We're proud to introduce you to "kino."
If you own the DVD edition of the Jodie Foster sci-fi classic "Contact"
then you may already know his name if you've dug around in the bonus
material. There in the "making of" sequences, you will find Kino Gil as
he was one of the effects artists responsible for the incredible
opening sequence that pulls back from the Earth out into interstellar
space. But there's a lot more to Kino's story...
Joaquin
Gil is a Costa Rican-born filmmaker who by his own words says that he
"...presents us the world of hi-tech in a surreal mixture of tropical
colors, textures and rhythms -- this because I have a formal background
in music, art, anthropology, film/video and experimental animation."
Kino
graduated from the renowned California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)
-- the legendary school begun under the direction of Walt Disney, with
a mission to create the animators of the future. And Kino's work on
such films as the aforementioned Contact, Roland Emmerich's "Godzilla"
and the campy "Starship Troopers" seems to indicate that Walt's
confidence in the school's mission was well-placed..
Kino
works in all mediums from pencil sketching to computers and say that
his vision "...has no 'dotted lines,' just different modes, ranging
from pencil sketches to mathematical definitions, from the sound of
surf to a binary version of a rose, from the plot for a story to a
swirl of computer music. It is all about composition and contrast and
dances of the imagination that span multiple dimensions."
And anyone that knows Kino, knows that these are not just words...
He
has worked in many facets of this industry, in capacities as varied as
editor, writer, animator, composer, technical director and set
designer. Kino is a man of many talents and likes to work with them all.
Kino
hails back to the early days of Wavefront Technologies in Santa
Barbara, California. He was Wavefront's Technical Director in those
bygone days and also worked as part of their software support team.
Later he joined Wavefront Japan as their Applications Manager. It was
while there in Tokyo that Kino produced and directed the "Rock It"
using Wavefront's software running on the Sony "NeWs" computer. It was
the first-ever fully animated 3D program created with Wavefront
software.
Today, Kino runs his own studio in Los Angeles, California and is called simply... kino
Kino
is also a consultant in projects that span industry, entertainment and
science where his projects range from visualizations to commercials to
films to architecture and engineering.
In all his spare time, he loves to interact with other artists on the Internet.
CreativeCOW.net contributing editor Joaquin Gil shares his experience with storage needs during the creation of his last feature film. In this article, Kino discusses his success with the MediaVault 4110 from HUGE-Ciprico. He concludes with...''With the 4110, HUGE Ciprico addresses a market segment that needs large dataspaces in minimum physical space. A natural for the IT data center, the eCommerce nests, banking and legal data repositories and in general any data intensive application where reliability and speed are a must. This makes it very suitable also for animation and effects houses, middle sized to large editing and sound studios and the semi-nomad setups typical of reality shows, because of its sturdiness, practicality of the connectors and being a standard 19'' rack-mountable device.''
CreativeCOW.net contributing editor Joaquin 'Kino' Gil writes a review on Serious Magic's ULTRA 2 Professional Keying Software with Vector Keying Technology and tells readers, ''[Before ULTRA2] each matte had to be calibrated separately and the values adjusted almost on a frame by frame basis in order to get details like loose strands of hair, bluish shadows and reflections, grains of sand and other minutiae. Yes, it took forever [and] no motion tracking software, either. All of that effort, [and hours of work] very seriously done, is made moot today with this software tool from Serious Magic. ... The key is perfect to the extreme of perfectly keyed fine strands of hair, transparency and translucency.''
CreativeCOW.net contributing editor Joaquin Gil writes, ''Dramatica is a computer tool for something nobody realized you could do, computer or not. ... it is one of the most powerful tools available today for the serious fiction writer.'' Read on to see Kino's further insights into this amazing program.
CreativeCOW.net contributing editor Joaquin Gil writes a beefy review for us. Read on to see why he says, ''Good stuff performs as it should, works smoothly. It does not pretend to be all things to all people. Does what it is supposed to with effectiveness, even with elegance. The HUGE HMV-FCR 800-M FIBRE CHANNEL MEDIA VAULT meets and exceeds all expectations, and I am known to be picky. There is a dual model and the top capacity is four Terabytes. You are forgiven if you are starting to drool. Luckily the cure is not expensive. The relation of Dollars to Gigabytes that HUGE handles is justly famous and envied. At the last NAB they had the best density per dollar I've known of, and they were playing 2K film out of three of these 4Gb drives, something no one else even approached. I want more of these babies around.''
Kino Gil, noted film effects artist and host team leader of Creative Cow's Maya forum, gives his impressions of one "the best kept secrets" in Computer Graphics Imagery. He gives an honest view of some of the strengths and weaknesses of the system and concludes that Xfrog 4 for Maya 6 ''..one of the best and most powerful 'plugins' for Maya I have found yet.''
Joaquin Kino Gil, noted film effects artist and host team leader of Creative Cow's Maya forum, reviews Learning Maya 6: Book Suite, by Alias Inc. [formerly Alias|Wavefront].
Joaquin 'Kino' Gil -- noted major film effects artist, independent filmmaker and Creative Cow's Maya forum host, reviews MAYA CHARACTER CREATION: Modeling and Animation Controls by Chris Maraffi and published by New Riders. Kino concludes his review with "...With this book anyone with a modicum of Maya proficiency can learn to rig and model professionally.'' Read more...
Joaquin 'Kino' Gil, noted film effects artist and host team leader of Creative Cow's Maya forum, reviews "Maya 5 Killer Tips," written by Eric Hanson and published by New Riders. Kino concludes with "...This is a "must-have" book in every Maya shop and class.'' Find out why
Joaquin Kino Gil, noted film effects artist and host team leader of Creative Cow's Maya and Film FX forums, reviews Learning Maya 5: MEL Fundamentals, by Alias [formerly Alias|Wavefront].
Joaquin Kino Gil, noted film effects artist and host team leader of Creative Cow's Maya forum, reviews ''Maya: Secrets of the Pros,'' edited by John Kundert-Gibbs and published by Sybex. While he points out a few weaknesses of the book, he still gives it Five Cows, our top rating, because not only will it give you a great education in the software itself -- but in many pro-level aspects of effects production and workflow strategy as well. Kino says much of this book would be applicable to any serious animator and regardless of tool or version. This is high praise indeed from a guy whose own body of work includes Godzilla, Contact and Starship Troopers and many others.
Joaquin Kino Gil, noted film effects artist and host team leader of Creative Cow's Maya forum, reviews Panasonic's new 14 inch LCD pro grade broadcast monitor, the BT-LS1400.
Joaquin Kino Gil, noted film effects artist and host team leader of Creative Cow's Maya forum, reviews ''Maya: Secrets of the Pros,'' edited by John Kundert-Gibbs and published by Sybex. While he points out a few weaknesses of the book, he still gives it Five Cows, our top rating, because not only will it give you a great education in the software itself -- but in many pro-level aspects of effects production and workflow strategy as well. Kino says much of this book would be applicable to any serious animator and regardless of tool or version. This is high praise indeed from a guy whose own body of work includes Godzilla, Contact and Starship Troopers and many others.
Kino Gil, noted film effects artist and host team leader of Creative Cow's Maya forum, gives his impressions of Right Hemisphere's 'Deep Paint 3D with Texture Weapons'. Kino takes a quick look at the history of digital Paint FX technology and then jumps into some of the reasons that Deep Paint is an FX Pro power tool. He gives an honest view of some of the strengths and weaknesses of the system and concludes that Deep Paint 3D ''...is the nicest paint program I have used in a long time. I plan to make it into my main paint application.''
