Want to see more of the VFX work made on the first season of THE MANDALORIAN? Here is the work made by Important Looking Pirates focusing on the Bar Fight sequence:
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
Want to see more of the VFX work made on the first season of THE MANDALORIAN? Here is the work made by Important Looking Pirates focusing on the Bar Fight sequence:
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
Don’t miss this new trailer for the new crazy Russian sci-fi movie, COSMOBALL
The VFX are made by:
Main Road Post
Film Direction FX
Green Light
Online VFX
Trehmer Film
Kinopost
Cubic Studio
Ural Digital
Mofac
Carboncore
Muravey
Algous Studio
VAL Studio
Sci-FX
Director: Dzhanik Fayziev
Release Date: 27 August 2020 (Russia)
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
In 2018, Sara Bennett explained the work of Milk Visual Effects on ADRIFT. She comes back today to tell us about her work as Overall VFX Supervisor on the Netflix movie, THE OLD GUARD:
How did you get involved on this show?
Milk were approached by Jennifer Silver from Netflix during one of her visits to London and she asked me if it’s something I would be interested in doing, and of course I said yes.
How was your collaboration with director Gina Prince-Bythewood?
I really enjoyed working with Gina, she was very hands on throughout the production and keen to know all aspects of the process as she hadn’t worked a lot with VFX before.
What was her expectations and approach about the visual effects?
In our pre-production meetings Gina would always push for shooting everything in camera where possible as she could see it and control it, which I totally understand. My job was to reassure her by finding loads of relevant references to show that VFX could do the job needed before committing to anything.
I was able to rely on the VFX vendors early on to create a lot of quick tests and proof of concept tests at the early stages, to reassure Gina.
How did you organize the work with your VFX Producer?
My VFX producer was Lisa Kelly. It was really collaborative and we had a great working relationship. We put the job out to tender to the vendors we were interested in working with and whittled it down from there.
The heroes are immortal. How did you work with the art department for the wounds healing?
The regeneration concept design and development was handled by the VFX department. We found a great concept artist called Valentin Petrov who was involved in the early design stages with Gina and helped gauge how far to go. What was great is that Gina was very clear that it wasn’t about the shock value – with the more blood and gore the better. What she wanted was realism, and if that meant it made you go “urgh” when looking at it, she was fine, as long as it felt real.
Can you explain in detail about the creation of the wounds healing?
I collated a library of images which included blast wounds, bullet wounds, cuts and bruises from lots of medical websites. Gina was very insistent that everything was totally ‘real world’ in terms of how a real wound would heal over time, and we had to show that level of detail. We found some time lapse videos of wounds healing over weeks that were very helpful in showing how the human body heals and the various stages, from the initial wounds to scabbing, newly healed pink skin and the bruising stages, (it’s amazing how quickly you become desensitised to some of these images!) We then had to take all of this information and make it work over seconds; we really wanted to show all of the detail without it looking too fantasy. Image Engine was our vendor for this work, led by Hannes Poser and they did an excellent job on the final look for this work; it was always the most discussed VFX work from the start and a big story point for the film makers so we had to get it absolutely right.
How did you work with the makeup team for those healing?
We worked closely with the make-up team led by Alessandro Bertolazzi, he did some initial wound placements and design that we used as reference for some of our final regeneration wounds, for the shoot we had these as residual blood with a marker in the centre for VFX to track to, this made the process easier when we came to create the regeneration as the placements and size were already set.
We also worked closely with the prosthetics team led by David Malinowski particularly for the Booker scene in the rectory, we had 3x stages of prosthetics we worked with as his regeneration was pretty extensive and healed over a whole scene of dialogue, having the prosthetic on during the shoot was also very helpful for the actor to work with as a tool. For the VFX it was trickier as we ended up having to replace the initial stage 1 set up as the wound is so extensive and the movement of it worked against the intricate regeneration work being done by Image Engine.
The movie is taking us to various locations. How did you enhance these environments?
One of my favourite locations was a private airfield in White Waltham, UK that we used for the Camp Leatherneck scene in Afghanistan which Milk created. The art department built an amazing set here and had to bring in tons of sand to dress the ground with, I remember having to pour sand out of my trainers continually and it was exhausting running through sand all day! We had up to 6x bluescreens attached to telehandlers that we could quickly drive onto any area of the set depending on where the camera was shooting off. So this covered simple top ups and extensions where needed.
