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The Core Skills of VFX Handbook has one simple but ambitious aim: to improve the new entrant skills available for the UK’s VFX industry.

The handbook is relevant to both students and tutors; it is designed to assist universities and colleges to raise the standard of VFX courses available and therefore the new talent available in the UK.

Download the Core Skills VFX Handbook:

http://www.skillset.org/animation/qualifications/article_8377_1.asp

BBC Newsnight asked us to create a series of maps and programme graphics for their Middle East Special – Revolution 2011 broadcast on 24th February 2011.

After Effects was used over 2 days working with very tight deadlines. Working with the correspondents and editors as the story evolved and the requirements changed, we worked right up to the deadline airing that evening.

From the BBC Website:

As the world watches the extraordinary outbreak of unrest and protest in the Middle East and North Africa, Newsnight broadcasts a special live programme asking what it means for the region, the West and the world.

The team of reporters look at common strands and differences in the protests, who the protesters are, what forms of government are likely to emerge as a result and to what extent Western relations with those governments will have to be recalibrated.

Client: BBC Newsnight

The BBC had commissioned a new set for the long running series ‘A Question Of Sport’ consisting of a huge wrap around LED screen with animated visuals to be displayed behind the panellists heads. Unfortunately the 3 shot which was to be used heavily in the edit had major problems. The LED lights were a size which interfered with the pixels in the shot creating an ugly jaggy and blocky halo around each of the Sports Celebrities heads as well as a serious colour dulling, shift and desaturation. The shots were deemed unusable, but we were asked to see whether a solution to save the shots could be found. Using Smoke, Mocha & After Effects we were able to rotoscope and isolate the panellists who were all shot interlaced, and re-composite them over an entirely rebuilt background screen exactly matching the original content. Matching the screens original animation was important to ensure the panellists lighting and furniture reflections were consistent with the background. Even with a successful matte to work with the footage still needed to be severely eaten into to eradicate the nasty black halo from the interlaced footage. Take a look at the video to see the before, alpha and after versions of a selection of shots.

Client: BBC Manchester

Commissioned by TBWA in Saudi Arabia for their client Blue Jar, Carl Warner the photographer famed for his inventive use of food in his photography was asked to use his unique style to advertise the Blue Jar cheese product. Shot with a Canon 5D MarkII on a motion control rig in Islington’s Cross Street Studio, we used a combination of shooting techniques to achieve the final result. The Canon DSLR was hung upside down to get as close to the set as possible and was taking frames in raw mode. The stop-frame / go-motion technique took about 20 minutes to shoot 5 seconds of footage, so we shot the moves in reverse to help make the food and vegetables perk up rather than droop under the lights. The sequence of frames were massive 4k files which we transferred to a mobile workstation rough composited them and played the sequences back to check everything worked well. Each layer was shot as a separate pass to keep the focal distance as far as possible and allow more flexibility in post later, this helped make the scale of the landscape look bigger than it really was. Once we had shot all the stop-frame pass sequences for a particular shot we then needed to shoot the river of cheese and erupting volcano passes as live action moves. This meant using the same camera move of course, to match the shots together later, but required us to shoot in video mode at 1080p 30fps. Once we had the live action passes, the difficult task of matching the much smaller HD footage into the 4k file sequences began, this entailed changing the frame rate of the live action to match the 25fps stop-frame and very careful resizing and realignment. We used a Mitchell 35mm camera with macro lens at 100fps for the packshot material at the end of the commercials to make the product as smooth and beautiful as possible. Once all the shots were in the bag we took the huge amount of frames (about 2.5TB worth) and converted them all into 2k 16bit tiff files to make them easier to wield in the compositing phase, but still allow a wide gamut and colour bit depth. We worked in 16bit mode all the way through the post stages, first editing the sequences in Premiere Pro, before final compositing and grading in After Effects. Many of the shots consisted of over 20 layers to achieve the scale and depth of the final result. There was also extensive re-timing and timewarping, in particular, on the cheese elements to assist in making it look thicker and smoother. We also shot some steam and smoke on 35mm at 100fps for the volcano, and some separate hills to composite far into the distance. The sky was also composited into all the shots, and tracked to markers set up on the poly boards in the set.

