| TexFX Practices Their Magic in Austin |
| Written by Steve Muccini | |
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Enter Austin’s own TexFX , one of the leading visual effects companies around. With credits including Apollo 13, Spy Kids, Waterworld, What Lies Beneath, and even Free Willy 3, Gary Walker, the main brains behind TexFX, has been tricking you with his masterful craft for over 20 years. His latest trick? He’s gonna run a really, really long way, all for the Austin Children’s Shelter. More on that later.
Back to the trickery. What most people don’t realize is how visual effects make their way into everything they watch. In Free Willy 3, for instance, you probably had no idea as to what was real and what was…well, Gary. For this film, he was called upon to make a perfectly healthy killer whale look ill. In case you are not a cetologist, you may not realize that when a whale is sick or kept in captivity too long, its fin bends to the side. Needing a shot of a sick whale, the film's producer had a challenge. He really didn’t want to film sick whales, so they called upon Walker in his role as Compositing Supervisor to make a perfectly healthy whale fin look limp and wilted. Bet you didn’t catch that one. Other things that you may miss are those that just aren’t there. This skill of the trade is called rotoscoping. That is where a digital artist goes in, frame by frame to remove the undesirable items in the shot. Thus helping to build the illusion. This includes the cable and harness attached to an actor to make them appear to fly through the air, the ramps that make a car suddenly start rolling, or the wires that attach to the animatronic killer whale to get it to do things that real whales won’t. A time-consuming and tedious business, but the kind of work that would make a scene calling for this stuff either prohibitively expensive or just plain impossible. Filmmakers expect that when you are watching their films, you will give them the benefit of a temporary suspension of reality. With digital effects houses like TexFX, they are able to take that reality void to entirely new level. Here is some motivation for the filmmaker involved in a project that is innovative and uplifts truth and spirit around the human condition. It is called the Indevation Honors Program. This is where Gary will award a 25% discount on his rates to filmmakers who are having a hard time getting funding for these kind of projects. You can visit the TexFX website for more information and an application.
Steve Muccini is president of SpotEdge Media, an award winning video production company producing content for TV and the web, and also HomeSaleVideo.com . He is also a writer, producer and actor in Austin, Texas.
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Whether you are a fan of the big budget and top star action and adventure movies, or if you prefer a nice, story-rich indie film, there is one thing for sure. You have been fooled! That’s right, just like the slight of hand of a good magician, you have been tricked into believing that what you are seeing is actually real. In this case, it ain’t David Copperfield or Cris Angel suspending your belief, it is the superstar special effects masters who practice their magic on just about every film you have ever seen. When you see the latest Batman, The Mummy, or Indiana Jones, you take for granted that it will be full of high dollar effects. It’s what you pay your eight bucks to go see. But the fact is that some form of manipulation of the location, the characters or the overall images themselves has probably taken place in films and scenes where you would never think to look. 
Gary Walker has made his home here in Austin for the last eight years, but he has definitely clocked his time all around the film and media world. He honed his skills in L.A. and Vancouver, cities where there is always something in production to get hired on. Working for companies like ABC and Digital Domain as a compositor, and working his way up to effects supervisor, he has truly earned his street cred in the creative effects space. In 2001, he had finally logged enough experience in the field to be able to pick the place he really wanted to settle and start up his own gig, right here in ATX. TexFX dropped roots here and set out to help good filmmakers become even better. Independent filmmakers often assume that it is cost prohibitive to bring on a special effects supervisor or compositor, but everything is relative. That’s because when you compare the cost of having to build out a massive set, or if you have the need to fill a large stadium with 15,000 people, for instance, the math just becomes easy and you need to bring in the magicians.
OK, back to the run. File this under, “filmmakers uniting for a cause”. In 2006, Walker launched his marathon training program and team. Basically, he called upon Austin area filmmakers to get together and he would teach them how to run a marathon. One caveat, you also get to raise lots of money for the Austin Children’s Shelter. Right away he brought together 13 people from the film business here in Austin to train and run the marathon. The team has been assembled for the race for three years and has raised a total of $46,000 for the shelter. This year, for the 2009 Austin Marathon, Walker is still running, but decided to take a year off from building and training the team. However, he is still out there with the primary cause to raise money for the shelter. If you can swing it, he would love to have you donate to the Austin Children’s Shelter along with him, supporting his run and a great cause. They have created a dedicated page for