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Interview with Peipei Yuan
Freelance animator Peipei Yuan talks about creating previz sequences for blockbuster movies, her second career as a stuntwoman and breakdancer and women in the cg industry. Her feature credits include Spider-man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3, Superman Returns and Matrix Revolutions.
June, 7th, 2007, by Raffael Dickreuter, Bernard Lebel
 |  | Peipei Yuan, animator, stuntwoman and breakdancer.
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How did you get started in cg and why
Being a computer artist is the epitome of what my personality is: I love geeking out on technology, gadgets, and electronics, I am passionate about kinesiology because I am a dancer, martial artist, stuntwoman, gymnast, and diver, and I love to be creative, imaginative, and entertain people with my art.
I started playing with MACPAINT when I was 8 years old, enjoying each click it took to draw a plant. My sister was very influential in my love for fine art, painting, drawing, sculpture. She was more of the natural artist, and I looked up to her. My father is an engineer and always drilled us in math problems, so naturally I loved gadgets, computers, electronics, and math. My mother's love for music and Suzuki training most likely influenced me knowledge with timing and musicality that has helped my animation.
In college, I was really confused about what to major in. I was all over the place , passionate about everything, involved with so many things. Ever since I was a kid I had dreams to work for Walt Disney Imagineering because I loved Disneyland for the Imagineer's attentiveness to detail by addressing the human senses with the architecture, music, and visuals of the different lands. It really allowed me to feel like I was really on tom sawyer's island, or in new Orleans square, or watching a vaudeville show.
I chose a couple different majors, thinking of my best options to become an Imagineer. I had considered majoring in Architecture, economics Operations/Research, Electrical Engineering. I finally declared Computer Science but dropped out and became an art major when I found my way in to the "Gateway Lab", a computer lab filled with 42 O2 SGI computers and one super Onyx computer. It was the Gateway to my future....
I was really in to making web pages at first, and making graphics with Photoshop. I found myself sneaking in to a computer graphics 101 class for engineering students. They showed a presentation on how Alias|Wavefront was used for movies like Jurassic Park. That's when it clicked in my mind that I didn't want to be a programmer, but that I wanted to allow my geeky nature and my artistic abilities and creativity to meld in to one art form. I knew at that moment I wanted to work on feature films doing Computer Graphics and Visual Effects. I knew I wanted to bring objects to life in the computer and entertain people with my art. I spent many nights up all night till 6am learning everything I could about 2d and 3d Computer art.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
Spare time? There's never spare time. Aside from my computer artist life, I try to be as active as possible to off set the long hours staring and clicking. I actively train and compete in Breakin' (known as breakdancing) Battles as much as I can, I'm also pursuing my career as a stuntwoman, something that I've been meant to do my whole life.
Sometimes I train with my stunt friends of the Reel Kick Stunt team and I am studying WuShu. On weekends, I do street shows at 3rd street promenade, or I go out dancing. During the winter, I go snowboarding. I also work on my website, which is an on-line store geared towards active ladies. And I teach a weekly breakin' class. Breakgirl.com is also my portal to everything I do.
Tell us about your breakdancing and what is your favourite move?
Being a dancer has definitely aided in my sense of timing and the way bodies move for animating. Dancing is very related to animating because there are moments when I dance, I feel like I am telling a story and entertaining people visually. Breaking is also a very powerful and expressive dance form, and can heighten a person's experience of a particular song, just like graphics and CGI can enhance a person's viewing experience of a movie or hearing a song. There are so many different moves and combos in breaking, I just really love letting the music translate through my body and having a flow when I incorporate my entire body in to top rocks and floor work, freezes, and power moves. I love being upside down, on my head, in twisted positions, and flipping.
Your IMDB profile reveals that you have done some stunt work. Can you tell us more about that?
Yes, not only am I an computer animator, and a bgirl, I am also a professional stuntwoman. Everything I've ever done in my entire life has lead me to desire to be a professional stuntwoman. I grew up doing competitive gymnastics and spring board diving , and always was known to be a tough girl dare devil who played with the boys, Pretty much everything I do is male dominated: break dancing, previz, stunts, martial arts, snowboarding. I've taken some terrible falls in my life and I feel i have a good sense of body awareness, and how to fall or crash safely. I'm also not afraid of heights.
I recently just finished shooting for a national commercial called "Head Wind" for Farmers Insurance. I played the principal lead actress, and I did my own stunts. It was a blast! It is my dream to be a stunt actress, and I intend to continue to pursue this dream. I also was a stunt performer on that TV show "Numb3rs". It was amazing being on the complete opposite end of production, in front of the camera instead of planning out shots with previz. For once I was the actor acting out animations! Having a good sense of film making helped me understand everything that was going on during the shooting process. Animal Logic is doing the visual effects for it, and they were shooting plates, and passes for effects.
Along with my friends Bob Chapin (a stuntman and visual effects artist) and Tim Storms, I starred and did my own stunts in a short called "A Matrix Revelation", which was created to display my capabilities and skills to be a stuntwoman. It's supposed to be a story of just one more individual that Neo has tried to help free. I did all the visual effects and compositing for it, ghetto style and super fast. Hopefully we do some other work soon.
