Over the years Steve has worked on many interesting and innovative
projects as well as developed new digital technology for the entertainment
industry that has captured the attention of the print media. Here
are some articles that have appeared in major magazines ranging
from the Hollywood Reporter to Fangoria magazine.
LA
Siggraph Greenscreen Event
"An Evening with Steve Wright and Jon Erland"
February 12th, 2008
Close to 250 people showed up for
the monthly LA Siggraph meeting
on February 12th appropriately held on a greenscreen
stage at Gnomon to learn about greenscreen visual effects
compositing from Steve Wright and Jonathan Earland. Steve
Wright, VFX instructor
and author of “Digital Compositing for
Film and Video” and “Compositing
Visual Effects: Essentials for the Aspiring Artist” along
with Jonathan Earland, the owner of Composite Components
Company and the creator of greenscreen and bluescreen filming
technology
put on a fabulous show that was chock full of excellent information.
Click
here to download a PDF of this article.
Retro Gamer Magazine
"An Interview with Steve Wright"
March, 2007
Writer
Paul Drury tracked Steve down through the Internet and requested
a one hour phone interview from sunny Nottingham, England
to reminisce about the early days of video gaming when Steve
worked at Atari. Of particular interest to the writer was
the rough and ready early days of video game development
when the game programmers were starting to become "rock stars".
Ribald stories abound. Some of the highlights are Steve's
innovation of the video game "Easter egg" and promoting the
video game manual from a dreary instruction set to a fun
and interesting storyline. There is also an interesting tale
about how Steve and his staff produce the video game footage
used in the Superman III movie, Steve's actual first film
credit. www.retrogamer.net
VIPGala Magazine
"Hollywood Visual Effects Comes to Macedonia"
June, 2006
VIPGala
is a top glitz magazine about the exciting world of filmmaking
in Macedonia - sort of a Slavic version of Variety. The story
is about how the big Hollywood visual effects expert, Steve
Wright, came all the way from America to work with Macedonian
filmmakers and visual effects artists to train them on how
to do visual effects American style. The story featured Blanko,
one of the top Macedonian live action directors in all of
Macedonia. Sponsored by USAID, the project was designed to
upgrade the visual effects talent base in Macedonia to help
make them more competitive in the global market.
"Confessions of The Game Doctor"
by Bill Kunkel
Rolenta Press, November, 2005
Bill
Kunkel and Arnie Katz were the pioneers of the gaming industry
when they created a magazine back in 1981 called Electronic
Games. In his recent book, "Confessions
of The Game Doctor", Bill reminisces about meeting
Steve at Atari and his impressions from that day.
"I only met Steve in person that once, but I never
forgot the lesson I learned that day -- decide what you want
and find a way to do it rather than work around a set of
old rules based on what you can't accomplish. For something
to stay fixed in my slippery grey matter all this time means
that it was probably among the most important things I ever
learned in over a quarter century in the game business". -
Bill Kunkel
This
is an interview that appeared in Diana Weynand's column "HD
on the Rise" that explores the increasing role that Hi-Def
video plays in the Digital Intermediate process. While the
Director and Cinematographer are now routinely viewing their "dailies" as
color timed HD video dailies, the 24P master is now a standard
deliverable for all Digital Intermediates. In addition, more
and more theatrical releases are being captured on HD and
transferred to film during the DI process with impressive
results.
MIT's Technology Review
"Digital Cinema Take 2"
by Michael A Hiltzik
September, 2002
MIT's
Technology Review magazine article covers the digital innovations
going on in Hollywood. A large part of the article covers
Cinesite's digital effects, digital intermediate and digital
restoration work. From scanning the negative of an entire
feature film, to seamlessly integrating the visual effects
shots, color timing the feature and putting it all back out
to film again is the process known as Digital Intermediate
which was born at Kodak's Cinesite Los Angeles facility back
in the late 90's.
The first feature to take advantage of this process was "O'Brother
Where Art Thou" shot by Roger Deakins and directed by
Joel Coen and written by his brother Ethan. Steve is featured
in the back of the article at a computer workstation working
a digital imaging problem for the restoration department
that only the Cineon compositing system could solve. Click
here to download a PDF of this article.
