VFX Before and After

This is a cool video I came across on Facebook earlier today which shows the evolution from green screen to the big screen. I think it's really awesome to see how a scene was shot versus how it ends up being presented to the audience. I feel like a lot of times we take things for granted and don't think about the work that was put in to make film happen and this video helps to point out that work.

https://www.facebook.com/dima.koslowski/videos/871221469654052/

The Art of the Green Screen

It had been another one of those days when I had nothing to do and I had visited every social media site that I bothered to subscribe to. Bored out of my mind, I decided that it might be somewhat interesting to browse the “recommended” section of youtube. And while I scrolled by videos of cute animals doing stupid things and shoddily put together videos meant to go viral, my eye caught something that looked different from the rest.

To be honest, I don’t remember what was the first video of theirs that started the addiction but I can say that they are one of the few youtubers that I still subscribe to. Their moniker is PistolShrimps and they’re a Norwegian duo whose most infamous works include them green screening themselves into popular movies. Mixed with their borderline offensive humor and somewhat dark spin on things, they've created videos that you really can't help but watch from beginning to end. They also have a cool range of special effect videos, but for the purpose of this blog I want to focus on their green screen work. This is because their feats at inserting themselves as if they were actually actors cast in the movie, is surprisingly well-done. In my book, they were (and still are) doing something right.

And for me, this was essentially all about the set-up of the lighting and (potential) color-grading of their shots. I think this is something that people who use a green screen often overlook and forget about when putting together a movie. But PistolShrimps seems to have gotten it down to an art. They’re able to center their light source almost identical to those actually set up in the film. And they keep in mind that not every shot is the same “color temperature.” Sometimes a shot will be blue and gritty, other times warm and sunny: but they take that all into consideration. Pair this with how expertly they’re able to subtly insert shadows and overlay their footage behind (on top, below, in front of) key objects in the shot, all works to really suspend a viewer’s disbelief that they are not in the film.

It’s a work of art itself, but it’s one that they’ve managed to get down to a dot. And with their witty editing techniques, they’re able to twist a story into something vastly different than it originally was. They not only insert themselves into a movie, they bring a whole new plot and point of view.

Life of Hulk

In great action movies, such as The Avengers, the effects are larger than life (EX: The Hulk). Have you ever wondered how they make these monsters look so realistic, and how they create a whole location and make it seem real? Through the advancement of technology, CGI characters are broke down to the skeleton, making the creations more believable than ever before. Also, cities and oceans are now just painted on in Post-Production as Green/Blue Screen has become a highly valued location.

In both The Avengers and Life of Pi CGI work is used for more than making an animation, but rather bring a new world, and its creatures in it, alive.

 

 

Winter is Coming

Game of Thrones, the medieval HBO series, has captures television fans attention with it intense story line, bloody narrative, and brutal fight scenes. SpinVFX brings Westeros to life by building the castles, birthing the creatures, and multiplying the soldiers to make the series grander than any other production in television.

 The Creation of a Giant

The Making of an Army

The Building of a Kingdom

Forming of an Adventure

The usage of green screen is highly valuable for the magical kingdom because the amount of visual HBO would like would not be possible without this illusion. In September 2013, the company won an Emmy for their work they did for Game of Thrones. SpinVFX has done work for many visually thrilling productions, such as Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter, the ABC television series Titanic, Battle: Los Angeles, and After Earth. 

MTV Movie Award Green Screen

This past Sunday the MTV Movie Awards, although not much of an award show just mostly a giant advertisement, aired live. During the show, there was a segment where the host Rebel Wilson green screened herself into movies that were nominated for academy awards. For example, In Les Mis when Anne Hathaway is singing "I dreamed a dream" Rebel inserts herself in the back as "lead whore" and fights with the director. She does this in Life of Pi as well. The green screening was very realistic and looked a lot more professional then mine obviously. Before this class, I would have thought how cool it was that she looked like she was literally in the scene but now I know it's not that hard, all ya need is a good green screen set-up. Unfortunately I can't find any videos of it but I have some pictures of it.

Green Screen From Your Phone

If you don't mind a much lower quality version of a green screen, you can get it right from your iphone with the Green Screen Movie FX app. As long as you're standing in front of a solid colored background, the app will be able to transmit a moving background behind you, or a video of your own if you upload it. It is similar to the application on photo booth where you can put yourself in space or on the beach but with the iphone app, you can control the chroma keys to create a more realistic video and then upload it online.

While it is far from perfect, it might be a useful tool if you are working with a green screen and you have uploaded the background in order to determine where to place your actors to get a clean final product when you import the real thing. Or helpful when trying to pick a background to use, to see which one would look best with the lighting you have.