Compositing Demo Reel | Pamela Francescut
I've always thrived when it comes to putting the finishing touches on an artwork, and am constantly inspired to see how seamless I can make a shot. Excited to share my demo reel for the Rookies, and grateful to my instructors at Lost Boys who helped propel me into the best first year in VFX I could have imagined!
T-Shirt Graphic/Tattoo Replacement
In this shot I wanted to challenge myself to seamlessly integrate 2D elements onto two vastly different materials – tattoos onto skin and t-shirt graphics onto fabric. As an added bonus, I was able to utilize my skills in illustration to create the elements I wanted.
For the integration of the t-shirt graphic, I utilized Smart Vectors in order to capture the subtle movement of the wind blowing in the shirt. Any areas that slipped were remedied with the use of spline warps. In order to effectively integrate the tattoos I focused on making sure the skin texture was blended into the 2D element. I did this using a combination of keying techniques to maintain plate texture where possible and patched in layered noise patterns to blend in areas that could not be keyed.
Actor Replacement
Replacing Daenerys Targaryen with greenscreen footage of myself posed exciting challenges from lots of different directions, but namely in the paint and integration of greenscreen elements.
As Daenerys was painted out, I managed to maintain the dragon passing behind her by essentially patching and hand animating different areas of the dragon. When deciding on how to patch and paint, I needed to think about how the anatomy of the dragon would work and how to manipulate and warp different areas of it’s body to simulate what the movement would look like. For the integration I focused heavily on colour matching to the original shot (while taking into consideration the differentiation in skin tone) as well as paying close attention to areas of shadow that would need to be added passing over myself as the dragons spring into action.
Nuke Particles
This shot for me was all about learning something completely new. Having never tackled Nuke particles, I decided to fill out this shot with simulated feathers to give it a more dramatic feel.
The main focus when creating the feathers was to match the shape, colour, and movement of the feathers in the plate. I experimented with different rates of wind, turbulence, and gravity in order to match my particle feathers to the real deal.
Digital Makeup
This viking inspired shot that features a closeup on a face allowed me to really focus on the details. I chose to focus more on older wounds and scars to tell a story of a weathered warrior.
The main piece of the blind eye with the scar through it was achieved using a combination of Smart Vectors and planar tracking, followed by subtle integration tricks such as adding light and shadow around the scar to make it feel deeper in the face and maintaining the specular highlights in the plate eye over my added milky eye. To make the image feel more weathered I added some softly blended areas of dirt on the face, old dried blood on the coat shoulder, and chapped lips. To complete the shot I blended 2D smoke and ember elements into the the background.
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