Our Producer Thought VFX Were Easy so he Hired Himself

[Music] i am full steam ahead working on a true scale of attack on titan i realized this is the perfect idea for an episode of what i do because the show basically makes all the titans seem way bigger than they actually are so i'm gonna put them in real life to kind of demonstrate their true scale problem is that this is a very vfx heavy video and as usual it takes me a while to do all the writing and then the editing by the time i'm ready to do the visual effects i don't really have that much time and here we are in the final week of the video schedule i'm not confident that we can get it done this week especially because i can no longer accurately guess how long it takes me to do things uh i nose-dived off my onewheel pancaked onto the ground shattered my clavicle it literally looks like it exploded the swelling has gone down quite a bit you can still kind of feel the bone shards that set me behind schedule so i'm trying to catch up now you know i can use my hand i can't move my arm much so if i if i need to like type something i have to like literally carry my hand over and then i can type i don't know how we're gonna get this attack on titan video done on time because it's going to be a really good video but we have one week to do this and clint has left the studio so we're down not only one vfx rs but two vfx artists and i know we just did this hiring video but we haven't hired anybody yet this video is a very cgi heavy video i'm looking at about 20 shots so basically i need more vfx artists for this video you know what i'll take any help i'll take any help if there's a problem jake's the guy that solves it so i'm going to give him a call here hey niko hey jake you heard about what happened to ren right dude yeah i did i talked to him so we're in a little bit of a pickle here we're down clint and now we're down wren and we have a bunch of the effects we have to do for this attack on titan video i was wondering if you made any progress on the uh the hiring emails is there anybody that stands out to you that might be able to come in and help with this yeah yeah actually i went through all of them there were some pretty damn good submissions out there and uh yeah i've actually already hired somebody um so i know i didn't talk to you about it but i figured it wouldn't be a problem because uh he's already here yo yo so i heard that you needed help with some effect shots yes in fact we just came up with the opening shot for the piece it's gonna require more work but it's gonna be worth it all right so uh we have somebody else coming in to help wait did you guys already hire the generalist wait hey guys where's the effects artist so jake thinks he can uh swing it maybe it's a chance for us to show him what we do here well a surprise i mean look a welcome one there's some pretty big vesty shoes to fill over there i hope that if you guys give me a chance i can prove to you that there's something special inside of all of us i'd like to take that workstation over there you give me a shot i'll do it i'll give it back to you done i mean it would be nice having somebody in that spot again feeling that chaotic energy you know what jake i think i have a shot for you the homer simpson shot i think jake can do that you could do it but first you need to prove to me that you can do the shot that i have in mind it just requires like a little bit of like compositing knowledge a good baseline tell would be whether or not you can do a muzzle flash between google my years of experience in photoshop and premiere and me asking you guys for a little bit of help we can get this video done on time i want to see a proper muzzle flash up to the standard that niko has come to expect from us show me i didn't expect them to throw this curveball but at the same time i'm not surprised can i just start the shot don't you think it's a waste of time i didn't get hired at this company by just saying hey guys just let me in i had to submit stuff you got to spend time to earn time look the easiest quickest dirtiest way to do this is i just take a dslr get a shot of somebody shooting a pistol comp in the muzzle flash quick and dirty so we can move on through this process legitimately i'm going to try to do this without asking them anything and then give them give them a shot is this a brand new computer oh yeah perfect because i need one right now courtesy of puget systems obviously it's got 3390s in it whatever that means since i'm the least experienced artist in the studio uh i should take the most powerful machine i'm not gonna lie this feels a bit i don't want to say disrespectful to all of the work we've put in our whole lives to be able to sit in those chairs muzzle flashes are a staple of a good vfx artist and if jake can make this muzzle flash and make it sweet if i can look at it and go then that's the real test i mean i've known for years that i could do vfx i just never did because no one asked me to you know i didn't feel like it was necessary for the business to hire myself i've come up with something and i think that this has a lot of punch a lot of impact i do not want to show it to the guys yet because i think it's going to ruin the impact but it's ready to