CHROMA@WORLD EXPO 2010 (Visuals)

Back in 2005 we were involved in creating the 'DataForest', a 12-minute, 80-screen, totemic video installation for the Australian Pavillion at the World Expo in Japan. 

We are pleased to announce that we are again commissioned, by ThinkOTS Worldwide to produce another cutting-edge installation at next year's World Expo in Shanghai in 2010. I've been engaged as senior creative director alongside Pete Ford, Dave White and Alistar Flemming, tasked with designing and producing the content for 'Act2' - a massive, moving video installation in a 360˚ theatre.

Check out some early glimpses of the building and regular updates on Expo2010 HERE.

TANGLE (TV Series)

Hot on the heels of Rush's second series comes Southern Star's next big drama production, Tangle.

Staring Ben Mendelsohn, Justine Clark and Kat Stewart, the ten-part drama presents modern parents and teenagers struggling with the morals of living in the 21st Century and with each other. The series also has long-time Chroma patron, Matthew Saville directing. We have been producing several VFX shots for the show mainly focused on complex stunt rig removal and technical corrections.

Tangle is set to hit Australian screens in the coming months on Showtime.

NEWSTOPIA SERIES THREE (TV Series)

Each series of NEWStopia gets better with what is now one of the best comedy teams in recent years. We returned to again provide visual effects and graphics support for the third season which aired late last year.

The crowning achievement, however, must be the final show of the series which took the form of a full-length INSPEKTOR HERRING episode. All of the NEWStopia cast are there and are easy to watch as always, but it's Nicolas Bell that really shines as Comrade Beluga. The entire 'film' was shot and produced in only 1 week and involved us producing over 20 VFX shots and performing grading duties to give it a strong eastern-european feel.

One of the best things about the show is the ability to hear the viewers feedback and encouragement on the NEWStopia website as the series is airing. When your slaving away in the dark recesses of post production, it's great to see comments on a shot or sequence only a few hours after broadcast.

If you missed it, you can still watch the final episode here.

Jahasra and goodnight!

UNDERBELLY 2 (Miniseries)

Controversial gangster saga, Underbelly returns to Australian (and hopefully Melbourne) screens in early 2009 as 'A Tale of Two Cities'.

This prequel of sorts is set in the late-70's/early-80's and we've just completed the new HD opening titles for the series.

As the network wanted to pretty much keep the titles the same as the first series, so we ended up creating a 'retro' version of the our original sequence. The structure, edit and overall style is practically the same, due to the music also being brought over from the first title too, but with a more 'super-8' treatment to the imagery. The Underbelly branding we developed for series 1 has also been carried over.

The show is scheduled to air in early 2009 on Nine.

STUART JOINS THE TEAM

Chroma welcomes Stuart Elith to the team. Stuart will be working primarily with animation and VFX for our broadcast clients and has already produced work for NEWStopia S3 and Snake Tales. You can contact Stuart at the office or at: stuart@chromamedia.com

DIRT GAME (MiniSeries)

ABC's new mini-series, Dirt Game, is well into shooting and we've been engaged to produce the opening titles in addition to providing visual effects supervision and production.

The series is set in several stark rural locations around the world (although shot entirely in Victoria) and a large part of our work is involved in the creation of large-scale establishing shots. These involved working with director Brendan Mayer (Spooks) and DOP Lelani Hannah (The King) on location during acquisition to achieve the shots of the partial set that we would augment later. The scenes are scripted at night so footage was shot at dusk to give us some image to work with, whilst still preserving light-sources from vehicle headlights and buildings. Texture photography was taken of the location set-pieces and the buildings and props were constructed in Maya and tracked into the shot to create a sprawling community. Several day and night variations were produced.

Other shots include a composited sequence using fluid simulation to create turbulent water, several digi-mattes and some advanced colour correction and digital removal.

RUSH (TV Series)

Work is well underway on several stunt and CG sequences for Southern Star's RUSH.

RUSH is an adrenaline-charged police drama set within Melbourne rapid response task force. We worked on the pilot nearly five years ago and it's great to see the show go into production. We're working with the team again producing a wide range of visual effects for the series, providing effect design, supervision and production services.

The brief for the series' effects called for realism and energy, perfectly matched to the frenetic, loose shooting style and fast-paced editing. There's no such thing as a 'locked off shot' in Rush and that presents some great opportunities to really give the audience some feature-level thrills. The effects work in RUSH is given no more screen time than a regular shot and is treated to look as in-camera as possible. We are also providing a diverse range of VFX shots and additional technical work throughout the series.

At this point we have produced two specific action sequences, with two more currently underway.

The first, a parkour-style chase through city streets which opens the series, involved tracking air-to-ground footage shot by 2nd unit and adding a CG police helicopter throughout the sequence. The helicopter was modeled, textured and animated in Maya with environment maps made up from satellite images of the actual location. 

Another sequence involves a rooftop stand-off where several stunt set-ups where required.

The sequence called for key cast to be clearly seen from multiple angles, hanging from the side of a building.

For the three main angles, the cast were suspended from a truss rig and harness against a large green-screen, with one shot calling for a camera to be slung above the rig to achieve a high-angle framing. Two additional angles were created by having the cast member crawl on a green-screen wedge. The rest of the sequence was filmed practically against a city view from the roof of the location and required complex rig removal to create the effect.

Location photography was used alongside HD background plates to create the final digi-mattes used behind the cast.

Although all of the various plates used to create the shots were locked off, compositing all of the elements in 3D gave us the capability to 're-shoot' the scene and break outside the frame of the shot, closely matching the shooting style of the series. Maya was used to add dynamic rope that had to interact with the cast, with shadows and window reflections added during the compositing process.

The final sequences are a great taste for what's to come on RUSH and we're looking forward to getting started on the next few Ep's.

For a brief behind-the-scenes of the rooftop sequence from Ep2, check out the video here.

SNAKE TALES (TV Series)

Westside film & television have begun shooting their new kids series, Snake Tales.

Snake Tales follows a group of unlikely kids that find themselves marooned together in a remote reptile park in the middle of nowhere. Chroma designed and produced the opening titles presented in a cartoon, 3D style.

In addition to titles, various exterior VFX shots of the 'Snake World' park were created using HD background plates, with a high detail CG model of the set added using camera tracking. Chroma will be producing a wide variety of effects work over the entire series, which is being posted in-house at our Violent Panda facility.

Snake Tales is coming to the Nine Network later this year.

CARLA CAMETTI PD (TV Series)

We just put the finishing touches on the opening titles and VFX for SBS's new crime drama, Carla Cametti PD.

Staring Diana Glenn and Vince Colosimo, this 6-part mini-series is a stylish and romantic tale of day-to-day life colliding with the heightened reality of designer-dressed gangsters. 

Working with Buon Giorno Productions, we aimed to blend noir-ish imagery with a fast-paced deconstructive feel, creating an identity that conveys seduction, intrigue and a distinctly Italian flavour.

The 60-second title features the beautiful Genesis footage that Leilani has captured, music by Cezary Stubiszewski and some additional photography by our own Andy Montague. We also carried out some visual effects work for the show, including creating several shots of a falling Baci wrapper and tricky mobile screen replacement.

Carla Cametti PD will be hitting screens in a few months, check it out!

THE SADDLE CLUB (TV Series)

Long running Crawford's series, The Saddle Club, got the Chroma treatment recently with two VFX sequences.

Firstly, we had to create a sequence where a horse had become trapped on the edge of a sheer cliff, later being walked out of trouble by one of the kids who is lowered down from above. Obviously with both children and horses involved, our job was to come up with a cost-effective, safe and logistically straight-forward solution, that would work over multiple shots. The scene ended up being shot in a Daylesford picnic area which featured an inclined slope. The cliffs edge was defined using 30-meter runs of chroma-key fabric that ran the length of the widest shot.

3D camera tracking was used to replace the grassy picnic ground with a gaping chasm. A digi-matte of the cliff was created using a combination of photography taken nearby and 3D modeling, with the distant background created with a multi-plate matte shot acquired not far from the location.

Another sequence called for a series of shots where a donkey 'talks' while on-stage during a school concert.

Shots of the donkey were tracked and the lower jaw replaced with projection mapping to match up with the required lines.

COMEDY SLAPDOWN (TV Series)

Fremantle Media Australia presents Comedy Slapdown, a new live improv comedy show coming to ABC later this year.

Think celebrity theatre-sports with all the pace, drama and unexpected fun of American wrestling. Played out on a huge set with six players on each team, it's a fast-paced battle of wits as random games are thrown at them by king-of-the-ring, HG.

Chroma were brought in to produce the huge graphics package for the show including brand design, game graphics, projection content and animated titles. The show also features music by Yuri from Kinesound who also provides the sonic fun on Newstopia.

Comedy Slapdown is scheduled for 12 episodes and will air Q3 2008 on The Comedy Channel.

BED OF ROSES (TV Series)

Bed of Roses is a bitter sweet drama staring Kerry Armstrong that's coming to the ABC later this year.

We've worked with Ruby Productions (Stephen Luby & Mark Ruse) before on Let Loose Live and a few other projects over the years, but when asked to design the opening titles for 'Bed of Roses', it required something a little softer and more feminine than what we have done in the past. It's great to be working with the guys again and, vicariously, with Kerry who we worked with on One Perfect Day.

Produced entirely using illustrated elements placed in a 3D environment, the idea was to create a single move through a soft and feminine landscape akin to a living Chinese printed fabric - it contains a lot of subtle visual clues that tie in with the core themes of the show, using the simple device of thorns (that look like Chinese dragons) evolving into a sea of roses - creating the notion of personal growth, the strength of family and the positive changes that can result from tragedy and displacement. 

The palette is very muted and was effected to create a slightly dirty quality to the soft visuals, this is also reflected in the typography and main title card which are done in a rustic treatment to better connect with the riches-to-rags narrative and prevent the whole thing from looking too 'girly'.

It was also fun to do as it's rare and refreshing for a drama on Australian television to not contain images of the cast or locale (or the dreaded 'montage of footage'). It shows confidence and shifts the audience's perceptions of production value - presenting a more international, mature style. So props to the guys at Ruby and the ABC.

The hi-def titles are now complete and perfectly complement Niko Schnable's beautifully reworked version of 'Bed of Nails'.

CORRECTIONS (Short Film)

The directorial debut of comedian Bob Franklin, Corrections (produced by Incendia) is a short film set in a cosmetic surgery waiting room and stars Brooke Satchel, Roz Hammond and Jo Stanley. This tense little 10 minute piece was shot in HD by Marty Smith, edited by Dave Redman at Resolution Independent, with me pitching in with opening titles and grading duty.

Be sure to keep an eye out for it at a festival near you.

UNDERBELLY (MiniSeries)

This stylish and gritty miniseries, produced by Screentime, covers the true accounts of Melbourne's most notorious crime syndicate during the 90's and the cops who tracked them down. Chroma produced the HD opening titles (featuring music by Truman Show composer, Gerhard Berkhard), graphics package and branding. Several VFX shots were also produced for the show, mainly removal/additions and some tricky squib/rig removal.

UPDATE: Won 2008 AFI for Best Television Drama and 2008 Logie for Most Outstanding Television Drama

NEWSTOPIA RETURNS (TV Series)

By popular demand, Newstopia the SBS' comedy/news mash up returns to screens this year!
Last series Shaun and the team presented a special blend of hard hitting news satire and pythonesque humour.

We had a blast working on skits such as 'Inspektor Herring', Planet of the apes, Guilford Four and a request for a 'punnet of dead sparrows' for a Bunnings skit. This year is no different with a return of some viewer favorites and even more visual gags and SBS satire. We're back on board providing VFX and animation for series 2.

You can watch the latest episode here.

More as we have it...Jahasra and goodnight.

