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Newbie VFX question Fog and Cliff
Hi,
I’m a writer director and have a scene in script where a car goes over a cliff at night on a very foggy road. It teeters on the edge of the cliff for a while, then plunges into the darkness.1. How difficult would this be to do using VFX, given there is no budget to actually tip a car over? (and don’t think the authorities would approve) I’m thinking of using a model car and perspective shooting, but no idea if that’s really practical or if there might be a better way. Not sure if green screen would be helpful here given the scale of the location.
2. Is it relatively easy to generate realistic fog over the whole scene? It needs to appear in wides, CUs, and outside the car when shot from POV interior of car.
I hope that is enough information for any experts here. I really appreciate your help. If there are any links to similar work out there, I’d love to have a look.
Ken
‘It’s not a question of becoming. It’s a question of uncovering what you really are, of letting everything that is not yourself fall away’. – Journey to Ladakh
I think this applies to editing as well….
Ken Barnes, Producer, Director, Editor
http://www.blissmonkeyfilms.com -
9 Replies
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Well, considering that you can’t use a real car at all, this might be a little bit of a tough one to pull off. But, if you have any 3D modeling sills, those will probably come in handy, especially runnning it over a 3D cliff maybe? And as far as the fog goes, I don’t think that should too much of an issue, just google some simple fog tutorials or even better, just use stock footage for the fog and duplicate it a few times and place it over your footage. If you’re doing the cliff in real life, try shooting it on a cloudy day and you can make the footage look like it’s night time! Hopefully that was somewhat helpul.
\”It\’s all around us Neo, temporary constructs of time…..\”
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The question is what budget do you have? I understand it’s not enough to do a real stunt, but that does not tell us what you can afford. There can be several ways of approaching this – from custom modeling of the car, with digital actor doubles and fancy particle effects, crane shots and production done on location (of the cliff) to get the back plates to composit all later, to a much cheaper approach that uses less fancy production and simpler techniques, like using stock models of cars, Element 3d and Trapcode for the 3d animation and fog, and so on.
Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist -
Thanks Soham. I assume you mean 3D modelling stills? I’ve seen some downloadable 3D cars online and they look pretty real.
Will stock footage fog allow a character to walk from foreground to background, eventually disappearing as fog swirls around him?
‘It’s not a question of becoming. It’s a question of uncovering what you really are, of letting everything that is not yourself fall away’. – Journey to Ladakh
I think this applies to editing as well….
Ken Barnes, Producer, Director, Editor
http://www.blissmonkeyfilms.com -
Hi Ted. Thanks for the reply. Total film budget isn’t fixed yet, so budget allocated to this effect is also subject to that. What sort of range of cost would a VFX artist charge to make this look real?
I don’t know much about the software you mention so not sure what they can do.
‘It’s not a question of becoming. It’s a question of uncovering what you really are, of letting everything that is not yourself fall away’. – Journey to Ladakh
I think this applies to editing as well….
Ken Barnes, Producer, Director, Editor
http://www.blissmonkeyfilms.com -
From your response I gather you’re after a lower budget solution – the one man band type. The more expensive one involves few people.
You need a VFX director (to help you design the shot for production) that can also do the work in post production. Such a person can also provide you with a realistic budget.
For examples of what the plugin software for After Effects that I mentioned in my previous post can do, go to their websites and you can see a lot of examples in the tutorial section, or just google for additional examples.Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist -
Thanks very much Ted! Duly noted and will do some more research. Hopefully enough funding will come through to afford the best option. Any ballpark figures you can knock around?
‘It’s not a question of becoming. It’s a question of uncovering what you really are, of letting everything that is not yourself fall away’. – Journey to Ladakh
I think this applies to editing as well….
Ken Barnes, Producer, Director, Editor
http://www.blissmonkeyfilms.com -
No professional in the VFX business will give you any estimates without first knowing the details and seeing a storyboard. And by details I mean knowing how many fx shots exactly, what is involved in each and the exact length of each shot, together with any additional involvment, such as vfx on set/off set supervision.
Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist -
Fair enough. Thanks for your support!
‘It’s not a question of becoming. It’s a question of uncovering what you really are, of letting everything that is not yourself fall away’. – Journey to Ladakh
I think this applies to editing as well….
Ken Barnes, Producer, Director, Editor
http://www.blissmonkeyfilms.com -
Well, yes the stock footage fog should allow for the disappearance of someone if you mess around with the opacity settings and you may need to use masks too. As far as the 3D modeling and actual VFX goes, like Ted said, it really depends on your budget first. If we know what it is, we’ll have a better chance at helping you with this effect. But if you’re a one man show type, your effect probably isn’t going to be completely realistic as you have planned unless you have serious time on your hands or you’re incredibly good with editing and 3D modeling. Cheers!
\”It\’s all around us Neo, temporary constructs of time…..\”
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