This was a fantastically fun project- the opening six and a half minutes of an upcoming John Lyde feature film, completed as a technical proof-of-concept. I had the opportunity to serve as the lead artist and VFX supervisor for BluFire Studios on the project, which was a great challenge, especially since it incorporated over a hundred shots- and the entire project was finished in 160 working hours. That meant getting multiple shots done every available day, all while still maintaining the style and quality we were seeking to demonstrate!
The point of the demo was to showcase speed, style, and quality. Besides completing VFX work in 160 total creative work hours, the entire short was shot in a single day (with a few wire shots done the next morning) on a small greenscreen stage. There are absolutely no sets, locations, or stock footage in the entire short: everything is faked.
The skydiving sequence was by far the most time consuming, since everey shot is a unique setup. I created the environment in Maya using camera projections from still photos onto basic geometry, then added fluid clouds. The footage was matchmoved in SynthEyes, which served as the basis for larger camera moves inside of Maya.
Preparing to jump- Environment from photographs taken at an air museum- Click to play
Skydiving- Fully CG environment- Click to play
Skydiving- Maya fluid clouds- Click to play
Skydiving- Fully CG Environment- Click to play
Gliding past CG mountains- Click to play
Gliding past CG mountains- Click to play
The fight scene and dialogue portion of the film moved much more quickly. Once a few shots were done, I was able to use them as a template for the subsequent shots. I just needed to do a unique key for each shot, usually in Primatte, position the matte paintings properly, and adjust blurs, levels, etc. as needed. These shots were done at a rate of about twelve a day, on average.
In the final stage of the project I applied a stylized color correction to each of the shots. The skydiving shots were designed to be very warm and saturated, while the challenge in the nighttime sequence was to keep some skin tones in the footage.
Matte Painting Graveyard- Click to play
Stitched ground from stills- Click to play
More ground interaction- Click to play
Slow motion- Click to play
Fight scene sample- Click to play
Final blow- Click to play
Overall, I’m very pleased with the finished result. I think when people see the short they’ll enjoy the look and quality level- even if they don’t know that it was done so quickly and with such a small team! It was a fun opportunity, and I look forward to working on the complete film.
The shots here are displayed with permission and thanks to the kindness of director John Lyde. ‘The Guardian’ is property of Guardian Films LLC.
