special animation
racing stripes shot breakdown	TALKING ANIMALS. PRPVFX produced 75 shots for the feature film Racing Stripes which involved replacing lips and mouths of moving animals and replacing with CG lipsync. The techniques pioneered involved camera tracking, 3d modelling, texture projection & lip-sync. Click the link alongside to see the provided footage and the final result, with the all steps in between.
animation example reel	CG CHARACTERS. PRPVFX has produced fully CG characters for numerous productions including reoccurring main characters. These include robot dogs, guinea pigs (with fur), dinosaurs & other purple monsters.
	DIGIDOLLS. Stunt doubles are modelled from photographic references and textures of real actors to be interchangeable with live action footage. "Digidolls" are used when stunts are too dangerous for humans or too expensive to reshoot. Digidolls are also used to augment stunt scenes to go beyond physical limits while avoiding complex wire rigs.
matte paintings & rig removal
matte example reel	MATTE PAINTINGS. Because it is not practical to build an entire set if peripheral areas will only be glimpsed from 1 or 2 camera angles, paintings where made on a pane of glass in front of the camera with holes left to show the live action. Limitations included moving sun & shadows and the camera POV being fixed. Digital painting has taken over this role now with bluescreening allowing actors to move over the top of the matte and camera tracking allowing moving cameras, but the concept remains the same. Mattes are often used to "set the scene" when the story shifts to a new location.
	CROWD DUPLICATION. Often this involves filming a scene in sequentially in multiple passes for combining later in post production. Each portion of the scene is poplated (usually by the same extras) with the the neccessary bluescreen separation. This allows large crowd scenes to be created with just a handful of costumed actors, reducing the numbers of actors and costumes required on set. This technique is also successful for creating multiple copies of a single actor, ie. Identical Twins.
	RIG REMOVAL. To go beyond physical stuntman limitations (and to keep them safe), body harnesses suspended on wires from overhead rigging are used. The complexity of the required movement dictates the number of supporting and guiding wires. PRPVFX routinely removes all traces of wires & rigs from stunt footage, including footage shot from moving & slow motion cameras.
general visual effects
effects example reel	CAMERA TRACKING. After filming a sequence and starting the editing process you discover something missing or even something that shouldn't be there! PRPVFX has beefed up shots for Boogeyman by adding in additional debris and dust to a sequence that lacked the right sort of energy. And we've removed rolls of gaffer tape and spray bottles accidentally left on set by grips and crew.
	NATURAL PHENOMENA. Water and fire are particularly difficult to direct on set and hard to fake in terms of scale. When your set involves an expensive miniature or rig you can't afford it to go wrong after the cameras are rolling. PRPVFX uses special purpose particle simulation software for water, smoke and flame offering unlimited reshoots and no permanent destruction of sets or props (or actors).
	HOLOGRAMS and DISPLAY SCREENS. Plot devices used to explain story points needn't be boring! Futuristic holograms can be fully 3d, animated and tracked into moving camera footage. This also includes virtual or on-set interface screens and high-tech gadgets.
	COMPOSITING. Generally this covers bluescreens where a background "plate" is shot (sometimes on location) to be combined with a blue screen element shot on site or in a studio. The key colour is rendered transparent and various techniques are used to colour match the 2 elements together and layer one on top of the other.
	FOOTAGE RETIMING. Footage can be very successfully retimed to appear faster or slower than the footage that was actually shot, even fractional frame-rates using automatic morphing techniques. This allows great flexibility during the editing process to adjust the tempo of the cut and make difficult footage work without reshooting.