Izzy

Girl breaks through fake railing

Aimee, Part 2

VFX Supervisor: Izzy Traub

Fake railing and fake windows bring this fight scene to life.

This was for Lee Whittaker’s short film Aimee ( https://www.aimeemovie.com/ ).

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Izzy,
VFX for low-budget feature films

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Floating Ghost Haunts Sleeping Beauty

Aimee, Part 1

VFX Supervisor: Izzy Traub

Lee Whittaker’s short film Aimee ( https://www.aimeemovie.com/ ) required a combination of subtle and larger-scale visual effects work. We solved some interesting on-set production challenges with VFX, which would have been very expensive to tackle live.

The project was also a good example of how on-set and post teams can work together, starting from the very beginning of production, to achieve amazing results without breaking the bank.

The process began with on-set VFX supervision work. Knowing, in advance, what we were going to do, and helping the on-set production team tweak things to ensure that we had what we needed, was immeasurably helpful.

The most difficult shot in the film, by far, was this one.

The flying ghost girl, Aimee, had been shot underwater in slow motion against a green screen. The pool wasn’t entirely clean, so there were tiny pieces of debris everywhere that had to be removed. Cleaning up the green screen around the girl’s hair was also challenging (as cleaning around hair usually is). The biggest task here, though, was addressing the bubbles coming out of Aimee’s nose and mouth, especially when she screams. On set, those bubbles crossed in front of her face on numerous occasions. This meant that we weren’t just cleaning things up. Pieces of her face and even her teeth had to be repainted in every frame where a bubble was interfering.

Soon I’ll post another very cool VFX shot we did on Aimee.

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Izzy,
VFX for low-budget feature films

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This gun arsenal was added to the set in post, enhancing production value.

For the low budget Film Sleepless (that I also directed), we didn’t have the budget for this weapons room and set design that I wanted. (For reference, here’s the vfx projector-phone shot from the same film).

For the above scene, the character was supposed to walk up to our elaborate gun rack and take one off the wall. The problem? We couldn’t afford to rent high-end prop guns for the day. And a friend who had ‘promised’ to bring his own guns, didn’t show up with them!

The only solution was VFX. Luckily, the type of guns we were able to drop into the scene were better than the ones we were going to borrow and amped up the production value considerably.

Our weapons room looks real, thanks to the gun wall and we would never have been able to attain this with the budget we were working with.

I estimate we saved $2700.00 by doing these CG props in post, rather than in camera.

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Izzy,
VFX for low-budget feature films

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Over 50 ‘virtual’ extras were added to scene with VFX (crowd simulation)

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We estimate that by adding the extras virtually, rather than hiring live actors, the producer saved over $5,000.00 on this scene. This is after taking into the cost of the VFX).

Here are our categories of estimated savings;
*Wages
*Craft service (food)
*Insurance
*Casting
*Costuming (for some)
*Payroll Admin
*1099 Reporting Admin

In addition, potential damage to this set was avoided (add 50 more people and things tend to get broken or go missing).

The source footage contained only a handful of real people, yet the script called for a large-scale pool party. Besides that, the producers of this film were looking for innovative ways to cut costs, without sacrificing production value. We used inexpensive VFX to solve the problem.

The 3D tracking, character creation, and compositing were straightforward, but placing and animating the characters was a challenge. The 3D and live characters needed to walk convincingly around each other. They had to avoid the live actors. Obviously the 3D characters couldn’t walk on top of, or through live actors, and nothing could look like it was obviously staged to avoid those issues.

Busy days and a sleepless night or two of careful planning, watchful eyes, and elbow grease got us a finished result we (and the producers) were very happy with.

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I’d love your feedback! Leave me a comment here:
LinkedIn Discussion Group.

Thanks for checking this out!
Izzy,
VFX for low-budget feature films

Get pricing on VFX or VR.