Little Dorrit

While the BBC series was still between the cutting rooms and post production an additional VFX sequence was flagged and I was asked to help.

The scene in question was set in Venice, Amy Dorrit (Little Dorrit) and her sister Fanny are in a gondola in discussion. It was thought that the scene could have more of a Venice feel, I was asked what we could do.

Little Dorrit - Rushes assembly

We produced a matte painting that was large enough to cover all camera angles for the scene. The foreground was roto'ed, the camera was tracked and we delivered this:

Little Dorrit - In Venice

A lot of work by Yola, Iain and Simon, but great results. Athough this was an unplanned VFX sequence - the results - with a little elbow grease - were very good.





Bells and Whistles . . in the beginning . . .

I thought I might show the first bit of hardware I used as a would be editor back in 1988 - have a look THIS:

The Grass Valley GVG300 - something to make your mum proud - isn't she a beauty!

When this baby lit up, the room lights dimmed and weak clients fainted.

People could SEE you were working ferociously as you banged the buttons noisily, lighting the desk up.

You'd hit the red RECORD button on the edit computer and all hell would break loose in the room next door as the tape machines rewound 5 seconds, deafening the assistants. The lights would dim again as all the machines ran into sync in order to show the client a CUT or DISSOLVE or some other Visual Effect.

The Editors I was lucky enough to work with at the time - David Yardley, Colin Green and Tim Greenwood - would produce the most astonishing and creative work with this not so portable telephone exchange.

The kit rarely helped - innovation, lateral thinking and a mind like a telephone exchange were the requirements.

Then these came along in 1992:

WTF, The Earth was saved, climate change was averted, power bills were slashed - but there was a hell of a job persuading the client you were doing anything in the virtual silence of the 'tap . . .'Tap' . 'Tap' .. 'Tap' . .'Tap Tap Tap Tap'.

But then THE GLOVE arrived - speeding things back up immeasurably.

No - that's not my sitting room carpet.



When there were 4 . . .

The gentle polymath Roger Woodburn directed this Ikea commercial in 1995.

IKEA - Keith Chegwin

We did a test . . . well Roger did a test on 35mm - he performed a 'fisticuffs' face off/mock fight with himself, shot in 2 passes on blue screen. I glued the two passes, which very quickly told us 2 things, no . . 3 things. Roger was a good choreographer and performer as well as a humbly awesome director, and interaction could happily be achieved on multiple passes. This was 1995 - 'Multiplicity' the movie was produced in 1996.

This commercial illustrates some minor challenges in the early stages of digital post production where the compositing kit was hardware and - at that moment - could only render 4 layers max at one time.

Quantel Harry was almost in the past - that's someone else's story.

The geeks will be saying "hmmm . .  the camera . . moving is not" - which is a fair comment - however 20 layers on a 4 layer (per render) 2D compositing box that renders like a Russian tractor running on crude, with footage that is Ochre Screen that requires retiming and matte cleanup - was enough.

On this occasion Roger sat beside me as I did the work, entertaining the room in his gentle way. He had an A6 pen and tablet with his laptop. He joked that he was a Mini-Me. Far from it - while I was working on the Flat Pack Oasis commercial Roger was CAD designing the camera mount for a forerunner of the DMS 120s camera motor!



Elvis and friends

This promo - ‘Elvis’ by DFGW (now Freud) for BBC Radio 2 was a massive hit around the world on You Tube winning 17 awards for director Steve Cope. The production company was Red Bee Media. The footage covered many decades and offered up many challenges.

BBC Radio 2 - Elvis

I looked at possible footage that would be available with the Steve and the editor. From my perspective there were lens flares and filters, the residue of unknown generations of duplication, different frame rates and TV line frequency and camera tube 'lag' on the oldest footage. The key was to have an open dialogue between myself Steve and the editor - if any one of us said a particular clip wouldn't work then it was out.

The Sugababes were the only artists to be filmed - I suggested a 1970's studio camera should be used - why try and be clever in post when the camera will do all the dirty work. Background elements were also shot as we had to remove objects/people from the Elvis plates too.

While the promo was being cut I was looking at techniques to separate the artists from their backgrounds and other compositing issues.

I decided the best technique - in order to give us the best chance when compositing - was to roto each field of the clips - with the knowledge that if the clips were composited in fields then delivered for broadcast in frames - to some degree the elements would begin to integrate themselves.

Some shots had gentle 3D camera moves added in Flame in order to further integrate the footage.

Following the publicity I did a talk at Promax. Below is a 'making of' clip I showed at the presentation.

The making of BBC Radio 2 - Elvis

And here is the dream team who took on the roto tasks - they are the true heroes!

Dave, Chris, Dave, Steve, Anne, Saf, Me, Yola.



Tess of the D'Urbevilles

There is a scene in the Thomas Hardy classic where Tess and Angel stumble upon Stonehenge. Although some filming was allowed at the ancient site, logistical reasons meant that a key scene in the story would have to be shot as performance and separate back plates - the only scene in this version of the story.

The greenscreen setup was in a tiny grain barn in Dorset. The performance was shot first - not ideal in terms of lighting direction - but more practical for production.

We blocked the scene out from a plan, so that we could later shoot matched back plates at Stonehenge. The space was so small and the greens so narrow that in order to block the scene out, instead of moving the camera too much we moved the performers and the fibre glass 'rock'. Wojciech Szepel did a great job on the lighting.

Some days later I took a second unit to Stonehenge at dawn - hoping for an etherial, frosty and misty dawn (which would match the rest of the live action) - and got harsh 'low winter sun' light!

It was pretty cool to be among the stones at dawn with almost nobody else around.