Dan Seddon is currently the head of 3D commercials at Framestore CFC in London. He kindly spoke to us about his journey to his current role and various projects he's worked on.

 

 

od[force]: You're currently head of 3D/commercials at Framestore CFC in London; what responsibilities are involved with that?
Dan Seddon: A range of responsibilities really: it varies from bidding on jobs, to supervising specific projects, deciding on the general running of the department, to staff issues, and more I'm sure...

od[force]: Do you work on specific projects or do you supervise a whole bunch of projects running at the same point in time?
Dan Seddon: Well both. Currently I'm not on a specific project and I'm watching a number projects and will be likely to do so to a greater extent as more come in. However over the last year (since becoming head) I've worked on 7 projects and directly supervised 5. Which was a tad tiring...

od[force]: How many people are under your supervision?
Dan Seddon: Good question - somewhere between 20 and 30.

od[force]: And what range of tools are used in your department?
Dan Seddon: Our main packages are Houdini and Maya - with the TD-ing being about 50/50 and the animation being solely Maya.
We use Maya's renderer and Mental Ray in Maya and PRMan and Mantra in Houdini (mainly PRMan).
We will also use Z-brush and Boujou, 3D Equaliser and Photoshop + other smaller packages. Also Shake (we are currently trying to move over to Nuke).
Most of our jobs go through Flame in the end.

od[force]: Now it would be interesting to learn a little bit about you: How did you arrive at Famestore? Where did you work before?
Dan Seddon: I've been in Framestore for slightly less than 7 years - I worked in Film when I first arrived on a number of Houdini FX based projects and then moved over to Commercials about 3 years ago.
Although film can be very satisfying in terms of the high profile work you can get, I find commercials more interesting due to the length of the projects and the greater personal involvement.
Prior to Framestore I worked in a small commercials company called "Clear" - where I mostly used Houdini on a number of promos and commercials; before that I worked from within Clear in a smaller company which I ran along with Jerry Corda-Stanley.
Before that... I worked at the BBC on the Human Body series of documentaries - which the Planets was a follow up to and I also worked on with Jerry.

 

od[force]: So you've been a Houdini user for a long time?
Dan Seddon: I started with version 1.0...

od[force]: Great! Did you use PRISMS before?
Dan Seddon: Nope - I like to think I'm too young to have ;)

od[force]: So basically all along your career you have used Houdini.
Dan Seddon: Pretty much - I started out using Softimage but quickly picked up Houdini when I got frustrated with being able to do so little with it's "modelling relation" and could see the benefits of proceduralism.
I also use Maya a little now of course, although it would be fair to say I'm primarily Houdini.

od[force]: You're a supervisor but speaking from a personal point of view, which area of 3D you feel more attracted to? Development, effects, character?
Dan Seddon: Ermm... all of it, if that's not a weak answer...
I guess I like to build systems - which is why I'm attracted to Houdini. I don't tend to lean towards FX as much - which is what many people expect from Houdini people (fire water etc). I guess I've done a lot of character stuff in the Commercials department - in terms of fur and feathers.
I enjoy that quite a lot - but I like anything with visual complexity, which Houdini is very good for - it's being able to control almost all aspects of what you are doing. Houdini is for control freaks ;).

od[force]: Speaking of that, I understand that Houdini/Maya ratio is around 50/50. What is Houdini used for? You said TD-ing, could you elaborate a little?
Dan Seddon: Well... To answer that I'll talk through some of the work we've done.
When I started 2 years ago (when Andy Boyd was running the department) we did the "Guinness Noitulove" commercial - we did a range of stuff on that project. We did trees growing (using lsystems) rocks eroding, ice forming and also some grass growing (time lapse style) across a field, along with other foliage and things. That was very much an all round use of the package on an FX level - we didn't know every effect we ended up doing in advance.