Green Screen Politics

For some time now my blog, "The Art of CG Supervision" has been waiting for me to tickle the keyboard.  Today a question I saw on LinkedIn inspired me to write.

As supervisors we are often confronted with questions that, on first hearing, we may want to scream "No way!"  But of course, that really would be childish and of no help to anyone.

In my new post, I address the concerns of a LinkedIn member who was being asked by DP about over-cranking footage to get a better key.  Having recently worked as the keying supervisor on Prime Focus's SIN CITY A DAME TO KILL FOR, I sort of felt I could speak to the question.

"Green Screen" by Peter Pearson
licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

The first step is to address the technical, aesthetic, and cost implications of the question (with schedule the time cost).  Then we look at the delicacies of working with the DP....

Read more at The Politics of the Green Screen Shoot

Sin City 2

Sequence Supervisor:
Sin City, A Dame To Kill For
2013 Oct through 2014 June

Completed a nine month assignment in India with Prime Focus World on the new film: Sin City, A Dame to Kill For.  This was an exciting and demanding project.

"It's all about the post-production

on a movie like this"   www.toplessrobot.com

I spent the first couple of months with the title of PreComp Supervisor.  This involved
training, organizing and supervising a team of junior compositors to de-noise plates and pull basic keys in NUKE. During my leadership, we completed about 1260 of the 2500 shots -- just over half.  This was a great assignment, as I had some time to do develop and do some training of the team in my keying methods.

Then I was moved over to Sequence Supervise a big bunch of shots, heading one of several teams. My team and I did lighting and final renders and put out comps on over 300 shots in 6 months.  All the shots involved building virtual sets and massive amounts of in-comp color grading to get the on set lighting to work with the style of the film and lighting of the sets.  On another 100 or so shots I did some prep work and planning, ordering paint, roto etc. from support departments, then management rebalanced shots with new teams, so I can't really count these in my shot tally.  Generally, my supervisory role involved interpreting instructions from the VFXSupervisors and Director to the team, quality control, NUKE template development, ad hoc training, one-on-one working with artists in NUKE and MAYA... plus looking ahead.

In addition, while at PFW, I also worked as a VFX Training Consultant with Michael Pecchia, Director of  VFX Training, drawing up a complete training outline for new compositors.

One of my shots from the trailer.  Dwight (Josh Brolin) has something on his mind.  Not the final version.
opens 22 August 2014
source:www.toplessrobot.com

Prime Focus is a great place to work.  Merzin Tavaria (co-founder and chief creative director) has inspiring vision for the company and VFX in India and the global market.  Other managers were responsive to changing needs and schedules.  My crew worked very hard and was eager to learn and perform well.  My line producer was fantastic.  HR took good care of us expatriates, so we could focus attention on our work.

More than that I cannot say, after all, every company has its NDA secret recipes!  I can say that the recent merger announcements are great news and will greatly effect VFX post worldwide.  (http://www.primefocusworld.com/)


This was my third tour in India, where I previously worked for Reliance Media Works and GEON Studios.   I stayed this time at the wonderful Renaissance Marriot at Lake Powai.

Working and living in India is always a challenge -- far from home, family and friends; a change in diet, climate, and tempo.  But after a short adjustment period, you get into the groove.  The people are like people everywhere in a huge metropolis - stressed.  But they were also friendly and pleasant.  There is also enormous poverty counterbalancing enormous wealth.  The crew and management were excellent to work with, as I said before.   I look forward to going back again.

A view from my hotel
I started every morning looking out my window to see how much the water level was dropping and to look for birds, cattle, crocodiles, fishing boats and people wading in the lake.  Across Lake Powai, on the south shore, is Hiranandani Gardens, where I lived in 2010-11.  My flat was in Enternia, the tall double one third from right.