The Beat Goes On... Persephone Update!

The Beat Goes On....By Sean Hutchinso: Producer ADi

Dear Readers,A Challenging Key

If you’ve been following along in these pages, you know that ADi has taken on a creative VFX gig for an independent short in collaboration with Mark Roush of New Adjustment. We’ve been taking a workmanlike approach to the green screen keying, trying to knock out a few shots every week as we develop the look and feel for the backgrounds and our “hero” chararacter (more on the mist demon to follow). ADi’s Art Director, Vince Nimmor, has done the lion’s share of the keying–all of it, really–and while this was not a focus of his work previous to this project, he’s become quite the expert through the process. “50% of the shots pull keys straight away,” he reveals, “the others are a bit more problematic. It’s a fine balance between pulling a clean key and then having those foreground elements blend seamlessly in the scene–without looking too two-dimensional or cut out.”

“Some shots end up a little fuzzy on the edges,” Nimmoor confides.  ”Like the doorway shot. I’m hoping that having the background in place will help the effort of blending the actors with the environments.” Nimmoor suggests these kind of problems are really not that uncommon when pulling keys–the process by which the foreground elements can be isolated and laid over a 3D generated background. He cites the AEPDX meeting eventlast month as a boon to his efforts, “They had a session on [Trapcode] Particular that I think will be useful on this project.Tips and techniques for using their third-party plug-ins that will play directly into the look we’re attempting for this piece.”

Nimoor also has the benefit of his seating proximity to Nick Nakadate, ADi’s Technical Director, who is literally a Nerf projectile away. Nakadate has worked on visual effects for films ranging from Sin City to Superman Returns and has offered some tips for keying from his knowledge of techniques employed in post-production such features. Nick’s role on this project is to create the environments in which the keyed actors carry out the scenes.  ”Creating the Impressionistic mood that Mark’s going for with this story,” Nakadate ruminates, “is about finding that balance between the tangible feel of ’space’ with dream-like imagery of the collective memory of folkloric tradition.” The sample shot that you see here is the exterior of the family house at night. Nakadate is currently working with Roush to translate the feeling of impressionism of still frame paintings into the fluid motion of video.

As for Donald Fergus, our 3D Character Animator, his efforts are squarely focused on the creation of the Demon mentioned previously. This begins with the spine of the model–its skeleton in essence–and builds from there. “I’m working on a different solution for the tail,” Fergus says, “I’m really pleased with how the feet turned out, and with my new system for the IK knees.  The palm IKs aren’t working for me so much though.  They jiggle and stutter for some reason, so I’m going to rework those once I finish the final, morph ready face.”

For more updates on this project, visit these pages regularly. You can also find the director’s production blog here.