3D World

FEATURE
Big VFX on a budget

working for free. “If we’d had to
bill for it, it would have been, I don’t
know, $100,000 or something,”
he admits. “I think in the end we
spent around $5,000, of which the
post house kicked in a couple of
thousand. We had to pay for the
operators and the transportation,
but got a camera for free. We had
most of the gear for very cheap. I
think all the actors combined was
maybe $1,000.”
Going out and asking people
to work for free, or for low rates,
might sound like a tall order. But
Vanhoenacker actually didn’t need
to; it just happened naturally. “I
initially planned a much smaller
project,” he says, “But then more
and more people got interested in

joining in, friends of colleagues,

friends of friends, and so on. The

thing just developed, and suddenly

these actors wanted to be in the

movie, [and next] this guy wants to

DOP it and is providing hardware.

I had a whole stunt team that

showed up and said, ‘Okay, we are

going to do it for free.’ So the thing

got bigger and bigger as it went.”

“hAVE A gooD, soLiD pLAn

AnD sTick To iT”

Another sci-fi short that people

were chomping at the bit to help

on was SENTiNEL (vimeo.

com/248374832). That’s largely

because it was directed by Ryan

Connolly, who is well known

within the industry for his

filmmaking web shows, Film Riot

and Film State.

In SENTiNEL, a man wakes

up in an empty field and discovers

that he’s being chased by a flying

drone, which sets off a desperate

race for survival. The artist behind

the drone was none other than

Andrew Kramer. As the creator of

the Video Copilot tutorial platform,

sci-fi models within

Video copilot’s own

After Effects plugin,

Element 3D, were

used to construct

the ship

“The drone on SENTiNEL was made

using various sci-fi models inside of

Element 3D, our third-party plugin

for After Effects, which was critical

for such a short schedule,” says

Andrew Kramer.

Keeping the shots manageable

was a big challenge, he adds, in

particular the propulsion system.

“There are a ton of fun ways to

demonstrate propulsion effects, and

it would have been fun to do some

particle sims, but we just didn’t have

time. So to give the shots an energy

force, we went with a heat distortion

effect along with illuminated pulse

pads on the ship’s lower design.

The other thing we did is add dust

elements to the ground to show it

whip past the camera. The sound

effects help a lot too.

“Getting the right speed and

weight is always difficult for aircraft

and vehicles, but especially for

things that do not exist. I looked

at drone footage and other aerial

crafts to get a feel for the way they

move. It took many versions of

the reveal shot at the end to get

the air resistance right. Being able

to animate the drag took a lot of

experimentation.”

Drone

ConstruCtion

anD propulsion

anDrew kramer on creating

anD animating the main

antagonist in sentinel

“time constraints

can help you solve

problems in a positive Way”

Andrew Kramer, creator of Video Copilot