Watch Peipei's breakdance showreel
Tell us what it means being a freelance previz artist in the LA area
It's been a blast as a freelancer in the LA area because I've had the opportunity to work with many amazing artists on different movies and jobs. I enjoy working in the art departments, being surrounded by so much creativity imagination and ideas. The most enjoyable part of previz work is working with directors to help them figure out significant sequences in their movies. I also like working with different places because it keeps my on my toes and makes projects exciting.
Tell us about how previz was used on recent projects you worked on and how much of it eventually of ends up on the screen
I worked on Spiderman 3 and had the opportunity to work with Sam Raimi and some amazing story board artists like Gabe Harding, Jeff Lynch, and Rick Newsome. A lot of the shots that I worked on ended up in the movie.
It seems most of the shots that require previzing, tend to be some of the most refined and dynamic shots, which help hype up the movie. There were many complicated fights and sequences in Spidy III. Along with Gabe and two other artists, we planned out the Black Spidy and Sandman fight in the subway tunnels.
They began to shoot the sequence even before we were completely done with it. Sometimes there were moments I refer to as "DURA-VIS" when they need previz shots done right away so they can figure out how to shoot them on set.
In general, I think the story board artists worked hard to incorporate the previz in to the best type of story boards.
I also worked on some dream sequence shots with Rick Newsome. I was really surprised that the "Italian Suit" sequence that I prevized was not cut. It was one of those sequences that I felt some people were questioning the necessity of me previzing it. Sam had asked me to choreograph some dance moves for Tobey to do strutting down the street.
I think since Sam knew I was a dancer, he had asked me to act out a couple of the actions in his office, and then decided to have me previz it. I created a cute sequence with some of my simple dance moves, and edited it to one of my favorite greasy beats band funk songs, and the whole sequence with all my moves ended up in the movie! It was funny animating dance moves.
Spider-man 3
I was on an all male team of 5, under proof inc. Charlie Gibson as visual effects sup, and rich lee as previz lead. It seemed as though Gore utilized previz not only look and feel, but also story telling. He wanted nice looking previz, with characters that showed facial expressions, and we worked hard to make the previz look nice with effects and nice textures. We used Maya for the previz, and I was lucky to work with talented artist liks Marc Chu from ILM, Scott Meadows, and Robin Roepstorff.
specifically,
For II: dead mans chest, I worked on the kracken attack sequences where the kracken tentacles are attacking the black pearl, as well as some shots involving the flying dutchman. I found Maya's particle instancer to be very useful for wood explosions etc.
For III, i worked a bit on the GreenFlash and some shots in the end when Davy and Jack are on a mast fighting over the chest that contains his heart, I also worked on some shots at the end of the movie.
On set as stuntwoman. Watch Peipei's stunt showreel.
Tell us how it is working as a previz artist on productions. Does it include a lot of pressure, long hours and tight deadlines or do productions now leave enough time for the process?
It depends on the production. From my experience, commercials and music videos are the worst time pressures. Usually all nighters and weekenders are required. For feature films there are moments where we have to stay late to get deliveries out for presentations, but generally the schedules are not as severe. It's all pretty stressful when some people in the industry don't understand how long previz takes, and demand long difficult complex sequences on the fly.
What projects do you consider some of the highlights of your career so far?
Pirates of the Caribbean, Spidy III, Sky High, Chronicles of Riddick, The Panic Room, Van Helsing, Elf, The Matrix Revolutions. Right now I'm on National Treasure II with two other female previz artists who have been doing previz for a while. We are like sisters and it's really refreshing to be working with all girls for the first time. We're cranking out a car chase sequence... Hot stuff... Girls can animate car chases too...
Do you have any funny story to share that happened during a job of yours?
Too many... it's really funny being one of few women amongst so many male computer geeks. One of my most favorite moments is when I was working late hours at PLF on this music video for Mariah Carey called OH BOY. It was all very stressful, we were all lack of sleep, and it was 4 am in the morning. Kent Seki, the animation supervisor was on the phone with the clients getting comments from them and apparently they were very stressed also, and demanding deliveries sooner. We were all sitting there quiet listening to him speak loudly to the clients, his voice was getting louder and more agitated, and finally when he got off the phone without taking a breath, he started ordering everyone around to do tasks. Then he proceeded to yell "EVERYONE JUST CALM DOWN". I turned around to look at him in the center of the room, and no one was saying anything, everyone was just quietly clicking away at their workstations. It was a great moment we all laugh at all the time, he was being Hector the Projector.
How was it for you being one of the fewer women in this industry?
It's been fun. I notice that because I'm not a man, I don't really have to battle with male egos. All the guys seem to act differently towards me, than they do amongst each other. I feel that most of the time I'm not afraid to say "I don' know how to do it, but I will figure it out" whereas, I feel some male animators don't feel comfortable admitting when they don't know how to do something. Not all male animators are the same, but I've noticed there is sometimes a lot of dissension amongst each other. I feel like being a woman makes it easier to work with other male animators, directors and storyboard artists. There are some actions and animations I feel I'm more knowledgeable about because of my feminity, like animating the way women move, or dance, or fall, or react.
