Hot Projects, Cool Shots, The Vision, Artists and Plug-ins that Made Them Happen

Entity FX

Eli Jarra
VFX Supervisor
Project: Rush Hour 3 (New Line Cinema)
Featured Plugs: GenArts Sapphire, The Foundry’s Tinder and Furnace
www.entityfx.com
"We used a combination of GenArts Sapphire and The Foundry’s Tinder and Furnace tools for the airplane sequence. We used Sapphire, in particular, to light wrap the background through the window to the inner cabin of the aircraft. Tinder tools let us generate softness and further color correct the nearby cloud color so we could match it to the back plate. With no production plates available, we used Furnace’s Kronos to simulate flying at 35,000 feet and to create a 3D cloud environment made from multiple stereo-res 2D photographs. Kronos’ Optical Flow technology let us re-time multiple shots to fit within the needs of the editor.
In the second example, we needed a come up with a specific look for the TV in the restaurant scene. We achieved that look by combining Tinder’s BadTV & TVDots plug-ins."

Shilo

Jose Gomez
Co-Founder and Creative Director
Project: Hidden Palms show open (CW)
Featured Plugs: Tiffen Dfx digital filter suite for After Effects
www.shilo.tv
"We have a lot of experience directing live action shoots, so we have an affinity for working with film. We love the look and feel of 35mm footage in a stylized environment, which is why we often integrate live-action photography into our work.
In the past, it was a bit of a process to get that film quality look into post-visualized worlds. Now, we have great film grain plug-ins from Tiffen for After Effects, so it’s much less of a process and a huge time-saver. With so much control over the many aspects of the grain, we can match and tweak the look of the grain at every level. Matching the post environment to live-action footage has never been easier."

Sway

Chris Nichols

VFX Supervisor
Project: "Peel Out," television spot for the Subaru Impreza (Plum Productions, DDB/NY)
Featured Plugs: RealFlow (RF4), VRay and SimCloth for 3ds Max
www.swaystudio.com
"We used Next Limit’s RealFlow to achieve the realistic water splashes and VRay to create all the correct lighting, reflections and refractions in the scene. Chaos Group’s SimCloth was great for some of the magazine animation. We did have to develop extra plug-ins of our own since some of the 3ds Max tools couldn’t deal with the size of the environment maps that we wanted to use. It was important that we had a very precise placement of the textures, and we felt we had to develop our own precise projection system to control that. It sounds like a lot of extra work, but our schedule was actually improved by developing these tools, saving us a tremendous amount of time in the end."

Guerilla FX

Thor Raxlen
Creative Director/Director
Project: "Quick Is Deadly," Nike ZOOM campaign (Wieden & Kennedy)
Featured Plugs: Red Giant Software’s Instant HD
www.guerillafx.com
"We shot Phoenix Suns’ NBA point guard Steve Nash, shown here, as well as nine other athletes, with multiple cameras, including in super slow-mo with a Phantom high-speed digital camera that shoots in high definition at 1,000 frames per second. We also completed the editing and effects for this W&K project for Nike. The result- 400 to 500,:24 to:60 webisodes- began airing on Nike.com in early August. We used Red Giant Software’s plug-in Instant HD to help us "uprez" from standard def to HD without having to go back and retransfer the film and then re-digitize it. These shots are the before and after stills from the motion picture files."

Flickerlab

Harold Moss
Managing Partner/Creative Director
Project: Criss Angel Mindfreak Halloween animated promo package (A&E)
Featured Plug: Trapcode Particular
www.flickerlab.com
"For A&E’s Criss Angel Mindfreak, Designer/After Effects Artist/3DAnimator Bryan Cox, Producer/Technical Director Franklin Zitter and I used Trapcode’s Particular plug-in to create bats from the A&E logo. We love Particular because of the speed and ease of use we get when working with 3D particles inside After Effects. Nothing beats it!"

