Trama | Framestore’s artists know all too well the photographer’s plight to capture ‘the impossible shot’. Working with Sony to promote the Alpha 7 camera, VFX artists from the studio’s Advertising division took to South Africa with director Dan DiFelice and his crew to track down the elusive black wildebeest - the subject of a cinematic new campaign.Framestore’s heritage in creature design came into play, with artists working to create a comprehensive hero wildebeest performance, which would be used and adapted to populate an entire herd. Knowing that a sequence of impossible shots would play in super-slow motion, the animation was re-calibrated from 25 to 4000fps before creature dynamics, lighting and rendering were applied, and composited into Phantom footage. Designed to reflect the incredible level of detail captured by the Alpha 7 on show, this hero wildebeest performance allowed director Dan maximum flexibility to compose each scene for the piece’s sequence of ‘impossible’ shots.Framestore’s artists also provided significant work to the film’s environments, channeling the atmosphere of South Africa’s landscapes into the visuals. Work included matte paintings to extend the footage where needed; enhancing and replacing skies; and adding layer upon layer of subtle dust and debris detail around the creatures, to amplify the overall drama. |