Sydney’s leading visual effects artist reveal secrets behind most impressive, challenging work
Sydney’s maestros of visual arts are continuing the bar of what’s possible in the creation of innovative and jaw-dropping visual effects. Go behind the scenes to see some of their work:
Central Sydney
Don't miss out on the headlines from Central Sydney. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Sydney’s maestros of visual arts are continuing the bar of what’s possible in the creation of innovative and jaw-dropping visual effects.
Hollywood blockbusters, homegrown hits and virtual reality work for advertising projects are just some of the recent projects created by talented teams of artists from a rising number of visual effects companies across the city.
Many of the studios have benefited from a recent production boom that has seen a slew of major Hollywood productions shot in Sydney, including Thor and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Chris Spry, the managing director of Fin Design + Effects based in Surry Hills, said demand for visual effects had “increased dramatically” across the last two years.
“It’s been largely driven by increased global content creation of visual effects-heavy film and streaming productions and in recent times the falling Aussie dollar has also helped what is an export industry,” he said.
Tim Dyroff, creative director at Resolution Design, said the local industry was benefiting from demand for new content across all visual media.
“There is an increasing number of screens in our lives these days and screens need the stuff that we make, whether it’s for film, TV, mobile, touchscreen or augmented reality and virtual reality screens, they will need a vital industry to supply the imagery and visual landscapes of the future,” he said.
“I think there’ll be more and more work for Sydney studios as we’re seen globally as a centre for excellence and a great place to work and live.”
Many studios say the keys to standing out in the industry include adapting to evolving technology and software.
“The last five years has seen incredible leaps in terms of real time rendering and studio productions. It’s expanded sideways in all areas of production tools as well,” Patrick Felgueras, from Balmain based company Mirage VFX said.
“Technology both in software and hardware is a never ending universe. We see the work that the largest studios are creating which push the boundaries but it’s always fascinating to use new and emerging technologies.”
Christian Debney, co-owner of Stage 3, said it was an exciting time to be working in the industry.
“It feels like a bit of a golden age for cinema in Australia in general. The task is to sustain that and keep creating beautiful work that ensures the productions want to return again and again,” he said.
We take a look at some of the leading visual effects studios in Sydney who have shared insights into their most challenging and impressive works.
MIRAGE VFX
Ladies In Black, directed by Bruce Beresford, was a film set in Sydney about 1959. We were tasked with completely recreating the Goodes Building and surrounding city block in CG (computer-generated imagery). Sadly, the building plans didn’t exist so we had to take a multitude of photographs and sourced historic photographs to build an accurate layout and cross check them with measurements we’d taken. The building has some rather ornate details and we focused on capturing that as well as the correct structure of the brick work. Integrity was vital to make it work.
We also had to recreate the trams that were present in Sydney at that time. Additionally, we looked at the vehicles that were there between 1955 and 1959 and added those. We shot crowds dressed in appropriate costumes over green screen to place them into the shots and the whole thing worked well.
HERETIC FOUNDATION
Working in the research and development phase for acclaimed director Alex Proyas’s upcoming virtual production feature film Sister Darkness, the team of 20 odd artists and filming crew at Heretic Foundation created this shot as a proof of concept. The team built a virtual 3D forest setting using a combination of Maya & Unreal Engine software. The talent was then shot on a treadmill in a green screen studio, holding a stand-in lighting prop with tracking markers. The team used a custom visual production pipeline to enable Alex and the crew to view a real time composite of the shot, live on-set. The team were able to use the real time position data from the camera and on-set light source to light the virtual 3D set, resulting in true to life light interaction of the real light affecting virtual surrounding ground and trees, as seen on the final shot.
CUTTING EDGE
One of our most memorable and challenging projects was The Invisible Man for Universal Pictures. We completed more than 370 visual effects shots for the project, ranging from character design to extensive and complex, visible and invisible effects. We joined the project in the pre-production stage, which is how we love to engage with any project and its creative team, where decisions about the project’s needs have not been made yet. We can then go on the journey to help shape it with our client. The creativity required for the project involved many styles, techniques and executions.
This project was personal from Australia’s perspective as the writer/director, Leigh Whannell, enabled a US Studio blockbuster to be shot and have the VFX all created in Sydney. All projects have challenges, such as accelerated schedules, creative change and challenges, with this one being no exception. The toughest part was with six weeks left to deliver, a decision by the studio to change the look of the visual effect of the film’s main character, The Invisible Man. We had to change months of work with a finite amount of time left to deliver, which we still proudly achieved.