Rev13 Films

Tony Manolikakis
Online Editor and Colorist
Project: Rez Rides show opener (Rezolution Pictures International)
Featured Plugs: Boris Continuum Complete filters
www.rev13films.com
"We have two important types of clients: Independent, fast-growing production companies and high-end medical clients. For production companies, we do a lot of documentaries and TV series with specific emphasis on finishing, especially color grading and effects. We also help them sort out their overall post workflow. Recently, the dynamic Montreal-based production company Rezolution Pictures International asked us to do the finishing for their high-octane, documentary-style car show, called Rez Rides. They wanted a very powerful and engaging opener for the show; the producers also wanted the feeling of light and movement, as if the cars were precious diamonds or metals that reflected, streaked and even emanated light. The shots here are pulled from the final product. All the lights, glows and streaks were created using the BCC filters inside Final Cut Pro.
We created the Buick lens flare shot’s overall look with a BCC colorized glow effect, with the blacks crushed and the colors intensified. We combined it with a BCC lens flare to create a unique effect on the restored Buick as it races past. It really feels like a blob of light is dancing over the car and finally falls off. The Corvette effect, in some ways, was a pleasant accident. We applied the BCC light effect "rays streaky" to the car running the quarter mile, giving us beautiful rays and streaks as we had planned. But as we tweaked and keyframed the parameters, we saw something amazing: The car looked like it was moving through fluid light, as if the light were streaking over the car like water. When we showed this to the directors, they were amazed. Always take advantage of pleasant accidents, and, of course, always take credit for them!
BCC filters let us be as creative as we need to be. What’s nice is that you can begin with their presets and then move off into different directions. They’re easy to use and give you really great looks, cost effectively. The BorisFX podcasts are also really informative when you need to get up and running quickly. We’ve also recently used the UpRez filter a lot to incorporate SD footage into our HD shows- the result looks great."

Digital Kitchen

Brad Abrahams
Creative Lead
Cody Cobb
Senior Creative
John Foreman
Designer
Mark Bashore

Head of Production
Steve Fitzgerald
Designer (not pictured)
Project: Wired Science :30 promo (PBS)
Featured Plug: Trapcode Particular
www.d-kitchen.com
"As soon as we got this job, we went headfirst into production. Steve provided a board design that proved to be the inspiration for the spot. We knew from the start that we wanted to show science in a simple and colorful way, mainly because Wired magazine has always expressed optimism towards science and technology. We wanted the piece to be very playful and appeal to a layman’s view of these scientific endeavors and discoveries. We started building and animating the 3D and 2D elements before shooting the host, Chris Hardwick." – Brad Abrahams
"When the spot concludes, the host, the flowing water from the opening and all of the 3D elements are sucked into a large vortex in the sky. Water can be very difficult to create in 3D, especially on a tight timeline. With just 10 days to deliver 30 versions of this spot, all in full 1080p HD, we decided to create the water by hand rather than fluid simulation. We engineered a solution within Softimage | XSI to quickly visualize, animate, and tweak a floating cuboid of water. We also made extensive use of Particular to balance the 2D/3D load. It was great not only for particle generation, but also for assembling easily editable 3D forms within After Effects. With some very choreographed interaction between the 2D, 3D, floating steak, and live action, we pulled it all off just in time. In fact, I was still building the vortex within hours of delivery, but it all worked out well." – Cody Cobb

Frantic Films

Sean Konrad
2D Technical Director
Project: Mr. Magorium’s Wonder
Emporium (Mandate Pictures/Fox)
Featured Plug: Frantic Films Awake (for eyeon Digital Fusion)
www.franticfilms.com
"Frequently in visual effects we are asked to recreate lens artifacts, such as chromatic aberration, lens distortion, DOF effects and the associated "bokeh" effects that come with them. On this film, premiering on November 16, part of our task was to add a number of "magic" particle effects. In order to integrate the renders that the compositors received into the scene, we used the Frequency Blur, a tool in the plug-in package we created called Awake, currently available for eyeon’s Fusion. It created realistic DOF effects on these particles. In a real lens, defocused highlights become disk-like shapes, which reflect the shape of the aperture (this is what the term bokeh refers to).
After applying the frequency blur, the resulting image contains DOF and bokeh effects that reflect the spherical aberration (Bad Bokeh) of the actual lens. The Frequency Blur also lets us input custom blur kernels as images, so we could match the aperture shape of the lens (as well as include a few presets to help get the job done in a pinch)."
Plug-In Directory
FIND IT ONLINE AT WWW.STUDIOMONTHLY.COM/7414.HTML
Feeling inspired? Check out our updated directory of plug-ins for editing and effects to find out where to download or buy your next set of killer plugs. This comprehensive listing of widely used plug-ins, arranged by company, includes host app information and a summary of available products.
The directory originally appeared in the December 2006 issue of the magazine and was posted to www.studiomonthly.com and www.studiodaily.com last year, and it has been a popular destination on our network of sites ever since. We update it regularly with new product and upgrade details; a more extensive list of animation and 3D plug-ins will follow soon. If you think we’ve left something out, contact us with the details.