Ah, visual effects. I love them so. Most companies in our weight division avoid VFX. I embrace it. Why? Because, honestly, having a kickass visual effects pipeline and the experience to take advantage of it absolutely can elevate the stories you’re telling.
My favorite type of VFX work is that which most people will never notice. What do I mean by that? I mean things like removing markers and wires. Adding completely new environments that are photo-real. Removing things from shots and adding things to shots that make the story pop more. Basically, the kind of stuff that makes people think the project at hand cost millions of dollars.
Today I did some moving camera tracking in 3D, object removals, and object retouching to make a client’s product promo pop (yes, I said it like that on purpose). This, after spending the morning in DaVinci Resolve, taking our RED 5K Raw video footage and making it look absolutely magical in the technical color grade. The tech grade is done before VFX work, then you do a big beauty pass grade- which in this case will mostly be power windows to highlight things I want people to notice in frame, since the tech grade looks so magical on its own.
Last week was the edit, and this week is finishing for this project. I still have a few tough VFX shots to do, including some screen replacements, but I am pretty thrilled with how good this little project is looking. I hope the client realizes how great it is turning out, too.