In the world of VFX, the word on everyone’s lips is budget. As the industry is saturated with more and more visual effects houses, it’s important to think outside the box when it comes to realising a client’s visions in order to set yourself apart from the crowd. Anyone can throw money at a CG company, wait a few weeks and see the end results, but what if you don’t have the time or money to spare?
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experimental At Lexhag, we try to approach things differently. We never settle for the obvious if there’s a chance we could do it cheaper or quicker another way. We get involved with projects from the beginning, and we learn our shots inside out before even touching a compositing package. And when we finally do, we choose Fusion in place of others because it allows us to work in our own truly unique and creative way.
Take this example from Whitechapel, a British television drama series produced for ITV. The production team wanted us to create a moth that could be composited into several shots, and it was down to us to devise a solution. The traditional approach would be to turn to CG modelling but we scratched our heads a while and decided there had to be another way. Modelling in CG was both expensive and unnessecary too; the insect would be so small that all the fine details would be lost in the final grade. It was uneconomical to spend a lot of time working on something so miniscule. The Lexhag team turned to Fusion to solve the problem. We produced a simplistic model and roughly animated it, masking the movements with motion blur. Fusion’s Open GL render engine allowed us to relight and animate interactively without extensive render times, which in a client-attended situation gave us a huge advantage. Feedback and changes were given and made quickly.
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We named the moth “the flying baked bean” due to its simplicity. Our later calculations revealed that that by avoiding the CG step altogether we had actually completed the project at a cost approximately ten times cheaper. Not only were we able to keep expenditure low by not having to hire a CG artist, we didn’t need to run multiple applications to get the job done. Fusion was an excellent tool to use because it allowed us to stay within the compositing environment, not needing to constantly dart between packages to alter and tweak things like light and effects.
Faking it to make it is one thing, but what happens when you’re forced to take a more traditional approach? We thought we’d cracked it with our “flying beaked bean”, but when we got too close in one or two shots we noticed things weren’t looking all that realistic anymore. As with so many VFX projects, it wasn’t going to be as simple as a one-step job, and we needed to find another answer.
www.lexhag.com | +44 (0)207 036 9574 | 29-35 Rathbone St London W1T 1NJ
TRADITIONAL The disadvantage to the “flying baked bean” was that when viewed up close it stopped looking believable. It was vital that we implemented a different approach when working on the close-up shots. Again we considered a CG model, but were aware of the time and cost implications of doing this. The moth was such a tiny element, it seemed a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.
The majority of the Lexhag team come from a special effects backgroud, and we’re not afraid of attempting in-camera solutions before we jump straight into using CG models. For the close-up detailed shots of the moth, you are seeing a real, fluttering insect that has been shot against greenscreen. We believe that if there’s an oppurtunity to shoot something in real life, it’s important to attempt it before trying anything else. Using a real life moth provided us with unbeatable realism, and we were chuffed with the end results from our shooting session. Once we had captured the shots of the real moth, it was taken into Fusion. There it was keyed and colour-corrected before being composited into the footage where necessary. The general rule of thumb was that whenever the moth was supposed to settled anywhere, we used the real moth and whenever it was flying we switched to the baked bean to allow complete control over its movements.
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Fusion is an incredibly versatile too, and we like it here at Lexhag because it doesn’t stop us thinking outside the box. We can continue to work in our unique way and we never feel limited by the technology. Whether we want to try a smoke and mirrors-style illusion or a traditional composite, it suits all purposes. We use it to cover all stages of the project, from sketching through to finishing, including camera projection, effects animation, set extension, 3D compositing and general animation. It stands apart from its competitors in client-attended sessions and is lightning fast at previewing work.