waves. Unlike the Hulks single thunderclap, the Banshees audio waves are continuous, so we had to find a way to show the ripples without making it look like theyd been slapped on afterwards. Then we could adjust the speed and magnitude of the Banshees scream according to the directors needs.
Ali spoke of certain projects with the same look on his face as a child whos embarrassed by his parents. However, in the end it was all good fun for him, regardless of whether he was creating water waves for Yogi Bears skiing scenes or the gigantic footprints and craters for The Incredible Hulks walking scenes. I really enjoyed Monster House, it was a really dark and interesting movie, he remarked.
Work like Alis negates many old-school methods. The stunt men really dont like us, he laughed with a trace of guilt. Its just cheaper, faster and more feasible to have a CG [computer graphics] double than a stunt man.
Nonetheless, he admitted that people always needed. This was his advice for aspiring animators and effects specialists. There is a lot of demand, maybe not here because Pakistans film industry hasnt made much headway in that direction, but the work is available. He has personally moved a little further from the slightly mundane work of basic shot production after seven years in the field and focuses more on research and development.
If I were to make a movie about Karachi, it would be a horror movie. I just love those, he grinned. Or better yet, Id just shoot the city as-is and thatd be my movie. Everything you would ever need in a movie is already going on right here in the city.
Alis next project is based on the acclaimed book Life of Pi. The movie is about a boy stranded on a raft in the middle of the sea. Ali gets to work with endless expanses of water his bread and butter. Sure, therell be a time when Im pulling my hair out and am entirely sick of water, but Im really looking forward to it, specially working with Ang Lee [director].
There will be a lot of big splashes and whales jumping in and out of the water, it should be good, he said.
All things considered, Ali has more than made amends for provoking unrealistic expectations from a shampoo.
Mir Zafar Alis hall of fame
2011 The Cabin in the Woods
2011 X-Men: First Class
2011 Hop
2010 Yogi Bear
2009 Aliens in the Attic
2009 I Land of the Lost
2008 The Mummy
2008 The Incredible Hulk
2007 The Golden Compass)
2007 Surfs Up
2007 Spider-Man 3
2007 Ghost Rider
2006 Open Season
2006 Monster House
2005 Stealth
2004 The Day After Tomorrow
Published in The Express Tribune, June 14th, 2011.
By Husna Anwar
Published: June 14, 2011
Venom from Spider-Man III - 2007
KARACHI: Visual effects specialist Mir Zafar Ali started his career by creating the immaculate sheet of hair that cascades around a shampoo models face. Since then, the Beaconhouse and FAST graduate from Karachi has scooped up an Oscar for the brilliant sequences in The Golden Compass in 2007 that beat those in The Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End and Transformers. The world can also thank him for bringing the villain Venom to life in Spider-Man III. Now, hes basking in the aftermath of another success, X-Men: First Class the debuted at No. 1 in the box office in its opening weekend. If any young artist in Karachi thinks it cant be done, they just need to follow Mir Zafar Alis career.
Ali began with doing what a lot of people in the visual effects field do something unrelated. Having studied to be a software engineer in college, he quickly realised it wasnt nearly exciting enough. He spent some time trying his hand at the trade with local organisations such as Sharp Image and Nucleus Studios, always working primarily with computer graphics. Eventually, he took off to the US to specialise in visual effects at Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia.
A few years later he found himself working on his first movie with Digital Domain, a Los Angeles-based company. Alis first movie was The Day After Tomorrow in which he worked on wrapping colossal waves around buildings and making it believable. His forte is replicating natural phenomena. Its actually easier working with natural effects than the effects in X-men for which you have no reference, he explained in an interview with The Express Tribune while on a personal visit to Karachi this week. You have to come up with things from scratch.
In the latest X-Men movie, that has been attracting crowds at cinemas in Karachi and internationally, Ali was primarily in charge of the character Banshee as effects technical director with company Rhythm and Hues (R&H). The mutants voice scream shatters solid objects, kills, and allows him to fly. I created a basic tool for the sound waves. Unlike the Hulks single thunderclap, the Banshees audio waves are continuous, so we had to find a way to show the ripples without making it look like theyd been slapped on afterwards. Then we could adjust the speed and magnitude of the Banshees scream according to the directors needs.
Ali spoke of certain projects with the same look on his face as a child whos embarrassed by his parents. However, in the end it was all good fun for him, regardless of whether he was creating water waves for Yogi Bears skiing scenes or the gigantic footprints and craters for The Incredible Hulks walking scenes. I really enjoyed Monster House, it was a really dark and interesting movie, he remarked.
Work like Alis negates many old-school methods. The stunt men really dont like us, he laughed with a trace of guilt. Its just cheaper, faster and more feasible to have a CG [computer graphics] double than a stunt man.
Nonetheless, he admitted that people always needed. This was his advice for aspiring animators and effects specialists. There is a lot of demand, maybe not here because Pakistans film industry hasnt made much headway in that direction, but the work is available. He has personally moved a little further from the slightly mundane work of basic shot production after seven years in the field and focuses more on research and development.
If I were to make a movie about Karachi, it would be a horror movie. I just love those, he grinned. Or better yet, Id just shoot the city as-is and thatd be my movie. Everything you would ever need in a movie is already going on right here in the city.
Alis next project is based on the acclaimed book Life of Pi. The movie is about a boy stranded on a raft in the middle of the sea. Ali gets to work with endless expanses of water his bread and butter. Sure, therell be a time when Im pulling my hair out and am entirely sick of water, but Im really looking forward to it, specially working with Ang Lee [director].
There will be a lot of big splashes and whales jumping in and out of the water, it should be good, he said.
All things considered, Ali has more than made amends for provoking unrealistic expectations from a shampoo.
Mir Zafar Alis hall of fame
2011 The Cabin in the Woods
2011 X-Men: First Class
2011 Hop
2010 Yogi Bear
2009 Aliens in the Attic
2009 I Land of the Lost
2008 The Mummy
2008 The Incredible Hulk
2007 The Golden Compass)
2007 Surfs Up
2007 Spider-Man 3
2007 Ghost Rider
2006 Open Season
2006 Monster House
2005 Stealth
2004 The Day After Tomorrow
Published in The Express Tribune, June 14th, 2011.
