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<h2>An Interview with Mojo</h2>
Conducted by Chuck Becker&lt;<a href="mailto:Necromancer@pol.org">Necromancer@pol.org.</a>&gt;
<p>This interview was originally published in The Zocalo, a free, weeklyelectronic newsletter devoted to Babylon 5.  To subscribe, send yourfirst name, e-mail address and state/country of residence to<a href="mailto:katana@indirect.com">katana@indirect.com.</a>

<p> Well boys and girls it's time for another trip into Mister CGI'sneighborhood. Today our special guest is.... (Can you say guest? I knew yacould!) It's the man, the myth, the legend.... (drum roll please) Mojo fromFoundation Imaging. This week I had a great opportunity to bend Mojo's ear andask him all the questions you "the readers of The Zocalo" have posed to me. Iwill give youthe answers as they were given to me. See if you notice a similarity betweenthe way Mojo answers questions and the way JMS answers questions. Sorta Koshlike!! I'm thinkin they have been hangin out a litttttle too long together.
<p> The questions asked were ones I had and ones you the readers of The Zocalosent to us. Thisinterview was conducted by e-mail and I want to thank Mojo for taking the timeto answer the questions. Thanks also to Amy Berry for chasing him down at theCon.
<dl compact>
<dt>C.B.<dd>Are you still using the modeler on the Amiga or have you switched to P.C.?
<dt>Mojo<dd>We were running Video Toasters on Amigas, but we switched over the PC's lastsummer when LightWave became available for the intel machines.  They're muchfaster and we need all the speed we can get!
<dt>C.B.<dd>Who is Mitch the effects guy?
<dt>Mojo<dd>Mitch Suskin was the on-set FX supervisor last year.  This year it's TedRae.
<dt>C.B.<dd>Who is responsible for what?  Does each artist have his own area of specialityor do they work on one shot from beginning to end and do everything forthat shot?
<dt>Mojo<dd>We have a lot of artistic freedom.  Ron Thornton has final say (until itgoes to JMS), but we (the animators) pretty much interpret the script in ourown way.  We usually do a shot from start to finish... sometimes when I'mdirecting, I'll rough out the shots in wireframe and then hand them over tosomeone else.  John Teska (the other supervising animator) gravitatestowards creature stuff and character animation and I like space battles.However, we all do a bit of everything!
<dt>C.B.<dd>Who created the Nakaleen feeder? How was it designed?
<dt>Mojo<dd>The Feeder was designed by Ron and the boys at Optic Nerve. (Optic Nerveare the guy's responsible for the B-5 make-up for one of many things) It wascreated 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 upit's body started out as a scan of butcher meat, and I think a few medicalreference books were used as well.
<dt>C.B.<dd>Kosh in FON: How much is makeup, and how much is CGI?
<dt>Mojo<dd>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.

<dt>C.B.<dd>Who designs and creates ship cgi?

<dt>Mojo<dd>Most of the ships are designed by Ron, although we are all welcome todesign and build new ships as they appear in scripts.  John Teska wasresponsible for the Narn Transport and the Centauri Liner, while I handled thesmaller Centauri Warbird.

<dt>C.B.<dd>How long does it take to design and create a regular shot (like Shadowship shots, Narn crusiers etc). What is the approximate cost for one of theseshots?
<dt>Mojo<dd>It takes anywhere from a half day (simple B5 establishing shot) to 2 or 3days (major explosion) per shot. (Here comes Kosh,Whirr, whistle, beeeeep) Theyall cost exactly X amount of dollarsper shot. :-)
<dt>C.B.<dd>Why did MOJO disappear and where did he go?  (Enquiring minds...)
<dt>Mojo<dd>He didn't pay his Netcom bill and got too busy to reinstate his account.
Look for him soon on America's Most Wanted.
<dt>C.B.<dd>Using amigas and macs??  How many?
<dt>Mojo<dd>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 usedfor compositing and 2D effects (PPG blasts and such).
<dt>C.B.<dd>What new and exciting cgi stuff is looming on the horizon in the nearfuture???
<dt>Cue Kosh again (Rattle ,burp, sound of breaking glass)
<dt>Mojo<dd>Keep watching...
<dt>C.B.<dd>Who has final approval of cgi?
<dt>Mojo<dd>Ron at Foundation, Joe for B5, but, in the end, the VIEWERS decide!
<dt>C.B.<dd>What are cgi deadlines like?  How far in advance do they work?
<dt>Mojo<dd>We get around 2 weeks per show, but if an episode is very FX heavy, JMSwilltry and follow it up with less FX intesive stories to give us more time onthe hard shows.
<dt>C.B.<dd>What has been the most challenging cgi effect to create?  Why?
<dt>Mojo<dd>The toughest yet is probably episode 8 from season 3, "Messages fromEarth." You'll have to see it to understand why... other wise, The Feeder wasanice challenge, since it was our first creature... "Voice in the Wilderness"had our first atmospheric and semi-planetary shots, so that took someexperimentation... the battle from "Coming of Shadows" was a personalstruggle, since it was the first sequence I directed and it took a lot ofwork to make it so hard-hitting... the Kosh sequence was tough not becauseof Kosh, but we had to build the entire garden!  People are so caught upwith seeing Kosh they seem to have missed that the entire inside of thestation has been built in 3D!
<dt>C.B.<dd>Any nifty/funny/annoying cgi stories regarding the shop, the crew, etc?

<dt>Cue Kosh Again!(Gregorian chant,fingernails on a blackboard,chirp)
<dt>Mojo<dd>Yes.
<dt>C.B.<dd>How are cgi artists trained?  Good schools/how to learn & break into the business?
<dt>Mojo<dd>School is not neccessary, but can help.  I learned the basics of 3Danimation at home on my Amiga.  No one at Foundation has a degree inanything to do with computers (although I did go to film school).  Cal Artsin Valenica, CA (where we are located) has a good computer animationdepartment, as does the School of Visual Arts in NYC.  I also think it'simportant 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 atworking the software, but have little knowledge of how to make a movie,which is exactly what the 3D animator does - make little movies inside thecomputer.  Learning the basics of lighting, composition, editing and filmtheory are things I personaly consider more important than all the computerclasses in the world.  It will certainly help you get ahead!  If you want togo to school for this sort of thing, see if you can major in CGI and minorin film/video.  That would be a winning combo.
<dt>C.B.<dd>How do the people get along?  Is it a team effort or do folks 'do theirown thang'?
<dt>Mojo<dd>We all hate each other, but are forced to get along for the good of theshow! Don't you know by now that computers are making everyone anti-social?!
<dt>C.B.<dd>What is more important: physics or looks?
<dt>Mojo<dd>We do the real physics as best we can, but in the end the shots have toLOOKright, not BE right.  Artistic integrity always wins out.
<dt>C.B.<dd>How picky is JMS?
<dt>Mojo<dd>Very.
<dt>C.B.<dd>How picky is Ron?
<dt>Mojo<dd>Depends how many beers he's had.
</dl>
<p>Sounds like my kinda guy. Well there ya have it. Okay so I'm no BarbaraWalters 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 orsend your questions to the newsletter for me. To subscribe to The Zocalo, sendyour first name, e-mail address and state/country of residence tokatana@indirect.com. If you have ideas send them on in. Thanks again to Mojoand to Amy. Be seeing ya!
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