VFX work with Scarlet #01650, "nostromo"

[chris morgan]

so we knocked together this product video for a biotech company here in LA. we built the entire lab set, and shot the whole thing with the FX sequence in mind. very little planning. no tracking markers used. kinda crazy.

there are more than a few tracking glitches. was using my fairly rickety rigwheels-based PVC dolly for this, so every little bump and wiggle ended up in losing the track. most of the time was spent cleaning up the tracks as best i could in syntheyes.

also, scaling for each shot varied wildly. we've already got precision-measured tracking "objects" to use for the next one. these guys wanted to do 4 of these total.

anyway, did all the VFX work in AE at 4K... was 4K all the way through production... exported to 4K master files, then compressed in apple compressor down to 1080 / 720.

not too shabby for a 4-man crew with no real idea of what we're doing!

would be happy to discuss our workflow if anyone is curious.

and now:

love,
c

 

[Clint Engler]

This good with little planning? Just think of the possibilities with planning...........................................nice

 

[chris morgan]

thanks clint!

it was surprisingly easy to match up the VFX with marty's (the actor) movements, as he had pretty solidly choreographed the whole thing and rehearsed it. having a better idea of the screen layout would probably lend itself to a better overall 3D UI design...

but yes, very excited to try again with a few more techy lessons learned!

c

 

[Matt Garrett]

Why do the vfx work at 4k if you're only exporting at 1080?

 

[chris morgan]

in my experience, anything done at 4k benefits from the downsampling to 1080 / 720. particularly the VFX stuff. it helps 'glue' the image, eliminates a lot of the 'composited' look. greenscreen mattes benefit as well. minimises aliasing, that kind of thing. it was also pretty easy to do everything at 4K. slower than usual, sure... but not painfully so!

c