take from premiere now into after effects all right now let's get these layers going matt hey hey what's up hey questions um a lot of these muscle flashes that i'm looking at i'm opening them and it's like single image pngs yeah oh is that normal it is normal that's normal jake yeah they're not like already video no there's no like smoke you have to add multiple assets so i need to take a still images and put them on each frame yeah and that's where the art comes in man that's the art that seems very tedious it is tedious yeah why do you think i'm never the one doing the muzzle fashions i always make other people do them i hate doing muzzle flashes [Music] literally watch a tutorial maybe you brew yourself some nice green tea thank you so much i feel like a new man ladies and gentlemen i've just completed my first well it wasn't just a muzzle flash it's a whole thing [Music] wait he went home you don't want to see my muzzle flashes all right well in that case i'm going to work on the second shot and it's going to be even better i gotta say there's nothing quite like doing vfx for the first time with a group of people who are inspired to help you along the way and i think another reason why it's been so awesome is because of today's sponsor vessi now these shoes if you guys do not know i'm one of the best comfortable casual footwear options out there they're made from an incredible dymatex material which keeps you cool in the summer and warm in the winter and these shoes don't just prosper well inside okay they're also great for the outdoors you can wear them hiking you can get them all kinds of wet they're 100 waterproof you can get a muddy dirty whatever and you can clean them super easily you can throw them in the washing machine if you want wait wait wait wait prove it oh the shoes are coming off so that's all you do you want to keep them clean that's all you got to do feel the insides dry as a bone they're incredibly stretchy they feel like you're wearing socks now i don't know if they help with the vfx or if it's just anecdotal but they're definitely helping me along if you haven't noticed everybody's wearing them not only do they have a great insole and a well-made pad but they're incredibly form-fitting to your foot without any of the stitching or folds and the material that sort of get in there and and agitate your foot none of that i just slipped them on and i felt like i've been floating on a cloud so anyway i still have a little bit to go i got to get back to work but if you guys are interested in getting a pair of vessies for yourself head on over to vesey.com cord or crew or click the link in the description and you will get 25 off your first order that's vessi.com corridor crew [Music] after a day of experience i've gone back to my regular clothes now i'm gonna present to ren nico and sam and the rest of the vfx team if it's not good we can't have you on the project my first muzzle flash did you have like a whole edit [Music] oh wow dude i love this dance alright [Applause] thanks guys that gun show was that in camera or did you add that that's what vfx are wow i'm the one to suck up to not him come on i think the muzzle flash was solid i gotta see it again to say for sure can we see a frame by frame that muzzle flash because a true muscle flash stands up to a frame by frame oh you got some brightening going on yeah you got the light ooh some smoke how fast is the smoke moving it's going it's going not bad yeah my only critique is the the dark fringing around it but the motion and everything else is good and the sound design is also very nice it's not the best muzzle flash let's be honest but there's something special here it's very wholesome considering that you're not a visual effects artist the fact that you're able to pull this off in like half a day bravo like this is this is like not trivial if you've never used after effects before and you know what i think i now have the confidence to give you a shot from this attack on titan video oh yeah wow i want your help for this video this is a big day what was up with the pose that was hilarious wait where did they go nick what nick i'm stupid i'm so sorry where did nick go i'm sorry the camera can't see him so uh friends trained himself to ignore the camera the camera the perfect camouflage all right so the shot jake there's a moment in this video where i'm talking about how large the wall from attack on titan is versus game of thrones in a moment of rambling i basically suggest that the colossal titan because he's so hot like temperature wise can literally just like lean against the wall and melt through it there's that meme of homer simpson disappearing into the hedges i thought first what if we just cut out the head of the colossal titan put it on homer simpson's head as he disappears into the hedges but then matt found something else let's take a look it's already been done for us a little roto mask key this put the ice wall in the background he didn't put the ice wall in the background yeah this is going to take a combination of all of our teachings your learned knowledge that you now possess [Music] there is a little bit of a curveball though the camera moves the hedge is technically supposed to be static but in the