In previz I get to study and animate many different things, from creatures like werewolves, Draculas, Animals, to mechanical objects like cars, engines, the inside of VHS machines. It's been fun animating drifts and peel outs in car chases, as well as what really happens in side a VHS machine, or how a Volkswagen turbo charged engine works, or how a soldier blows up.
I enjoy being a previz artist because I am required to be knowledgeable about everything, and not getting pigeon holed in to just doing ONE thing. I have to know about everything from 3d modeling and animation, to 2d texture creating, to texture mapping, rendering, editing, and sound editing, timing, look and feel. The best part is being involved with the development of the story and shot compositions.
I don't like getting pigeon holed in to one thing, so that's why previz is perfect for me, I like to do a little of everything.
Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3
Do you feel this meant disadvantages or advantages for you?
Advantages because it's always nice to break up the male testosterone in a work place. I like hanging out with the boys... It's nothing different from everything else I've done in my life.
What features of XSI do you find very useful and which areas should be improved?
All day every day I compare Maya to XSI, since I've worked heavily and intensely in both softwares doing previz and final work.
There are things here and there that I would love in XSI that are in Maya, and vice versa. Over all, I really love some of the animation tools in XSI, like the ease of expressions, making custom parameters, saving presets, the graph editor. I feel XSI is a great standalone software for previz. As well as the OGL mode for hardware capturing on the fly.
But for a detailed description of my favorite and least favorite aspects of XSI:
(All of these assessments were on different machines, but mostly high end workstations, and agreed upon by my female previz friends.) It happens to be that I compare to Maya since it's the only other software I use for previz, and it really helps me properly assess what is needed in both softwares. I started using XSI for previz and visual effects in 2000 and most of my Maya previz work was from 2003-2007 in Chronicles of Riddick, Sky High, Pirates II & III, and Spiderman III.
MODELING
Generally, XSI is great for polygon modeling. i generally use XSI to do quick modeling even to import in to Maya.
For previz, the measure tools in Maya are handy, how you can interactively move your nulls and the distance updates. I would really like an XSI measuring tool, that can measure length of a non linear curve as well as two points on a curve.
I love how XSI deals with origins, pivot points, centers, freezing transformations, and general working with pivots and nulls, as well as the child compensation mode that Maya lacks. I like the hierarchy setup in XSI better because u have options to have child compensation on or constraint compensation.
I like how the interactive pivot in XSI works, and allows you to move the pivot anywhere, just by hitting the alt key. The way freezing centers work in XSI are in certain ways better than Maya, since you can't freeze a null so that it's off in space, but the transforms are all zeroed out.
ANIMATION
I love the fcurve editor in XSI, because of the preciseness in the handles, and typing in values for length of handles as well as angles.
The dope sheet is Maya seems to work more smoothly. The XSI dope sheet is not user friendly, and seems clumsy and inaccurate in manuevering key frames around like Maya is.
I don't like how XSI by default re-evaluates fcurves when you add keys in between keys.
there should be an option to the way you would like your fcurves to interpolate after you've added keys. Maya does a better default job of interpolating keys on existing fcurves the timeline in Maya is very useful especially along side with character sets. I hear there are character sets in xsi6 but i haven't used them..
i like the XSI mixer, always have, it works well to save clips of animation out and re-map the fcurves on to other characters with the same rig setup, as well as combining keyframes with source clips very conveniently. i like being able to make cycles, and deactivate certain channels for detail animation.
For instance if i create a walk cycle, i can bring the clip on to a character and deactivate his head channels so that i can manually animate his head looking around wherever i want it to but still have the walk cycle.
Animated constraints are easily accessible in XSI, as surface deformation animations, which come in handy all the time.
DYNAMICS
I love Maya particle effects especially the particle instancer, the user interface for Maya's particles is much easier than XSI.
RENDERING
XSI passes are the best for final. the passes in Maya aren't as useful.
USER INTERFACE
The user interface for tools, that show real time update on adjustments is very handy in XSI. For instance when i am doing polygon reduction, I can just move the sliders and see the model update in real time, as opposed to Maya, i have to type in the value hit enter, and then see my results.
XSI transparency sorting is much better in OGL mode. Which is what we use in previz a lot. The default set up is much better. Maya doesn't handle transparencies in OGL very well. I like the drag and drop function in the software, you can drag images right in to the render tree.
Anything you would like to say to the CG community?
I'm interested in hearing from previz animators/artists or visual effects artists who are also stuntpeople, martial artists, bboys and bgirls. Since these are two things that take a lot of time, it's rare to meet people who are passionate about both. I'm also interested in hearing from people on their thoughts and experiences doing previz, and maybe seeing other people's work. So check my website out at breakgirl.com.
Related Links
Peipei Yuan
Peipei's showreels
Discuss Article at the forum
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