Conceptual Designer Victor Martinez has been a user of form•Z for a long time and it has always been a pleasure to feature his work as we hear about some new undertaking that broke new ground in digital concept design. In 2003, we covered Martinez’s work on Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi noire thriller Minority Report. Soon after that, the L.A. based freelance designer was busy using form•Z to develop some remarkable sets for a number of notable films, including Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (which won the award for Excellence in Production Design for a Period or Fantasy Film given by the Art Director’s Guild, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction), The Terminal (which won the Art Director’s Guild’s award for Excellence in Production Design for a Contemporary Film), and The Cat in the Hat. In 2005, we featured a step-by-step guide through the creation of a very unique and challenging set used for The Cat in the Hat, which was, in his own words, “Probably the most interesting set I’ve worked on to date.” That was in 2005. Since then, there have been many more challenging projects, which we admittedly have difficulty keeping up with. Here is a partial list: Transformers, Terminator Salvation, Real Steel, Transcedence, Oz The Great and Powerful, Avatar, Star Trek Into Darkness, etc. His latest, the mega-production Tomorrowland, released very recently, gave Martinez one more opportunity to design props and to invent forms of a highly futuristic quality.
As science and technology continue to evolve exponentially, the line between reality and science-fiction becomes less evident every day. After all, science is essentially a pursuit of truth – and truth, as the saying goes, is often “stranger than fiction.”
As a film genre, science-fiction dazzles us with possibilities. It can offer us a glimpse of the future, based on the burgeoning realities of today. Inherent in the success of conveying a futuristic reality is the creation of believable environments; surroundings and objects that appear to have weathered the natural tide of progress. In a sense, a science-fiction film is a study of our technological evolution, bolstered by the imaginations of those who create it and the tools available to them.
“I’m not really just a science-fiction fan,” says Martinez, “more than any other kind of films, per se. Sci-fi films simply rely more on complex visual content because you are in an environment designing things that don’t exist, which is something that lends itself to the nature of what I do. What intrigues me most is a set that is well-designed. I enjoy design that comes out of a grounded discipline. Then, visually, all the elements blend into the story and everything works well together.
From that point, a good director can engage all of that and use it to unfold parts of the story that aren’t acted or spoken.
Essentially, the sets become integral to the plot. In that sense, I’m more of a fan of movies in general.”
Since childhood, Martinez has held an affinity for art and design...not to mention movies. “From as young as I can remember, art and design was somehow in my life. As a kid, I was fascinated with science fiction, paleontology and archeology. I always kept a sketchbook with me, and was constantly drawing up designs for robots and spaceships, building them out of discarded cardboard boxes and plastic soda bottles or sculpting dinosaurs out of clay. I especially remember the first time I went to a movie, on my sixth birthday, and from that point on wanting to somehow work creatively in film.”
Martinez received a B.A. in Art at UCLA and then went on to receive his Masters of Architecture at SCI-Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture), where he first began working with form•Z. “Having never designed on the computer all through undergrad and into graduate school, I decided my second year at SCI-Arc to take a digital media design course that focused on using various applications, including form•Z as design tools. From that point on, I have executed the majority of my architectural work by modeling and drafting in form•Z.” After SCI-Arc, Martinez worked as a designer for two years before getting into film as a Set Designer specializing in the use of digital media, and now works as a Conceptual Designer.
Some of his projects and the awards they received have been mentioned earlier. The most recent is Tomorrowland, a movie that is an intriguing speculation about tomorrow’s world and the objects we may be using, which makes it a valuable prophecy. All this makes us anxious to see what is next from this highly inventive conceptual designer.
Victor Martinez,Conceptual Designer Victor Martinez has been a user of form•Z for a long time and it has always been a pleasure to feature his work as we hear about some new undertaking that broke new ground in digital concept design.
For more on Information please visit http://http://www.victor-martinez.com.
