An Interview with Mojo

This interview was originally published in The Zocalo, a free, weekly electronic newsletter devoted to Babylon 5. To subscribe, send your first name, e-mail address and state/country of residence to katana@indirect.com.

Well boys and girls it's time for another trip into Mister CGI's neighborhood. Today our special guest is.... (Can you say guest? I knew ya could!) It's the man, the myth, the legend.... (drum roll please) Mojo from Foundation Imaging. This week I had a great opportunity to bend Mojo's ear and ask him all the questions you "the readers of The Zocalo" have posed to me. I will give you the answers as they were given to me. See if you notice a similarity between the way Mojo answers questions and the way JMS answers questions. Sorta Kosh like!! I'm thinkin they have been hangin out a litttttle too long together.

The questions asked were ones I had and ones you the readers of The Zocalo sent to us. This interview was conducted by e-mail and I want to thank Mojo for taking the time to answer the questions. Thanks also to Amy Berry for chasing him down at the Con.

C.B.

Are you still using the modeler on the Amiga or have you switched to P.C.?

Mojo

We were running Video Toasters on Amigas, but we switched over the PC's last summer when LightWave became available for the intel machines. They're much faster and we need all the speed we can get!

C.B.

Who is Mitch the effects guy?

Mojo

Mitch Suskin was the on-set FX supervisor last year. This year it's Ted Rae.

C.B.

Who is responsible for what? Does each artist have his own area of speciality or do they work on one shot from beginning to end and do everything for that shot?

Mojo

We have a lot of artistic freedom. Ron Thornton has final say (until it goes to JMS), but we (the animators) pretty much interpret the script in our own way. We usually do a shot from start to finish... sometimes when I'm directing, I'll rough out the shots in wireframe and then hand them over to someone else. John Teska (the other supervising animator) gravitates towards creature stuff and character animation and I like space battles. However, we all do a bit of everything!

C.B.

Who created the Nakaleen feeder? How was it designed?

Mojo

The Feeder was designed by Ron and the boys at Optic Nerve. (Optic Nerve are the guy's responsible for the B-5 make-up for one of many things) It was created entirely in the computer, except for the close-up shots of the 'tongue' attaching itself to the actor's face. Some of the texture maps that made up it's body started out as a scan of butcher meat, and I think a few medical reference books were used as well.

C.B.

Kosh in FON: How much is makeup, and how much is CGI?

Mojo

There was an actor against a blue screen,(See my article in Newsletter # 31 for an explanation for blue screen) but we added the wings & the glow.

C.B.

Who designs and creates ship cgi?

Mojo

Most of the ships are designed by Ron, although we are all welcome to design and build new ships as they appear in scripts. John Teska was responsible for the Narn Transport and the Centauri Liner, while I handled the smaller Centauri Warbird.

C.B.

How long does it take to design and create a regular shot (like Shadow ship shots, Narn crusiers etc). What is the approximate cost for one of these shots?

Mojo

It takes anywhere from a half day (simple B5 establishing shot) to 2 or 3 days (major explosion) per shot. (Here comes Kosh,Whirr, whistle, beeeeep) They all cost exactly X amount of dollars per shot. :-)

C.B.

Why did MOJO disappear and where did he go? (Enquiring minds...)

Mojo

He didn't pay his Netcom bill and got too busy to reinstate his account. Look for him soon on America's Most Wanted.

C.B.

Using amigas and macs?? How many?

Mojo

We're now using Amigas & Toasters for live screen displays on 'Hypernauts.' B5 is done with PC's and DEC Alphas, while several Macs are used for compositing and 2D effects (PPG blasts and such).

C.B.

What new and exciting cgi stuff is looming on the horizon in the near future???

Cue Kosh again (Rattle ,burp, sound of breaking glass)

Mojo

Keep watching...

C.B.

Who has final approval of cgi?

Mojo

Ron at Foundation, Joe for B5, but, in the end, the VIEWERS decide!

C.B.

What are cgi deadlines like? How far in advance do they work?

Mojo

We get around 2 weeks per show, but if an episode is very FX heavy, JMS will try and follow it up with less FX intesive stories to give us more time on the hard shows.

C.B.

What has been the most challenging cgi effect to create? Why?

Mojo

The toughest yet is probably episode 8 from season 3, "Messages from Earth." You'll have to see it to understand why... other wise, The Feeder was a nice challenge, since it was our first creature... "Voice in the Wilderness" had our first atmospheric and semi-planetary shots, so that took some experimentation... the battle from "Coming of Shadows" was a personal struggle, since it was the first sequence I directed and it took a lot of work to make it so hard-hitting... the Kosh sequence was tough not because of Kosh, but we had to build the entire garden! People are so caught up with seeing Kosh they seem to have missed that the entire inside of the station has been built in 3D!

C.B.

Any nifty/funny/annoying cgi stories regarding the shop, the crew, etc?

Cue Kosh Again!(Gregorian chant,fingernails on a blackboard,chirp)

Mojo

Yes.

C.B.

How are cgi artists trained? Good schools/how to learn & break into the business?

Mojo

School is not neccessary, but can help. I learned the basics of 3D animation at home on my Amiga. No one at Foundation has a degree in anything to do with computers (although I did go to film school). Cal Arts in Valenica, CA (where we are located) has a good computer animation department, as does the School of Visual Arts in NYC. I also think it's important to not just learn the technical side of 3D, but the creative side, which is more or less filmmaking. A lot of new animators are very adept at working the software, but have little knowledge of how to make a movie, which is exactly what the 3D animator does - make little movies inside the computer. Learning the basics of lighting, composition, editing and film theory are things I personaly consider more important than all the computer classes in the world. It will certainly help you get ahead! If you want to go to school for this sort of thing, see if you can major in CGI and minor in film/video. That would be a winning combo.

C.B.

How do the people get along? Is it a team effort or do folks 'do their own thang'?

Mojo

We all hate each other, but are forced to get along for the good of the show! Don't you know by now that computers are making everyone anti-social?!

C.B.

What is more important: physics or looks?

Mojo

We do the real physics as best we can, but in the end the shots have to LOOK right, not BE right. Artistic integrity always wins out.

C.B.

How picky is JMS?

Mojo

Very.

C.B.

How picky is Ron?

Mojo

Depends how many beers he's had.

Sounds like my kinda guy. Well there ya have it. Okay so I'm no Barbara Walters but it was a fun interview. It weally weally was! Remember if you've got questions you can E-mail me at Necromancer@pol.org or send your questions to the newsletter for me. To subscribe to The Zocalo, send your first name, e-mail address and state/country of residence to katana@indirect.com. If you have ideas send them on in. Thanks again to Mojo and to Amy. Be seeing ya!

Last update: October 16, 1995