Set Extension Workshop 2013

In the third semester at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg a part of the curriculum for animation students was a set extension workshop.

Three groups, each consisting of students from the animation, production design and cinematography department, had to come up with an idea for a short sequence with the main focus on extending the set that is build by the production designers. In the end we realised an idea set in the jungle with a disoriented astronaut that missed his landing site…

SEW_MakingOf2

We had one shooting day and a fairly small studio.
Together with the DOP I prevized the sequence based on the story board. With the CAD data from the production design department, we figured out how big our jungle pieces could be to leave enough room for camera, light and bluescreen. Also we tested what focal length we could use.Previz__0006_sh0050

When it came to principal photography, I helped the two vfx supervisors shoot HDR images with a chromeball and a greyball / color chart as reference.

In post-production I was mainly responsible as technical director and for the close up shot of the helmet, which we shot without the visor to get rid of reflections.

Fellow students created a 3D model of the visor and took textures of it. I was also provided with a object track.
It was then my job to create the HDRI panorama for lighting in Maya/Vray which I supplemented in the end with two area lights. Also I needed to paint a rough environment map for getting a new reflection and do all the shading on the cg element.
I comped the shot in nuke and rendered all the AOV’s I would need.

Adding the visor

Adding the visor

Additionally I was into grading at that time and since I had already worked my way into Assimilate Scratch, it was a lot of fun to do the color correction on the final sequence.