Another scene was Shirburn castle, Oxfordshire, UK, for the exterior scenes in Paris when Nile first meets the rest of The Old Guard; we removed an old water tower and replaced it with derelict shutters. For the scenes in Afghanistan where The Old Guard arrive ahead of the Killroom scene we did a lot of modernity clean ups.
Can you tell us more about the Merrick building?
In the story Merrick’s building is in the city of London and we shot the exterior shots there. But for the interior shots of the Penthouse we went to Jura House in Wentworth (UK) for a 2 week shoot. The house was surrounded by glass from ceiling to floor and we had to make it feel like Merrick was in his penthouse rooms on top of a building in the city of London. The main issues we had to deal with were crew reflections and lots of green spill. We took a lidar at street level in the city of London and also from the roof for all our views out of the window, we also shot time lapse 360 degree high res stills to gather times of the day as we came back to this scene more than once and the DOP wanted to set up the correct lighting to reflect the time of day per scene. I was really pleased with the final shots for this scene which were handled by Mr. X.
What kind of references and indications did you receive for the Merrick building?
Paul Kirby the production designer shared a lot of concept work with us for the exterior and interior of Merrick’s; these gave us the designs for the exterior box-like structure we see in our Merrick establisher shots.
What was you approach for the final jump in the void?
Our approach was to shoot the actors in a controlled environment on a backlot in Shepperton against bluescreens and then add in the background which was a combination of plate photography and CG builds.
Can you explain in detail about the shooting and creation of this sequence?
We initially created previs for this scene with The Third Floor to help Gina visualise how this scene would work, based on this we planned to shoot the actors on a kuka arm using a cyclops motion control rig. We had to change this approach due to a script change and location change, what we ended up shooting with was the actors suspended on a rig against bluescreens with wind machines and the camera doing all the work which shot outside on location where we were shooting the Merrick interiors. For the background we shot plates on location in London, we had the camera on a libra head being dropped from a descender rig to capture the fall, we also took a lidar from the top of the building to show the London skyline as we first leap from the building, all of this was had to be stitched together with CG to make it feel like one continuous fall.
How did you choose the various VFX vendors?
We initially talked to around 8 vendors based on our own experiences and recommendations from the producers. We always agreed to work with just 2 or 3 vendors as we felt this would be enough, and initially we expected the shot count to be around 400 shots: this doubled in the end but we also had a great inhouse VFX team.
How did you split the work amongst these vendors?
We knew we wanted one vendor to work only on the regeneration and nothing else so they could focus on this solely, and with Image Engine’s previous work on LOGAN we knew they would be perfect for this. The rest of the work was initially split by one vendor looking after all scenes to do with Merrick’s – from the environments out the windows and the exterior shots of the building itself and the fight scenes of The Old Guard leading up into the penthouse, which Mr. X took on as well as some CG planes. Milk’s environment team undertook the dockyard, the ‘Killroom’ and church fight scenes and the Camp Leatherneck establisher and extensions. The remainder of the work was picked up by both Milk and Mr. X as it came up.
Can you tell us more about your collaboration with their VFX supervisors?
It was a real pleasure to work with such a talented team, we had Bryan Jones leading the team from Milk, Hannes Poser led the team from Image Engine and Ben Mossman led the team for Mr. X. I hope I get to collaborate with them all again in the future.
Which sequence or shot was the most challenging?
Aside from delivering the whole film during lockdown, I would say it’s definitely Nile falling from the building. We did previs for this scene very early on in pre production with The Third Floor to help decide on the kind of shots Gina wanted and how to shoot them, then during the shoot, the storyline changed so we had to go back and previs this scene again. Unfortunately due to time on set and locations this changed again very close to the day we needed to shoot it, so we had to very quickly decide on how to achieve this amongst all departments in a very short space of time. Due to this we were quite limited with what we could do on the day; it took a lot of work and skill by Mr X to get this shot looking good.
Did you want to reveal any other invisible effects?
Yes, I love these kinds of shots as they can make such a difference to a scene. In the hotel scene at the start of the film we added in the Moroccan markets to the window views which tied us into the scene better; we added in simple things like gas lights in the mine scene and simple extensions to Camp Leatherneck – changing army trucks into farming trucks. Too many others to mention here, but there were a lot.