Kodak In Camera Magazine
"Soderbergh Creates Look for 'Traffic' in DI Suite at Cinesite"
April, 2001
This
article about Steve Soderbergh's powerful film "Traffic" describes
the unique creative look he achieved when he color timed
his film at Cinesite. Steve is mentioned for his role of
digitally applying all of the subtitling for the film. What
is not mentioned is that Mr. Soderbergh had it done three
times over until he got just the look he wanted in the release
prints! Click
here to read the "Traffic" article.
Highend3D.com
A Shake module inspired by Steve's book
Highend3D.com is
a clearinghouse for new modules and plugins for major production
software like Maya and Shake. An enterprising fellow named
Andras Szocs has implemented several of the concepts and
algorithms described in Steve's book (kindly giving Steve
credit) and made them available as shareware for compositors.
You can scroll down and look for the following modules:
BumpMap v1.0 CleanScreen
v1.1 Despill
v1.2 MatteMonitor
v1.0 ScreenCorrect
v1.0 SliceTool
v1.5
Millimeter Magazine
"Pushing the [Big] Envelope: Large-format CGI"
by Ellen Wolf
April, 2000
In
this extensive article about experimental large format films
seen at the "Big Shorts" presentations one of the featured
examples is Ron Fricke's spectacular "Infinity" piece with
computer graphics produced by Steve at Kodak's Cinesite.
Coverage of "Infinity" starts about halfway down the article
with the paragraph that starts with "While Big Shorts has
introduced new filmmakers"."
"Infinity" is a 2 minute 70mm IMAX piece directed
by Ron Fricke and featuring Arthur C. Clarke as the host
of a mind boggling trip through the Mandelbrot set of fractals
as a visualization of the concept of mathematical infinity.
Stunning colors and a dizzying plunge into the psychedelic
depths of the fractal landscape zooming in by literally a
factor of billions was accompanied by a pulsing musical score
that left the mind reeling. The 2 minute trailer played at
Siggraph's 2001 Electronic Theatre. Click
here to read the article online & click here
to play
trailer.
The Hollywood Reporter
"Crunching Cels: Digital Animation Tools are Becoming More than Just High-tech
Toys"
by Debra Kaufman
June 26, 1996
Debra
Kaufman wrote a sweeping article with an overview of the
then emerging digital cel animation production process. The
art of digital ink and paint was just coming into its own
and Steve had designed one of the first digital ink and paint
systems outside of Disney which he used it to do commercial
work and his first animated feature - "FernGully: The
Last Rainforest." When released it was the highest grossing
non-Disney animated film at that time and has quite the cult
following today!
Markee Magzine
Mattel "Polly Pockets"
May 1996
Animated
by Dave Spafford (Roger Rabbit fame), this series of three
television commercials featured a cel animated character
(Polly Pockets) composited over live action. The main creative
challenge was to give the flat 2D cel animation a more 3D
dimensional look which was achieved in the computer during
digital compositing by adding highlight and shadow tone layers.
Cinefantastique
"Brainscan: A Virtual Reality Shocker with Guts and Franchise Potential"
Anthony P. Montesano
June, 1994
The
article discusses director John Flynn's psychological thriller
that explores a young boy's (Edward Furlong) obsession with
video gaming. Producer Michael Roy was intrigued by doing
a film that included a virtual reality, namely the world
of the demonic "Trickster" (T. Ryder Smith), the video game's
nemesis.
Cinefantastique
"Brainscan: Shock Effects Made Easy with the Power of CGI"
Anthony P. Montesano
June, 1994
"Brainscan" was
one of the first early horror movies to utilize computer
graphics. This article explores the digital effects produced
by Steve at his Hollywood digital effects company Sidley
Wright & Associates using the Pixar computer. The main
technical effects were warps and morphs to produce many of
the shocking
visuals. In this article, the ever popular character "Trickster" is
seen eating Edward Furlong's character "Michael
Bower." Yummy!
Fangoria
"Brainscan: Say Hello to Trickster and Goodbye to Reality"
May 1994
Fangoria
explores the more psychotic aspects (not surprisingly) of
the "Brainscan's" virtual reality and digital effects. A
description of the advanced digital effects for that day
produced by Steve at his Hollywood digital effects studio,
Sidley Wright & Associates, and how they integrated into
the storytelling. Director John Flynn, producer Michael Roy
and visual effects supervisor, Art Durinski, let Steve have
a free reign in the design and execution of The effects were
used to dirve the story.
