Anatomy of FX SHot: Dimitri's Shack

A digital matte shot from "Night of the Necroluna". Because we are shooting this movie guerilla style (that's "without permits" to you and me, Russ) it wasn't feasible to do the kinds of foreground miniatures and glass matt paintings Larry likes to do on the set. And we really didn't have a design for the shack yet. So I just had the Actor walk to a certain point in the frame, the rest of which woud be filled with Dimitri's shack and all the fly-ridden detritus around it. Most of the elements I created from scratch in Photoshop, then crudely animated with slow dissolves in iMovie. I composited the elements together in Final Cut Pro. The skulls strewn about the ground are ceramic creations of my own design which I like to re-use as props in such projects whenever possible. And soon I'll upload a video gallery of those skulls so you can get a better look at 'em.

Music is "Caffiene Driver", by yours truly.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Special
• Effects
• Digital
• Compositing
• Baron
• Dixon
• Necroluna
• Photoshop

[robrov21]

Nice work, that fly trick is sweet.

[BaronDixon]

@robrov21 Thank you! It's subtle, but it really adds to the overall scene!

[63801170]

Don't want to seem like I'm stalking your vid, but as I haven't had to use Photoshop to mask out in the past (well, not on multiple frames)... did you try the "Extract" tool? I wonder if that would give a cleaner edge over multiple attempts? Any chance I could get a second or so of the original footage to play (original plate footage no additions)? :-)

[BaronDixon]

I'm not even sure exactly what the Extract tool DOES. Besides, for THIS movie I'm not worried about it being too clean. Part of its charm is that the FX resemble old-school FILM FX, rather than slick CGI work. My mistake was not properly locating the extreme frames of Ian's walks, otherwise I would have placed the shack further to the left. It's the motion blur of the hands that really makes the masking kinda dodgy. But it still gets the point across. Heh-heh!

[63801170]

Yeah, it's fine. The extract tool, allows you to 'highlight' (like a highlighter pen), around the edged of an object (that is merged with complex background), and it will try and extract the two parts that you highlight, using auto-routines to save you doing pixel-by-pixel work. It can be a bit hit-and-miss, but might help in future maskings?... although, roto'ing with a vector mask is really what you should try.

[BaronDixon]

Fortunately, that was the only shot in the movie where I resorted to rotoing for travelling matte purposes. I'm becoming quite the greenscreen enthusiast now! But I'm an old traditional anim8r, so I don't find the occasional roto job that daunting. Besides I'd ratrher spend the extra time on the computer rather than make my actors wait around in the hot AZ sun to set up a physical matte shot.

[onjoFilms]

Nice work. I remember seeing this 2 years ago, and now I'm getting more into mattes and effects and searched animating mattes and found it again. Cool.

[63801170]

Ha Ha... like it!

[BaronDixon]

Yeah I understand, But when there's no money to make a movie, the BEST thing to have is TIME! So I fixed it with animation. Originally Larry was to build a foreground miniature but he hadn't designed it yet, so I suggested (since I'm the DP as well as the editor and FX guy) that we just shoot locked-off and I'd do a digi matte. This way we were able to get in and out of the park we were shooting in before getting caught by Da MAN (Park rangers).

[63801170]

Often on budget productions you don't get the luxury of being on set (with influence) when doing the fx, etc... but, with this shot, it may have helped to have a simple foam (reflector) board positioned as the edged of the house, so that it would allow a cleaner (white) background to mask his arm/body. The green shirt on green tree background makes it tricky. The shack would cover the board, so it all ends up cleaner, easier. Idea for next one.