Finishing Post Creative
Graphics: Seamless CGI
Finishing Post worked in collaboration with Art Director Chris Brett of Studio 3 on two high profile BBC dramas, shown over Christmas and the New Year, 2005/2006. Although our contribution amounted to only a few moments in the running time of each programme, both of these were challenging and complex effects shots which required considerable work and expertise.
My Family and Other Animals
One of the characters in this TV adaptation of Gerald Durrell's classic book is a vagabond animal keeper, who travels in the company of many large rose beetles. The beetles are tied to string leashes held in the character's hand, and fly erratically all around him while he talks to the other characters. To avoid charges of gratuitous insect cruelty during the shoot, the BBC decided to use alternative means to achieve the scene. This involved attaching a harness to the actor's back which arched up and over his head. Then, from above, small beetle models dangled on pieces of fishing wire.
Finishing Post's first challenge was to digitally remove this somewhat ridiculous apparatus and make the beetle models look like real living beetles. For the former, background could be 'painted' over the harness and the fishing wires, frame-by-frame. For the latter, wings were added digitally to the beetles, and blurred so that they appear in rapid movement.
Unfortunately, the BBC decided at this point that as many as fifteen beetles were required in each shot, as opposed to the four to six already there. Re-shooting the scene was not an option, so it was down to postproduction to create the additional beetles.
This was much harder to accomplish, as the new beetles needed to be created from scratch. The first step was to create a 3D beetle model in Lightwave, our computer modelling software. Multiple instances of the model could then be placed into the scene, and made to move around in a way that would appear convincingly insect-like to the audience. This was easier said than done, because to make the beetles look like independent entities inhabiting the scene, their positions had to be tracked to match the camera's movements. If the camera panned to the right, for instance, the beetles needed to move accordingly, otherwise it would be immediately obvious that the beetles were simply graphics layered over the screen image.
Similarly, if the beetles really were inhabiting the scene then we would expect them to be able to fly behind as well as in front of the characters, so 'mattes' needed to be made for each frame, telling the computer which parts of the screen the beetles would be obscured in. To complete the look, a number of different effects were added to improve realism. Beetles were blurred to varying degrees, so that they would seem to be more or less out of focus depending on their distance from the camera. Motion blur was also added, to give the beetles' movements a naturalistic look. And image and colour grading made the insects fit in with the lighting qualities, colour and picture qualities of the shot.
Finally, the strings attaching the beetles to the actor's hand were digitally created using the Combustion software package. Physics were simulated to ensure that the string reacted realistically to both the beetles on one end and the actor's hand on the other.
If any one of these component parts had not been properly implemented, the overall effect would have been less than convincing. As it was, we were able to achieve a prime example of 'seamless CGI', where the graphics used blend so well into the programme that the audience can totally believe in them.
Sample Images
Click on any of the thumbnails below to view a larger vesion
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The following pictures are the original shots before our effects were added.
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