INDUSTRY. SFX
expensive. At the same time, performing post-production VFX is also potentially expensive, so physical effects people have often found themselves providing fire, water, wind, cascading debris and other highly interactive phenomena which remain stubbornly difficult to simulate well. One of the benefits of post- production effects is that much of the workload is deferred until the sometimes-bewildering complexity of principal photography has already taken place. The impulse to throw a green screen behind the action and worry about what goes there later is, of course, ill-advised – but the option to do the lion’s share of the work in the comparative calm of a Soho computer suite might be an attractive one. Kelt’s experience includes productions that have inexplicably chosen to ‘fix it in post’. “The view that if a production leaves things until the last minute it will be cheaper is so much nonsense, but I have been told that often! We like to get involved early, doing free breakdowns of all the SFX, not just our own contribution.
there are clean-up opportunities later,” Kelt explains. If there’s a concern, it’s less to do with those much-loved benefits of real-world effects, and more to do with the sheer volume of business the UK industry has recently been dealing with. Champagne problems, perhaps, but issues which have nonetheless affected everyone from costumiers to camera crew. “The biggest problem for all departments is people,” Kelt states. “There simply are not enough experienced – or even inexperienced – crew out there. This contributes to the problems on set with
We get involved creatively rather than simply passively carrying out a brief. Communication is key.” Many current productions will use a combination of in-camera and post-production techniques, and while that’s probably the most effective approach, it does require careful coordination to establish what must be done for real, and crucially, how. “VFX can add to the SFX on occasion, or increase the options for SFX on set, knowing
LETHAL FORCE Artem’s work on BBC One’s Bodyguard included creating bullet hits and explosions
“The biggest problem for all departments is people. There simply are not enough experienced crew out there”
LINE OF FIRE Season 3 of Frontier also called on Artem for pyrotechnics and cannon hits
many people promoted, out of necessity,
46. DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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