SHOOT STORY | VAN I TY FA I R
“Technicolor VFX was the lead vendor on Vanity Fair , working on more than 350 shots, which encompassed significant 2D and 3D crowd replication and set extension, as well as period location creation and adjustments, after filming on-location in Budapest and various locations in England. Some of the 3D shots that we worked on were commissioned after filming had finished. “In terms of key set piece scenes, the Battle of Waterloo and Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens required the most VFX work. For the Battle of Waterloo, we did a large amount of soldier and horse replication, set extension matte painting, explosions and blood. We also recreated Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens from old photographs from its heyday, including recreating a 3D hot air balloon. Both scenes utilised a roaming 360˚ Steadicam, which was a major factor in creating the look and feel for the big set pieces, but it meant that we couldn’t erect conventional green screens. There was however an occasion where a green screen was crucial in the middle of one of these dynamic Steadicam shots. In this instance, we had crew crouching out of frame with a green screen collapsed on the floor as the camera swept past them, after which they jumped it into position for when the camera panned back in their direction. You get that glance over the top of spectacles when suggesting renegade approaches like this in pre-prod meetings; however production put their faith in us and it totally worked. RECREATING THE 1800S GARY BROWN, VFX CREATIVE DIRECTOR, TECHNICOLOR LONDON
IMAGES DOP Ed’s vision for the lighting was that it should be creative but not minimal.
For me the introduction of the back-filter skin tone OLPF was really interesting and makes the colours pop say in the style of photographers like Saul Leiter where the colour pops in a kind of incidental way but designed nevertheless.” LIGHTING DESIGN Ed called the lighting design ‘creatively non-minimal’, so that means plenty of candlelight as you would expect but also plenty of augmentation. “We were candletastic! But we were judicious with the candle approach, as in no candles in the daytime scenes but we’d burn them big time at night. The daytime interiors were designed with a kind of window light feel, my feeling was a lightly diffused window light with not much fill. The images are contrasty but you can’t go too contrasty for TV as everyone wants to see the faces. So it’s managing the level of fill really, you still want that feeling of window light. For us we would shoot into the light if the light was
resolved than an Alexa. Generally we shot at 5 or 6K, it’s a 4K delivery (also a HDR delivery) with quite a few VFX. We wanted a resolution and fidelity and a colour fidelity but also a look that embodied a kind of soul. If you’re too sharp with the camera and use very technical lenses like Master Primes without any diffusion, that image didn’t seem to have a soul to it. When we married the Primos to the RED we found a resolution to the wide shots across the frame that was unique to this combination. We looked at anamorphic but the costs were prohibitive although we embraced a 2:1 aspect ratio and ended up with a resolved camera with soulful glass. We wanted something that had its own sense of identity. “The RED camera has come so far in the last couple of years. We shot with the skin tone OLPF so we back-filtered for a slightly warmer look and I found that with the RED in the commercials I’ve done in the last 18 months that they’ve made massive development in colour science.
34 DEF I N I T ION | SEPTEMBER 20 1 8
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