Creative COW Forum Host, Web Writer, Contributing Editor
John Lafauce Jr Boris FX Hudson, Massachusetts USA
An
experienced lead compositor, John has been a "go-to" guy for tackling
difficult effects shots and producing seamless, quality results for
many years. His first exposure to compositing was while he was earning
his BFA from Massachusetts College of Art, where he also took a class
in optical printing. He reflects, "I guess I was compositing before I
knew what compositing even was." Since then, non-linear computer
technology has developed greatly and so has John's experience, skills
and credits.
He
began his professional career in Los Angeles in 1991 moonlighting as a
page and answering phones for the Video Design Group at ABC Television
by day, and digitally colorizing cartoon shows like "Ren & Stimpy"
at a digital ink/paint company at night. His first break on a feature
film came in 1994 when Dreamquest Images hired him to rotoscope nature
effects for "The Mask".
Shortly
after that initiation, he moved up the vfx ranks to compositing where
he has worked at such respected companies as Sony Pictures Imageworks,
Rhythm and Hues, Pacific Title Digital and Cinesite. His projects
include work on over thirty feature films, including: "Stuart Little
2", "Godzilla", "Dr. Dolittle", "Executive Decision", "Turbulence",
"Heat" and "Titanic". Mentions of his work have appeared in Cinefex,
American Cinematographer, Post and Highend magazines.
Aside
from working the production grind, John has been active in other vfx
capacities as well. He is a contributing writer for Highend magazine,
where he has written extensively on digital effects techniques. As an
active member of the Visual Effects Society, he has been selected to
serve as a judge on the "Best Compositing" nomination panels for the
Visual Effects Society Awards. Also, teaching “The Art of Compositing
with Shake" at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects proved very
rewarding as John was able to share his techniques and experiences with
students.
Presently, he is working as a freelance compositor and visual effects supervisor in Massachusetts.
For fun, John enjoys spending time with his wife and parrot, and listening to classic rock and blues music.
This tutorial by John Lafauce demonstrates how to apply and customize a new, pre-made lower third graphic from Boris extensive selection of Keyframe Library Effects.
This all-encompassing tutorial from CreativeCOW contributing editor, John Lafauce introduces you to the new Corner Pin filter in version 4.0 of Boris Continuum Complete AVX (BCC AVX4). Several of Corner Pin's powerful features will be demonstrated, and other BCC AVX filters will be used to help create an integrated, realistic composite. This compositing primer will place emphasis on workflow and techniques.
Have you ever wanted to contribute to building a twenty thousand man army in "Troy", make a mouse fly a plane in "Stuart Little 2", or launch a doomed luxury liner in "Titanic?" You can achieve visual feats you never dreamed possible and accomplish them all through the magic of compositing. Read this article written by John Lafauce Jr., and see... How to become a feature film compositor. A note just to clarify: this article is about high-end 2d/3d compositing for long form media such as films, where the goal is to make the work seamless, integrated and "invisible". Not to be confused with compositing for motion graphics, where the objective is to make the object or design stand out and be "visible" to the viewer.
