 It all started about three or four years ago, when
Robi Michael was shooting a commercial in Israel with the
post-processing done here in the States. He needed some 3D effects
done so he placed an ad on a Los Angeles user group for motion
graphics. Thomas Marinello gave Robin a call and that was the
beginning of a wonderful friendship. Thomas first job was a few
shots for this first commercial and they soon began working on more
projects together and finally started getting some paid projects.
A Can of Paint is a short science fiction story written by
A.E. van Vogt, in which a space scavenger/junk dealer finds a can
of paint that begins to spread over his body. His attempts to stop
the paint from spreading and remove the paint are the focus of the
story. When asked what made him choose this particular story, Robi
laughed and said that it chose him. Winston Engle, the Executive
Producer wrote the screenplay based on A.E. van Vogts short story
and got funding for the film. Winston was looking for someone to
direct the short and Robi knew him through mutual friends. Robi was
given very little direction on the film since Winston trusted his
experience based on his previous directing work so he was left
alone to do what he wanted to do. Don Anderson, an acquaintance of
Robi and Thomas was brought in to design the space ship. Before
shooting began, Robi, Thomas, and Don storyboarded the script,
especially the more difficult scenes. This gave them a clear
understanding of where Robi was going with the film and what it
would look like. The short was shot in five days with editing done
over a couple of months by Robi using Final Cut Pro. At the time,
Robi only had a Powerbook so all the editing was done on that
machine. Immediately after completing the filming, he traveled to
Israel and back so having the Powerbook allowed him to continue
editing the film during his travels. Once all the editing was
completed, post-production began and continued over the next two
years. CINEMA 4D was used for pretty much all the 3D work, except
for using an outside company to produce the particle effects in
Maya for the end of the film. Post-production included color
correction, roto-scoping of the paint, 3D modeling of the ship and
other elements in CINEMA 4D, and special effects done using Shake
from Apple. Thomas did the majority of the modeling work with some
outside help for roto-scoping and some of the more difficult
effects. The post-production began based on the designs on paper
from Don Anderson with Thomas translating the design into an actual
3D model in CINEMA 4D. The filmed environment reflected an
industrial but grungy, broken down interior suitable for a space
junk dealer, with salvaged and mismatched equipment needing
repairs. The lights worked fitfully and he had to bang on equipment
to get it to work. Because of the industrial nature of the
interior, Don designed the exterior to match the industrial feel.
Sketch design of ship
The modeling of the ship took a couple of months, then they started
animating the scenes based on Robis direction. The animation
entailed combining outer space with the external space ship, the
tunnel, and getting the environments half-way realistic. There are
several exterior shots of the ship, both coming in and out of the
ship, that show how well the design of the exterior of the ship
matches the interior used during the actual filming. This included
seamlessly integrating the animation with the live action shots
with Robi directing the camera moves and shot setups.
3D ship modeled following the design sketches
The sound stage, where the filming was shot, contained some of the
interior elements of the space ship but not everything, so during
the filming various sections of the interior are missing. The
missing pieces of the interior were added using 3D models to once
again integrate the 3D animation with the live action shots. One
example of this is during one shot where the camera was pulled down
a long hallway inside the spaceship. The camera was pulled back
very slowly revealing more and more of the stage around the tunnel
as it was pulled back. The camera is finally pulled out through the
window, which doesnt actually exist in the stage scenery. The
actual shot was filmed up to the point where the camera exits the
window and Thomas took it from where the window is supposed to be.
He added the window in 3D and animated the scene, continuing to
pull the camera out until the entire space ship was revealed.
Rendered Ship
The focus of the film is the progress of the paint as it covers the
salvagers body and his attempts to stop the spread and to remove
the paint. For those who have seen the first Matrix movie, the
spread of the paint is reminiscent of the scene where Neo touches
the mirror and his body liquefies. When the live action was shot,
they used a latex body paint that becomes like a glove once it
dries. The problem with using the paint, was that when it covered a
lot of body area on the actor it started to wrinkle and looked too
much like a glove instead of paint that was supposed to be shiny
and smooth. They ended up having to paint over most of the paint
areas in post-production. This was extremely time consuming and the
reason the post-production took almost two years as almost every
frame had to be roto-scoped in order to fix the paint. The majority
of the roto-scoping was accomplished by David Cimaglia (along with
Rohini Una) which included re-painting the painted areas blue and
making the paint shiny and smooth. According to Robi, the
difference between the original frames and the roto-scoped ones is
pretty amazing. It ended up looking just like Robi wanted it to
look but for a long time he was afraid that it wouldnt come out
right. The actual work on the film didnt take two years of
constant work since both Robi and Thomas were working other jobs at
the same time in order to pay their way. Much of the work had to be
done during their spare time on nights and weekends. They also had
to work with the schedules of those working with them, like Don and
David. This added time to the post-production and required being
able to effectively use the time they had available.
Alien ship
According to Thomas, 98 percent of the work was done using CINEMA
4D, with the particle effects being done in Maya. To see examples
of the different compositing, color correction, and addition of
effects, the official A Can of Paint website has three
QuickTime movies on the Making Of page. The first movie shows a
3D wire frame of the hatch in CINEMA 4D. The hatch opens and a
small object is shown coming towards the camera. The image slides
over to replace the wire frame view with the rendered view just as
the can shoots past the camera. Color correction is shown next
followed by the addition of smoke. The second movie shows color
correction and the addition of a flare to a scene. The third movie
is more extensive than the first two and shows the actor against a
green screen. Color correction is then shown along with the
addition of a flickering light effect. A 3D background plate is
then added followed by smoke and glow from an open hatch. Finally,
the addition of the exterior of the ship is added and the interior
scene is shown through a window.
Final compositing prior to placing behind modeled window
The finished film has been shown at 50 to 60 film festivals since
its completion in 2004 winning several awards. Because of the work
theyd done on this short film, they knew they could work on a
feature film they just finished. It gave them the opportunity to
show what they could do between the two of them instead of a team
of hundreds and on a limited budget. Invisible Films has not
limited themselves to films. The gallery on their site shows a wide
range of work from commercials to motion graphics to movie
trailers. Live action, 3D modeling, and special effects are used to
good effect and the site provides a wide variety of examples of
their work. When asked where Invisible films wanted to go next,
Robi said that he loved doing short projects like commercials
because they can be done fairly quickly (as well as paying better),
but their main goal is to continue working on short projects and
some feature films. Because of the time required for feature films,
he indicated that any project of such length would have to be
something he really liked and wanted to put the next two years of
his life into it while being able to combine both their passion and
their hobby.
We invite you to visit the following sites:
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We would like to thank our Guest Columnist Darlisa Riggs
July 4th, 2005 |
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