FIN DESIGN + EFFECTS
In Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, martial-arts master Shang-Chi confronts the past he thought he left behind when he’s drawn into the web of the mysterious Ten Rings organisation. We teamed up with Marvel Studios to deliver an expositional sequence set in the Mandarin’s home courtyard. The work included one of the film’s most sophisticated sequences; when Wenwu, played by Tony Leung, places the pedants into the eyes of the carved dragon Fin Fang Foom. This initiates water to seep from the walls and explode into the shrine room. As Shang interacts with the frozen water it falls to the floor to form a forest made of water with a myriad of bioluminescent trails revealing the path to the moon gate waterfall and the location of the Ten Rings. Fin was involved in the project from pre-production, to on set and through to final delivery.
Fin visual effects supervisor Roy Malhi said the team undertook extensive research into water and its behaviour. He explained: “Water is some of the most challenging and unforgiving visual effects work in the world of visual effects. The complexity starts with the replication of the physical properties, maintaining surface tension and viscosity while performing unnatural movements. This was performed using millions of particles with our in-house developed surface tension solver. Our process continued with the production of geometry that represents the surface of the water, which has incredible high fidelity and detail. This was made even more difficult when the water was in slow motion. We were very focused on adding physical complex lighting effects like caustics and interaction with every object or human in the scene.” Mr Malhi said the project had been one of the “most challenging and rewarding sequences” the company has produced.
RESOLUTION DESIGN
Winning the bid for the title sequence for 2016 film Fallen by director Scott Hicks was a big moment for us as a studio as we were up against a big US studio we really admired. We’re really proud of the Gothic gok we created for the title sequence of the film, repurposing the amazing work of 19th century printmaker Gustave Doré.
We often use computer generated imagery to bring concepts to life that can’t be filmed, something that just doesn’t happen in real life. The project was rendered in 4K resolution and set to an alluring narrative of fallen angels, this is a project outside of the square we’re really proud of. Resolution creative director Tim Dyroff said: “There’s always a role for visual effects to bring scripts and ideas to life. It’s a dream career where every job is a new challenge and a world of possibilities.”
VANDAL
Animal protection society, Animals Australia, commissioned Vandal to highlight the lives endured by animals in factory farms. Vandal managing director Brenden Johnson, said: “This emotional two minute film for Animals Australia was an ideal opportunity for Vandal to flex its visual effects muscle and showcase our photoreal computer generated creature capabilities.”
“The biggest challenge was bringing to life our piglet ‘Peanut’ in a realistic manner, capturing the nuances and intricate elements that make our hero convincing, while retaining a certain amount of charm within his personality. Our talented team of artists were put through their paces to make Peanut’s personality come to life and we’re extremely proud of the end result.”
ROTOR STUDIOS
Tasked with showcasing a vehicle before production models became available to film, Rotor Studios took an existing shot of a river crossing and integrated the new vehicle into it. A representation of the vehicle was created from engineering data. Our team of matchmovers and animators tracked the motion of the existing vehicle and adapted it to the new one. Five staff worked on the project.
Our lighting and visual effects teams then created computer generated water effects and our compositors applied the final polish. All those elements came together to create a photorealistic river crossing shot before the vehicle was even in the country.
BINYAN STUDIOS
Binyan created a series of animated films aimed at prospective buyers for a new residential tower in North Sydney, developed by Aqualand. These films were challenging because they had to walk the fine line between photorealism and computer generated elements while delivering an emotive and dreamlike tone. Our challenge was to create content that leads the customer through a ‘buying journey’ of the development.
To achieve this, we created a 270 degree audiovisual animated immersion room and walk-throughs which allow the buyer to view short-listed apartment types and discuss with the agent the options available. The final project included 52 still computer generated images, motion brand identity, three different types of films, materials, cinemagraphs and a display gallery experience. It was refreshing to have a project in Sydney – our city of origin – to really push new ground and tackle a few exciting challenges.
Join the conversation
Booze ban approved for Sydney hotspot after ‘binge drinking’
Complaints over public urination, binge drinking and people ‘preloading’ on alcohol have resulted in a booze ban outside a late night Sydney hotspot.
Read more
‘Traffic bedlam’: Why school’s $141.5m expansion is riling residents
Homeowners and NSW transport department officials have raised concerns over a $141.5m expansion plan by a top Sydney school that would see more than 200 more students taught at the college.
Read more