Background VFX demo

There are a number of shots in the film against the office windows. Behind these windows are — nothing! Because no one turned on any lights across the street. Since city lights are crucial to the plot of the film, I’ve had to painstakingly add them in. When the effects company was like, “where’s our money, bro?” I was like, “shit, I’ve got to do this all by myself now.”

I’m kidding. I knew this was going to be my fight all along.

In the video above I show you exactly how this is done. Rather than cut out every individual space between the blinds, I overlay a pre-cut PNG image of the city lights; using the rotobrush in After Effects, I cut out the profile of the actor from the duplicate plate shot and then insert my city lights between the cut out and the original plate.

Make sense? No? Watch the video 🙂

Andrew