Check out the timelapse video above of the full 5 days of shooting condensed into 43 seconds

Client: TBWA\RAAD / Rokkit

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Shot in a single day in Camberwell studios using a Phantom HD Gold camera the commercial consisted of two main elements, the fire and flames which were shot against black at 1000fps, and the performance of the girl shot against greenscreen at 100fps. The concept came from Marc Hawker who also Directed the commercial. Produced by Kate Arton at AMPLtd

The fire was created using a flame gun provided by the machine shop, and Paul the special effects guy had us screeching and then laughing when his hair caught fire in true Michael Jackson fashion. Fortunately he escaped with a bit less hair and no eyebrows, and was able to carry on shooting plumes of beautiful flame upwards at the Phantom camera which was looking down from the scaffolding rig in the roof of the studio. At 1000fps we could only capture 4 seconds of footage (realtime) at each go, but the results were astounding. We had a lot of fun being pyromaniacs, and shooting with this amazing camera, but eventually had to call it a day and relight for the greenscreen performance. We used the Phantom on dolly and tracks for this part, shooting at 100fps with tracking markers and focus points. DazPix supervised the shoot and ensured everything was technically ready for Joe Pavlo to composite together using Nuke. The final result is a challenging piece which will hopefully make people think about what is going on with the oil companies in Africa.

Client: Amnesty International / AMPLtd

This commercial for the N-Dubz album ‘Against All Odds’ was designed and Directed by DazPix, while post was carried out at Chrome Digital. The concept, as can be seen from the storyboard frames in the gallery below, was to make full use of scale and the illusions of scale. Using the key end statement of ‘Biggest Album’, everything in this city environment is huge, including the band, who dwarf the skyscrapers they walk past. Editing on Final Cut Pro, the 3d cgi city, helicopter, giant jumbotron screens and other elements were created in Cinema 4D. Compositing was all done with Adobe After Effects, where lighting, brooding skies, sparks and lightning flashes were added. The N-Dubz kids were rotoscoped from other videos and incorporated into the shots, along with video footage that was composited into the huge screens dotted around the metropolis.

Client: AATW / LutiMedia

This film was commissioned by a collaborative organisation consisting of the Saudi Government Transport Ministry and the Mineral Mining companies in the North of the country.
Tasked with producing a film that not only provided an interesting way of relaying information about the proposed project, we also needed to provide a show piece for the opening ceremony in the desert that was attended by the King himself, to officially start the enormous operation involved in this railway project. The railway itself is the biggest engineering feat ever undertaken in the world, phase one is covered in the film, linking the North and South of Saudi Arabia from the mineral rich mountains to Riyadh and the coastal ports.

After weeks of pre production planning, storyboarding and casting, both in London and Riyadh, we split into two filming units for the project. Unit one went on a journey through Saudi, filming landscape, factory, town and building works for all the cut-aways and train plates. Unit two, shot the main visual effects and scripted parts. Starting in a tower block looking over Riyadh’s flat landscape, we created a set for an architects office, before grabbing some more material outside in the Riyadh streets. The next day we moved into the desert for the bulk of the shooting, which was a challenging environment to shoot in, especially with the wind and swirling sand. We still needed to shoot some greenscreen material for the train interior, before getting the flights back to London to begin the edit and post production.
We edited on Avid Media Composer, onlined in Avid DS and created the 3D cgi in Autodesk Maya with Thumbprint Animation. Avid DS composited a majority of the shots, along with Autodesk Discreet Flint. We used Adobe After Effects for the map sequences and some of the demonstration effects.

Client: Saudi Arabian Railways / OR Madarat

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DazPix was asked to help rebrand German TV Sports Channel ZDF Sport. The Idents were Directed by Paul Donnellon, and DazPix was involved in the compositing and Visual Effects elements of the idents using Autodesk/Discreet Flame.

Above are a couple of the idents we created for the rebrand. Unfortunately the audio is missing due to problems tracing the masters.

Client:  ZDF

Eight British teenagers tackle sun, sea and survival in the real life O.C, training at the San Diego Junior Lifeguard School in this 8 part Reality TV show for BBC Switch.

The brief was to introduce each of the kids who were starring in the show, and give them each a different personality, look and style while making them all work together without making the sequence look messy. At the end of the day the animation had to tell the viewer that this was all set in San Diego, California, and that here are 8 kids who are going to learn how to be lifeguards.
Using footage of the guys and girls during their training, along with photography, textures and graphic elements, this sequence was storyboarded in Photoshop and created in After Effects. We also produced a package of graphics for the show including, bumpers and idents, profile animations, straps, credit bed and wipes and transitions.

Client: Rival Media / BBC Switch