Next we realized the environment would need to be recreated to be minimal and clean. Luckily there had been a lot of filmed rehearsals of the confetti leading up to the shoot so we had tons of great reference for what Spike liked. There was also a fountain in the plaza that was covered up to be able to achieve the shot and there was concern that the confetti would clog the fountain. It turns out the cleanup would take far too long and daylight was fast approaching. The first practical element to be scrapped was the confetti. It was as freezing as it gets in LA and all of the crew were in big jackets and beanies and here’s Margaret in her dress doing take after take. Once again she blew everyone away with her athleticism and stamina. Margaret was on a harness rig hanging by a massive truss that catapulted her through the air in one smooth move. Our original plan was for rig removal only with the confetti, breakage, and environment captured in camera. Spike and KK Barrett, the production designer, wanted it to be as much in camera as possible. When Margaret does her ninja fly through the Kenzo eye at the end of the film it’s the finale to her epic dance journey. How was that final jump through the eye realized, especially the implementation of debris? Our FX team did a great job making that happen. It was important to Spike that the FX weren’t overdone. It was a fine line to create a look that matched the power of Margaret’s movements and the sound cues but also didn’t overtake the frame drawing attention away from her. The destruction was mostly done in Houdini (effects software) with a bit of matte paint help and ultimately composited in Nuke. Spike wanted the lasers to be effortless, elegant and powerful. The shot was a bear to matchmove because it was shot on a moving camera, zooming, with a double extender on the lens. Because of the delicacy in that hallway at the Dorothy Chandler theater, we weren’t allowed to move any of the antiques or furniture which meant practical FX weren’t possible. The laser hallway was incredibly fun to make come to life. The laser beams are incredibly comical, but how were they and their destruction effects achieved? His perfectionism and strong eye made the shot as seamless as it is. Artist Rob Fitzsimmons became the keeper of the shot, managing the paint patches and ensuring the quality level was kept to the highest standards. In the end there was a lot of hand painted clean-up and the shot was split amongst two companies and multiple artists. It wasn’t easy and Jim Moorhead, our matchmove artist, put so much care in to this shot. The tracking geometry was mirrored to represent the reflections in the mirror and that mirrored geometry was used to muscle through the matchmove. Margaret Qualley in a mirror shot from the ad, sans camera and crewĪll of the data collected enabled us to build an environment in compositing software Nuke and also achieve a camera track usable for projections (where the live action footage is ‘projected’ onto a CG version of the environment to enable camera movement).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |