Drawing Inspiration from a Mary Blair concept painting for Cinderella and the scene of her being imprisoned in her room, the Supervising Director wanted the light and shadows to slowly strengthen over the course of the sequence, culminating with Tylor’s feeling of despair and persecution.
With the stormy red sunset casting strong warm light into the scene, the office turns into an interrogation cell, with the sun partially blocked by the clouds, providing softer light/shadows in the scene. As the sequence progresses, the sun is sinking further below the cloud bank, slowly intensifying the lighting, until it breaks through as Val heads to the interrogation side, sharpening the shadows and locking the spotlight on Tylor.
As a TV series vs. a Feature Film, there were additional challenges in accomplishing this. Tracking gradual changes throughout an entire sequence is generally forbidden as the volume of shots needed to be completed per day does not account for such fine tuning or with keeping continuity of subtle changes from shot to shot. in addition this sequence was 76 shots, many of which were crowds with the 3 heaviest fully groomed characters (the most challenging and time consuming to render). Special attention to this sequence was taken during pre-production, to make the approach as production friendly as possible while still having the visual impact of the ‘prison cell’ solidifying around Tylor as Val abandons him and he realizes that he is alone. Soft shadows, especially on groomed characters, are an additional consideration as they are more expensive to render or additional advanced techniques in comp are required to avoid bright halos if blurring them in post.
Unfortunately, when we received the first pass in color, the impact was not there. One major reason was the original surfacing of the wood was too strong, and the shadows were lost in the contrast of the woodgrain. It was too late to go in and resurface the set, notes were given to minimize the contrast in the wood itself, which only went so far. The shadows were also lacking in consistency and were too strong from the beginning, losing the added impact of the cloud break at the end, yet the schedule also prohibited going back in and re-rendering. In the end, with limited time and retakes, the sequence was taken as far as possible with the vendor and was good enough to air. It still did not have the visually desired impact, even more so in HDR. With even less time and fewer resources, there was only a set number of shots we could call retakes on, so the focus was put on the most egregious ones.
Thankfully the elements were all rendered out as multi-layered exrs and the diffuse albedo was included with their default passes for most renders, allowing me to “resurface” the wood completely in nuke with the existing renders without affecting the lighting. Semi-automating the fixes with python scripts and custom gizmos, I was able to go through the entire sequence, only having to re-render the shadow passes on a couple of key shots.
In some of the shots, sharp shadows on Tylor from Sulley, especially his horns, were quite distracting. Softening the shadows helped, however a few shots required re-rendering with a shift in the projection angle to avoid tangents and unfortunate shadow placement. This also allowed for a closer alignment of the shadow casting light for the characters and the environment, reducing further subtle distractions.
A quick black levels adjustment (to compensate for HDR) and a reduction of the haze, helped to increase the drama of the sequence, especially noticeable in the silhouetted reverse angles of the team. Thankfully with just adjustments along with the existing passes and no need to re-render, we were able to tackle the entire sequence instead of just a few key shots.
I was able to complete this sequence in 4 days once the look had been signed off on. While the before version was still airable, the after version helped increase the drama of the sequence and help underscore this important story point in the season, elevating the series to higher than standard tv quality.
I was able to complete this sequence in 4 days once the look had been signed off on, which in the end helped increase the drama of the sequence and help underscore this important story point in the season.
Below is a video comparison pop-up of the entire sequence, best viewed on a desktop. The most drastic differences can be seen around 3:28 as it dawns on Tylor that he is alone and even Val, his “work Buds for Life” friend has turned on him.