shot the hedge moves from right to left so you will need to either stabilize homer simpson so that he's actually moving or you will move the background so that the background is tracked to that hedge so don't disappoint him and then create a camera track or you might not need to track this create a null object start at the end of the shot oh okay and then set your position on you see that little lump at the very top of that hedge there that's a solid point to track i know that i kind of held my own in the conversation and made it look like i knew what was going on but they've been using all these terms that i have no idea what they mean this little like square box called a null object and it will slowly move across your shot tracked to the footage on the green screen here they just keep talking they just keep using words like null and nodal and track and mat and paint and mask and i feel like this would be a lot more intimidating if it was just me and google i'm gonna get started because there's no time to lose i got a lot of work to do at the end of the day there's a certain technical side to things but there's also just having the right intuition just what can you execute as an artist we'll see if jake's got it i mean i've hired myself what if i fail at my job now i have to fire myself then what happens i know what it's like to be in over your head on production what you have to do is you have to keep pushing through you have to keep putting the building blocks together for the production and eventually things snap together i feel like that will happen if i just keep making steps and i'm gonna rely on that experience to get me through this fred i think i have this shot i'm kind of tracked and everything do you want to see it uh-huh okay oh yeah that's a winner jake you think so yeah i mean obviously if runs fine with it then it totally works okay so now we need to track a face onto this is it tedious i'm going frame by frame masking foliage so i've been working on this for about four hours um i was able to come up with this basically what i did here is put in the background and then get the right scale for homework going into the wall and then after i got him going into the wall then ren said okay let's change his skin tone so he looks like a titan so we changed his skin tone and then i said you know what something else is missing here what else can we do it would be fun to try to put a colossal titan mouth onto homer i had to do a ton of key framing in order to track the face as he goes into the ice wall the leaves sort of go over the face and then eventually cover him up to his nose then once i had the mask made it was really coming together but i still thought something was missing because the jpeg that i used was not the same style so then peter said hey there's a cartoon effect then matt said hey you can do a drop shadow and create a black border and now i think it's done and i'm super proud of it alright so let's go show ren cause i'm super excited i guess i hear jake has finished the shot all right wren yesterday you tasked me with completing a muzzle flash i did that i showed it to you this morning you said hey kid you're moving up in the world here's a real shot uh now i have completed it what i think is complete and i'd like to show it to you if you think it's ready it's going in the video as is if you think it's bad i mean then we should change it but i don't think it's bad all right can i look yes you're ready to go yes let me yeah that actually works really well i love it jake this is great he just looked sunburnt man he spent way too much time in the sun jake would make a good junior assistant vfx artist this is a very powerful shot that you created do you see the like joy and laughter it created after we watched it there's it's like a whole new thing i get that enjoyment when i produce something and then i watch everyone work on the set but this is a totally different kind of enjoyment that is very cool it goes to show you like somebody with no knowledge in the right environment can very quickly learn things i think the consensus is clear we would happily take you on the team but you watch the hiring video right yeah so you know all the conditions yeah make vfx and have fun and move out to l.a okay so i definitely learned more about visual effects through this process and i do have a greater appreciation for it having gone through it and i think that was kind of the point of this journey but i think i should probably stick to productions out here from my little ranch in texas so i'm gonna do that but in the meantime check out wren's scale of attack on titan video which is coming out on corridor crew this sunday as well as the final episode of functional filmmaking live on corridor digital.com hosted by our very own nick laurent all five episodes of that show are out and uh people have really really liked it so we're happy for that anyways see you guys later bye see ya bye bye bye bye bye bye see ya bye see you later

Channel: Corridor Crew

Views: 869,322

Keywords: vfx, vfx artists, learn, new, tutorial, challenge, cgi, attack on titan, homer simpson, meme, homer meme, react

Id: fwOmAiCVOJA

Length: 16min 21sec (981 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021