From a custom-made scanning rig to Gaussian Splats - How the seemingly impossible task of capturing the murder scene in 360 in just a few minutes inspired new solutions - and helped creating the memorable scene in ‘The Amateur’.
Full breakdown on my Linkedin (link in bio).
Thanks to Alex Reinach, Jan Maroske and Tim Peake.
#gaussiansplatting #vfx #filmproduction #vfxbreakdown #photogrammetry
At the beginning of the year I worked for a short period on set of Pablo Trapero’s &Sons, keeping an eye on things for the future post production team, and as usual, I made sure the locations were scanned and processed into Gaussian splats. I firmly believe that this day and age all productions, regardless of size and budget, can benefit from this approach. It means being able to archive and reproduce locations and sets accurately and realistically without the overhead of creating a CG asset and putting it through a long and expensive pipeline.
If there is a pickup shot you can put these splat assets up in any volume or even just use them as an asset in Nuke or your preferred comp tool. Track your camera, extract your foreground and add the location splats as the background element, then do all your comp workflows. Today, when budgets are shrinking and speed, cost effectiveness and being able to react rapidly to any brief are mandatory, being able to reproduce your shooting locations (or basically any location on the planet) quickly and effectively and integrating those into your comp pipeline are really helping any production to operate quicker and more cost effectively. Let me know if you want to know more about my workflows and how they can help your project!
#vfx #gaussiansplatting #filmmaking #vfxsupervisor
Last year I spent a cold March evening working on a commission next to a motorway in Hounslow, filming BA planes as they landed at Heathrow. The footage I created made it into a highly rated Netflix spy thriller series: they got a bespoke, reasonably priced shot and avoided having to use stock assets. This gave me the idea that perhaps other productions would need similar material: professionally filmed aviation footage. Shot to their specs with high-end cameras and lenses, these assets are budget-friendly but far superior to ordinary stock plane footage. As I’ve got time between VFX projects, I got together with a couple of friends - film industry professionals with decades of experience - and we created a new venture, PlanePlates. You can purchase footage from our cinematic aviation library, commission location shots, and for those cases where you need historic livery or a plane no longer flying - be it the Concorde or the Spruce Goose - CG planes and set extensions. Please spread the word!
On the way home from a family trip I found this lovely spot in Mamhead Woods, shot some video on my phone and reconstructed it as a Gaussian splat scene. Not exactly the ideal way to do photogrammetry, but any data is better than no data. For some reason this place reminded me of the Asterix comics, and to showcase the splats, I added some silly mocap to a model of the Bard from Asterix and slapcomped the renders with the splats in AE - giving myself just a couple of hours last week to do this.
My aim with this exercise was to demonstrate how a Gaussian splatted location (even if imperfectly captured) can be useful for a project, quickly prototyping camera moves and angles in an existing environment or location. This can extend the possibilities of storytelling and allows filmmakers with low/small budgets to lean into their creative ideas and realise their stories. Using Gaussian splatted environments specifically in animation is a fantastic way to integrate real-world environments or even scanned miniature worlds into your animation workflow - showing that photogrammetry and Gaussian splats are versatile in many creative applications.
.
.
.
#gaussiansplatting #vfx #animation #indiefilmmaking
Volumetric data captures on set - often during preproduction - are a must for VFX. New technology allows them to be presented in a photorealistic way - often in a virtual environment - and this allows Art department, Set Dec, Camera and Lighting, Directors and Producers to make more informed decisions, and manage budgets more efficiently. Creating something presentable from those billions of points used to be a massive CGI undertaking, but rapidly evolving technology makes it much more easier to work with the data.
These examples that I captured during the production of Netflix’s Black Doves, showcasing the incredible work of the crew and locations teams, are not only useful for VFX. Every department can benefit from having them done during any part of the production - and often beyond as these clouds can be used after the show wrapped, for example turning them into 3d backgrounds on a virtual stage to help reshoots or going back to a location that has been torn down.
With Gaussian Splats being available in Houdini, Unreal, Unity, Nuke, After Effects and many more tools in post - this rapidly evolving technology quickly becoming incredibly useful for any show or budget.
Get in touch if you want to have a chat about how this can help your project!
#gaussiansplatting #photogrammetry #vfx #filmmaking #blackdoves #dupevfx
Saluting 2025 with looking back at my highlight project of 2024 - Black Doves. Besides giving me the largest collection of slate pictures ever existed it also allowed me to meet and work with an army of talented filmmakers across all departments, shoot in many challenging situations - underwater, blowing up things in a studio, virtual production - as well as fine tuning my approach to solve problems on set, preparing for the inevitable curveballs, planning, new methodologies and finding solutions - keeping in mind that VFX is an integral part of a huge puzzle that is creating something that hopefully resonates with the audience. Let’s focus on 2025 - I am looking forward to the creative challenges and collaborations this year will bring!