Is there something specific that gives you some really short nights?
Yes, I think the shot of Nile leaping from the building was always the one shot that made me nervous, but Mr. X did a great job on it. Funnily enough there was one shot/scene for each of the vendors, for Milk it was the dockyard scene and Image Engine it was Andy’s regeneration in the Killroom, these were the three that gave me a few sleepless nights!
What is your favourite shot or sequence?
My favourite sequence is Nile regenerating in the car, it always felt good from the first versions we received from Image Engine and in all the early test screenings it got the best audience reaction.
What is your best memory on this show?
There are a few but I think my best ones are being based in LA with Gina and Teri and the rest of the editorial team, felt like being part of a family- which is so nice when you’re away from home. We had a lot of laughs and some great food! What I really loved was every day we would all sit together round a large table in the production offices and eat lunch together so that everyone stepped away from their work and had a conversations that were not just about work, it was a lovely touch as we all usually eat when we can at our desks or on the move.
How long have you worked on this show?
I started in March 2019, and was on the project for around 14 months.
What’s the VFX shots count?
We did approximately 835 shots.
What was the size of your team?
So there was myself, David Jones (VFX Shoot Supervisor) and Grainne Dooley (Data Wrangler) on the shoot, and in production was Lisa Kelly (VFX Producer), Lila Tahri (Production Co-ordinator) and Lucy Spaul-Cran (Production Assistant). Then we had a great in-house VFX team of around six people called HST led by Wesley Froud and Mike Cosgrave.
What is your next project?
I’m enjoying being back home in London and at Milk. I’m having discussions about several upcoming projects. Keeping a very close eye on the Coronavirus situation with regard to which new projects will be starting production.
A big thanks for your time.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Milk Visual Effects: Dedicated page about THE OLD GUARD on Milk Visual Effects website.
THE OLD GUARD: You can watch the movie now on Netflix.
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
Brand new trailer for BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC:
The VFX are made by:
BUF (VFX Supervisors: Geoffrey Basquin, Francois Cote-Paquet and Lucas Salton)
MELS (VFX Supervisor: Luc Julien)
Shade VFX
Director: Dean Parisot
Release Date: August 21, 2020 (USA)
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
Don’t miss this beautiful main title created by the teams of Elastic for the second season of THE ALIENIST:
CREDITS
Design Studio: Elastic
Creative Director: Lisa Bolan
Animators/Compositors: Chavilah Bennett, Gabriel Perez, Steve Biggert, Yongsub Song, Alex Silver, Steven Do, Adam Levine, Julia Wright and Peter Murphy
Color Management: Andrew Young
Producer: Kevin Daly
Production Coordinator: Mitchell Fraser
Executive Producer: Luke Colson
Head of Production: Kate Berry
Managing Director: Jennifer Sofio Hall
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
Don’t miss this really cool new showreel by Korean studio Digital Idea featuring their work on ASHFALL, SHANGHAI FORTRESS, HOTEL DEL LUNA and many more:
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
Randall Balsmeyer has been working in visual effects for 40 years! He has worked on many films including GHOST, DEAD MAN, THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU and BLACKKKANSMAN. He talks to us today about his new collaboration with director Spike Lee.
What is your background?
Primarily visual effects and title/graphic design (with a bit of directing and cinematography on the side).
How did you get involved on this show?
Called in prep by Spike and the Producers.
What was your feeling to work again with director Spike Lee?
I’ve enjoyed working with Spike for over 30 years, beginning with his second feature, SCHOOL DAZE. I’m always happy to work with Spike, because I know his vision is always amazing, and he inspires me to do my best work for him. I’m extremely proud of what we’ve done together.
Can you tell us more about this new collaboration with him?
This was Spike’s biggest VFX film; more ambitious than anything he’s done before. We decided early on that this was going to be bigger than a one-shop show. Which meant that my job was as much producing as it was supervising.
What were his expectations and approach about the visual effects?
The key word was “authenticity.” Especially for the flashbacks, he wanted everything to be as authentic as possible. We had military advisors on set, helping us with weapons, gunfire, explosions, aircraft, and battle choreography. And in post we had screenings for military and technical advisors to make sure that the work was correct.