Variety
"Rocket Science Taps H'wood Talent for CD Games"
Matt Rothman
Jul 22, 1993
This
article takes a look at several some interesting new investments
in video gaming and digital effects studios, including Sidley
Wright & Associates. It notes that National Video Center
in New York has invested in Sidley-Wright and describes some
of the digital ink and paint software technology developed
by Steve Wright. Click
here to read article.
Close to 250 people showed up for
the monthly LA Siggraph meeting
on February 12th appropriately held on a greenscreen
stage at Gnomon to learn about greenscreen visual effects
compositing from Steve Wright and Jonathan Earland. Steve
Wright, VFX instructor
and author of “Digital Compositing for
Film and Video” and “Compositing
Visual Effects: Essentials for the Aspiring Artist” along
with Jonathan Earland, the owner of Composite Components
Company and the creator of greenscreen and bluescreen filming
technology
put on a fabulous show that was chock full of excellent information.
Writer
Paul Drury tracked Steve down through the Internet and requested
a one hour phone interview from sunny Nottingham, England
to reminisce about the early days of video gaming when Steve
worked at Atari. Of particular interest to the writer was
the rough and ready early days of video game development
when the game programmers were starting to become "rock stars".
Ribald stories abound. Some of the highlights are Steve's
innovation of the video game "Easter egg" and promoting the
video game manual from a dreary instruction set to a fun
and interesting storyline. There is also an interesting tale
about how Steve and his staff produce the video game footage
used in the Superman III movie, Steve's actual first film
credit. 
VIPGala
is a top glitz magazine about the exciting world of filmmaking
in Macedonia - sort of a Slavic version of Variety. The story
is about how the big Hollywood visual effects expert, Steve
Wright, came all the way from America to work with Macedonian
filmmakers and visual effects artists to train them on how
to do visual effects American style. The story featured Blanko,
one of the top Macedonian live action directors in all of
Macedonia. Sponsored by USAID, the project was designed to
upgrade the visual effects talent base in Macedonia to help
make them more competitive in the global market.
Bill
Kunkel and Arnie Katz were the pioneers of the gaming industry
when they created a magazine back in 1981 called Electronic
Games. In his recent book, "Confessions
of The Game Doctor", Bill reminisces about meeting
Steve at Atari and his impressions from that day.
This
is an interview that appeared in Diana Weynand's column "HD
on the Rise" that explores the increasing role that Hi-Def
video plays in the Digital Intermediate process. While the
Director and Cinematographer are now routinely viewing their "dailies" as
color timed HD video dailies, the 24P master is now a standard
deliverable for all Digital Intermediates. In addition, more
and more theatrical releases are being captured on HD and
transferred to film during the DI process with impressive
results. 
Highend3D.com
CleanScreen
v1.1 
Debra
Kaufman wrote a sweeping article with an overview of the
then emerging digital cel animation production process. The
art of digital ink and paint was just coming into its own
and Steve had designed one of the first digital ink and paint
systems outside of Disney which he used it to do commercial
work and his first animated feature - "FernGully: The
Last Rainforest." When released it was the highest grossing
non-Disney animated film at that time and has quite the cult
following today!
Animated
by Dave Spafford (Roger Rabbit fame), this series of three
television commercials featured a cel animated character
(Polly Pockets) composited over live action. The main creative
challenge was to give the flat 2D cel animation a more 3D
dimensional look which was achieved in the computer during
digital compositing by adding highlight and shadow tone layers.
The
article discusses director John Flynn's psychological thriller
that explores a young boy's (Edward Furlong) obsession with
video gaming. Producer Michael Roy was intrigued by doing
a film that included a virtual reality, namely the world
of the demonic "Trickster" (T. Ryder Smith), the video game's
nemesis.
Fangoria
explores the more psychotic aspects (not surprisingly) of
the "Brainscan's" virtual reality and digital effects. A
description of the advanced digital effects for that day
produced by Steve at his Hollywood digital effects studio,
Sidley Wright & Associates, and how they integrated into
the storytelling. Director John Flynn, producer Michael Roy
and visual effects supervisor, Art Durinski, let Steve have
a free reign in the design and execution of The effects were
used to dirve the story.