Compositing & Special Effects

This seminar covers everything post production and what happens before, during and after principal filming is complete for movies, television, commercials and music videos.

By Yotam Dor
A History of Special Effects

What is compositing?

In visual effects post-production, compositing refers to creating complex images or moving images by combining images from different sources - such as real-world digital video, digitized film, synthetic 3-D imagery, 2-D animations, painted backdrops, digital still photographs, and text.

Compositing is used extensively in modern film to achieve effects that otherwise would be impossible or not cost effective.

Today, compositing generally involves the use of computers, however in the past, compositing was often done using optical tricks. In many movies, studio scenes were extended using Matte paintings which were created by an artist and then combined with live-action footage.
Source

Matte Paintings

Mattes are used in photography and filmmaking to insert part of a foreground image onto a background image, which is often a matte painting, a background filmed by the second unit, or computer generated imagery. In modern use, the foreground element is often also computer generated.

*If you consider a composited scene a sandwich, the Matte Painting is the lower bread slice.


Matte Painting: GMC Commercial

Final Commerical: GMC

Behind the Scenes: How it's made

United Animation/Making of

Shot Breakdowns

Mr. X: Before/After

Wired Article

Digital Domain: Behind the Scenes

Special Effects Industry

Two of the world’s largest Special Effects companies are based in New Zealand and California. They are responsible for the largest and most amazing film spectacles such as Jurassic Park, King Kong, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.

Weta
Minitures

Industrial Light & Magic

Large Workshops:

Digital Domain

Moving Picture

Frames Store CFC

3D

Computer Generated animations combined with practicle shots to create a combination of real and amazing. The lines of what's real and what's not have been blurred to the point where we must question everything we see.

Robots

Video Combined with 3D

Spider

Sony Style

Reebok Wrapshear

Questioning the norm

Motion Graphic reaction to advertising through the artistic medium of compositing.



Future Shock

Beauty Kit

"Pleix is a virtual community of digital artists based in Paris. Some of us are 3D artists, some others are musicians or graphic designers. This website is the perfect place to share our latest creations."

See Pleix Films

Does Motion Theory insert such questions in all their work?:

Beck (Al Jaffe)


EA Sports (Racial Stereotypes)

TCP layout