How did you organize the work with your VFX Producer?
I wore two hats: Supervisor and Producer. It was my job to come up with the original budget, and then keep on top of it all the way through post. I was also the on-set supervisor, organizing everything from prosthetics, to explosions, to green screen, blue screen and aerial work.
What are the main challenges to work on a war movie?
In a battle scene with dozens of actors (friend and foe) running around a large area, it’s difficult to tell the story in a way that the audience can understand both the story and the geography. Our DP Tom Sigel working with our military advisor Harry Humphries, were extraordinary in the way that they organized the shots in a way that kept the chaotic action coherent on screen.
The movie has many flashbacks. How did you handle the change of ratio, its particular colors and the grain?
Spike wanted to shoot using the same media that was originally used in the war: 16mm reversal film. Tom was on board with it, and Kodak made us a special batch of film. All the 16mm was shot framed for 4×3. The scary part of this approach was that the film had to go back to LA to be developed and transferred. Which meant we had about a ten day turnaround before we could see dailies. And we only had Chadwick Boseman for two weeks. Nearly all his shots in the film were on 16mm, which meant we didn’t get dailies of his performances until he was already wrapped.
Does the special look of the flashbacks affect your work?
The helicopter scene at the beginning of the film, was the most complex. We knew that we’d be combining aerial shots with blue screen shots of the actors and CG shots of the helicopter. For quality control, we didn’t want to be doing VFX shots on 16mm original footage. So before heading to Thailand, I worked for a day in LA with Tom Sigel and our colorist Stephen Nakamura, to make sure that we could come up with a formula to make shots photographed and completed digitally, look exactly like 16mm film shots they would cut next to. Our tests were good enough to convince Spike and the producers that this was the way to go.
Can you explain in detail about the helicopter sequence and especially the crash?
We had a day of ground-to-air and air-to-air photography for the helicopter scene. Then we had a day of blue screen photography with the actors in a Huey shell on a gimbal. Finally we had a day with a practical helicopter “crashed” on the ground and dressed for post-crash. But here’s the catch: the picture helicopter in our aerial work was a twin-engine model with two big exhaust ports. Our “crashed” helicopter (the more authentic one) was a single engine model. When the scene was first cut together, it became impossible not to notice the mismatch. So we ultimately replaced nearly all the “real” flying shots with a CG helicopter and digital doubles for our actors. We knew in prep that the helicopter sequence would be largely 3D/CG, and wanted to get our 3D vendor chosen and on-board for production. We talked with several vendors about the project, and in the end, Spike chose Mr.X Toronto. James Cooper was Mr.X’s VFX Supervisor, and he joined us on set for a couple weeks. He was an amazing resource and a huge contributor to the success of the sequences. We worked with both first unit crew, and our own second unit for plate photography.
How did you work with the SFX and stunts teams?
Watcharachai “Sam » Panichsuk was our SFX Supervisor. Had had a shop and crew in Chiang Mai that created all the practical effects and pyro work. Jeff Ward was our Stunt Coordinator, and has worked with Spike on most of his films, and is a real pro at getting extraordinary stunts while keeping everyone safe. And Michael Maddi was our SFX Make up Artist, who created the prosthetics. This was our team for creating special effects. Most explosions were practical, but not actually in contact with actors. We knew that Spike wanted the “reality” of practical effects, but enhanced in post with VFX. So that was the overall approach to VFX.
Which stunt was the most complicated to enhance?
When Eddie gets blown up by a land mine, that was the most complex SFX gag. Michael built a prosthetic torso with guts and arm/leg stumps. We buried most of the actor (Norm Lewis) in a pit, and put the prosthetic on top of him. We had blood pumps off-camera to squirt out of the stumps. While the practical effects were pretty good, it took a crazy amount of post work to take it to the next level.
How did you create the various explosions and FX elements?
Most of the land mine explosions were shot at the same location as the first unit photography, without the actors of course, and then « cut out » and added to the principal photography. One exception was when Melvin throws himself on a grenade. We shot a special green screen explosion for that shot using a green dummy on top of the explosion to divert the force sideways. All the explosions were digitally enhanced in post.
Where was filmed the jungle sequences?
