Interview with Brad Hayes of Digital Domain about Introducing Modo
by Policarpo

interview by Policarpo

A little bio/background information about yourself and Digital Domain and the Commercial Division...

I’ll leave the background on the DD commercial division to the publicity department. But as for me… In about 1987 I started going to Pasadena City College where I studied Broadcast Production for Television. This was about the same time that the Amiga computer and the Video Toaster were hitting the scene. Immediately I started doing graphics on the side for some friends and then a few quick jobs here and there. By 1996 I was working at a company in Santa Monica, Calif. called Digital Muse. Mostly, we worked on Star Trek. When I left there I went to Rhythm and Hues and was there for a number of years. After that I bounced around town freelancing until I landed here at Digital Domain.

How long have you been with Digital Domain?

I’ve been with Digital Domain (DD) about two and a half years now. And in that time have worked on over twenty-five different projects here at DD.

What are some of your day to day roles there?

It’s definitely one of those jobs that require you to wear many hats. It also depends greatly on what role I’m taking in the project at hand. Some times I’m the CG supervisor, other times I’m the 3D Lead, and sometimes I get to just concentrate on a specific shot or tasks for the duration of the show.

When your team is considering a new tool for the DD pipeline, what are some of the considerations that go into deciding on what to use?

Well there are only a few things that I personally look at, a) will it help us do a better job, and b) will it help us get the job done faster? As a facility there’s obviously a few other considerations like, we will look at how well it will integrate into our existing pipeline. If it doesn’t work well with the other applications that we use then it won’t help with my first two standards.

What are some of the key benefits you feel modo offers over other tools?

Like most people who have used it, when I first started using modo I was just blown away by its interface. It is by far the most flexible UI I have ever worked with. The guys at Luxology did a fantastic job laying the groundwork here. What makes it stand out to me is that it feels like they took the stuff I like about working with Maya and the stuff I like about working in LightWave and mixed them together in exactly the way that I always wanted them to all work together. And for me, especially here at Digital Domain, that makes it a very comfortable fit.