Friday, December 9, 1994
VIDEO IMAGES PUT FIRM ON CUTTING EDGE COMPUTER PROJECTS RANGE FROM LANDFILLS TO A GM PICKUP VIDEO.
In a second-floor office in the River Market area, a video flickers to life showing a car ramming a pickup truck, mist from a ruptured fuel tank and a fireball that quickly consumes the two vehicles.
The video is vivid, as it was meant to be. It was scheduled to be seen at a federal hearing this week regarding a possible recall of GM pickups with "sidesaddle" fuel tanks. The hearing was canceled after a last-minute settlement.
But the video stands as the latest project of Fearless Eye, a small Kansas City firm that is making a national name for itself in the field of computer animation and simulation.
Fearless Eye was founded in 1991 by Brad Mathison, 30, a graduate of Raytown South High School and the University of Missouri-Columbia. He's been successful enough to hire two staff members, friends he's known since childhood.
He still has the air of someone who can't quite believe his success doing something he loves.
"I didn't think you could make a living at this," he said.
But he has. The firm's clients now include such companies as Hallmark Cards Inc., HNTB Corp. and Valentine Radford Inc. The GM video was done for the Center for Auto Safety, a public interest group in Washington.
Mathison said his first big break was from the Overland Park law firm of Shamberg, Johnson, Bergman & Morris. The firm represented a passenger in a car who had been injured in a rollover accident. It also had information that the injuries were caused by a defective roof design.
Lynn Johnson, the lead attorney in the case, said that it helps to have evidence to show the jury what happened in such a case.
By chance, Johnson had heard about Fearless Eye, and he decided to use computer animation to help the case.
Not only did the animation simulate the rollover, but used measurements from the car involved to show how the roof was crushed in on the passenger.
"It was very effective," said Johnson, whose client won a multimillion-dollar award.
Here's how Fearless Eye does its work: The necessary data is plugged into Apple Macintosh computers and then manipulated into two-dimensional diagrams and three-dimensional animations.
The company's name comes from the idea that it is able to show situations that would be too dangerous for humans to try to re-create. The cost of the computer animation used in court cases varies, but is typically about $25,000.
The work is done by Mathison, who previously worked for a similar firm in Raleigh, N.C. He's been joined by John Ford, projects director, and by James Bradbury, a director of marketing.
In the firm's office, a book about George Lucas, the director of such films as "Star Wars," is on a coffee table. All three employees confess to having a taste for films that depend on computer animation, such as "Jurassic Park."
"We watch that stuff all the time," Ford said.
Although the firm continues to provide services used in court trials, it also has branched out. One project in the western United States showed how a landfill would change the way an area looked. The officials decided against the project.
Fearless also was hired by HNTB, the Kansas City design and architectural firm, which was involved in the reconstruction of the Los Angeles Coliseum after it was damaged by an earthquake.
Cutaway diagrams provided by the firm showed the commission that oversaw the coliseum what was being repaired and the progress being made.
"It's not the future, it's now," said Alan Edgar, director of architectural information services for HNTB, referring to computer animation.
So far, new business for Fearless has been attracted by word of mouth. That's how the firm got the job from Center for Auto Safety, which was looking for help with a video for a hearing on the potential GM recall.
Instead of complete animation, Fearless used a video of an actual crash. It then added color to the mist coming from the ruptured fuel tank to make it more noticeable. Using eyewitness accounts of such crashes, it then overlaid fire to complete the tape.
For the future, the company is working on a pilot tape in hopes of getting some computer animation work for video games.
"I'm surprised at how much we've already grown," Mathison said.
THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Section: BUSINESS
Page: B1
By STEVE EVERLY, Consumer Writer
All content © 1994 THE KANSAS CITY STAR and may not be republished without permission.
Send comments or questions to NewsLibrary
All archives are stored on a SAVE (tm) newspaper library system from MediaStream Inc., a Knight-Ridder Inc. company.