All the jungle work was around Chiang Mai and Chiang Dao, in northern Thailand.
How did you enhance the environments and locations?
Most of the environments and locations are practical. Our DP Tom Sigel was very good at framing out anachronisms and offending visual stuff. Mostly it was just cleanup work, sometimes having to remove crew or equipment that got caught in a shot. The My Son Temple scene was a little tricky as there were commercial buildings adjacent to or set, and even though we tried to hide them with nets & greens, sometime we still had to paint things out. We had one night scene where a large tree leaf was upstaging the actors and we had to remove that leaf from about half a dozen shots 🙂
Can you elaborate about the snake creation and animation?
We knew in prep that some or all of the snake shots would be CG, so the snake was part of our overall deal with Mr. X. On set we had a dead snake and a rubber snake. The snake that jumps and bite Paul is CG, the snake he peels off his arm is a dead snake, and the snake on the ground getting shot is CG. Incidentally, Delroy is petrified of snakes, even a dead one!
How did you choose the various VFX vendors?
Mr.X was chosen in prep for all the 3D/CG work, and that expanded to include the battle scene that follows the helicopter crash. We were doing our post in New York, and wanted to be able to do most of the remaining work with NY shops to keep the tax credit. I ultimately chose The Molecule and MPC to be our NY vendors, based not just on their reels and bids, but with personal knowledge and comfort with working with their principal artists. Later in the post-production, we were looking to “de-age” a still photo of Da Bloods, and went to Vitality (Vancouver), a shop known for seamless stills work. As it turned out they were good at other things too, and they turned around a number of other shots for us, including finessing Hanoi Hannah’s eyebrows.
How did you split the work amongst these vendors?
We had each vendor bid the entire show. Then going through the bids, we found that the vendors had significantly different approaches to some of the work. So we took what we thought were the best approaches, artistically and financially, and assigned complete scenes to the different vendors to keep the work consistent within each scene,
Can you tell us more about your collaboration with their VFX supervisors?
As I mentioned, James Cooper from Mr.X was a joy to have on set and brought a lot to the party. I had known and worked with Mark Friedman at The Molecule and David Piombino at MPC for a long time, so we had the “shorthand” of being able to understand each other pretty well.
Which sequence or shot was the most challenging?
The helicopter sequence overall was most challenging. The end shot, where the helicopter actually crashes, was the most complex. It was the first shot that work was started on right after wrap and nearly the last shot to be delivered nearly five months later! Runner-up was the first reveal shot of the helicopter in front of the sun. That shot evolved editorially, and became a tricky blend of blue screen, CG helicopter and photo-matte paintings of the mountains.
Did you want to reveal any other invisible effects?
The dinner with Otis, Tien, and Michone was supposed to take place in a Saigon luxury high rise with a killer view of the city. But we shot it in a 6th floor apartment in Chiang Mai hanging a green screen outside the window. We had seen a stock shot of the killer view, but after two months of scouting in Saigon, no one could figure out where the shot had been taken from. One day I showed the picture to our Vietnam Line Producer, Benoit Jaubert from Indochina Films, and he immediately said, “Oh, that’s a drone shot. » Doh!! He was absolutely correct. We got the drone team to go up and park the drone in the exact right spot, and shot a little library of matching angles and sizes. Like a tripod in the sky! A little stabilizing and, Voilà! Killer view accomplished.
One other funny note: a month or so into post, Spike decided that he wanted all the gunfire in the battle scenes to be automatic fire. In production we had shot everything as single shots with trigger pulls and blanks being fired. So in addition to each shot having multiple bullets fired and shells ejected, we also had to eliminate the individual trigger pulls by “freezing” the actors fingers, so that one pull causes about 10 bullets to be fired.
A big thanks for your time.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Netflix: You can watch DA 5 BLOODS on Netflix now!
Mr. X: Dedicated page about DA 5 BLOODS on Mr. X website.
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
Come have a look at the design and VFX work made by Territory Studio for the Peacock adaptation of BRAVE NEW WORLD (click on the picture below to watch it):
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
Swedish studio Important Looking Pirates presents their work on the third season of WESTWORLD:
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Martin Hernblad: My interview of Martin Hernblad, VFX Supervisor at Important Looking Pirates.
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020