ANDY MONTAGUE JOINS THE TEAM

Forming like Voltron, Chroma is pleased to welcome Andy Montague to the team!

Andy will be assisting in content creation and animation for our broadcast clients in addition to training in a wide range of VFX techniques with yours truly. You can reach him at the office or email at: andy@chromamedia.com

NEWSTOPIA (TV Series)

Produced by Fremantle Media, Newstopia is a news-style parody staring Australian comedy legend, Shaun Micallef. We're big fans of Shaun's work and its been a pleasure to work with him on his new show which is currently airing on SBS.

Chroma designed and produced the opening titles, involving (or is that revolving) a shoot with Shaun in studio which saw him spinning around on a turntable all afternoon. Shaun was later composited rotating around the Earth, a guardian of the World's news and current affairs.

News programs always feature a huge graphics package and Newstopia is no different. We wanted to give the show the same flair and packaging you would find on a primetime network. Given the incredibly tight turnaround and sheer amount of content that needed to be produced, it all came together quite well ... especially considering all of the support graphics, parody TVC's and fake SBS promos we put together for use throughout the series.

We have gone on to produce a wide range of visual effects shots and animation from week-to-week, including a 'second life' John Howard and more recently 'The Guilford Four' where a car parked in the background explodes (digitally) to great effect!

You can watch the latest episode here. 

Jahasra and goodnight!

STORM WARNING (Feature Film)

Storm Warning is the first film from maverick Melbourne-based production company, Resolution Independent.

Directed by Jamie Blanks and produced by Pete! Ford this digital feature was incredibly ambitious in its visual scale when compared to other Australian films of similar budget.

Pete and I have always shared a vision of creating high-production, post focused digital features and Storm Warning was an ideal candidate for a subtle blend of practical knowhow and digital trickery. As the majority of the film takes place at night during a heavy storm, it was decided to build the entire farm set inside and out rather than shoot on location, which is often the norm with Aussie films.

The set build itself was quite an achievement with several multi-story buildings constructed at Docklands Studios and fully dressed in hillbilly chic. While the set looked fantastic in camera, the periphery of the set was later digitally replaced with huge swaying pine trees, distant thunderclouds and incessant CG rain.

The final film contained over 300 VFX shots from full blown CG sequences to subtle tweaking of footage during grading.

Contracted under RI, I worked as the films VFX Supervisor throughout production and later as lead VFX artist responsible for creating a majority of the effects. I was joined by Cameron Smith (Weta) and 'another guy' who created the amazing CG 'Joey' which is featured in the pivotal 'kitchen' scene.

• Convincing digital rain was essential for delivering a believable and consistent environment for the film.

Early testing of different techniques helped us to find a solution that was realistic yet cost effective for the sheer number of shots that required rain. Requirements included 3D tracking and integration with set pieces and cast, depth of field tracking, interactive lighting control, addition of puddles, splashes and shadows and heavy rotoscoping of just about everything in the shot. This extra flexibility enabled us to stylize the rain and make it far more controllable, dynamic and less troublesome than prac rain.

• A boat-to-boat sequence in which a sunny cloudless blue sky is transformed into a brooding overcast prelude to the storm. The sequence featured heavy compositing and 3D tracking to place rendered volumetric clouds in the sky. Air-to-ground pickups were shot during post and a full 3D model of the boat and storm clouds were tracked into the original footage.

• One death scene involves an elaborate mantrap constructed from fishing hooks which snags 'Brett' and hoists him up into the air in agony. The practical stunt rig was removed and replaced with digital mono-filament, far too thin to comfortably support our actor (especially as they are all attached to his face) and interact with his desperate attempts to grab at them.

• Another scene features an attacker falling back into an exposed propeller.

This was achieved with multiple plates taken on-set and combined with blue-screen footage of our actor. With the action viewed through the windshield (a shot already established during the sequence), the plates were composited in 3D to allow greater control of the camera and the co-ordination of the action. As 7KvA lighting guns are firing all the way through the sequence, careful attention was payed to the timing of the flashes in all of the respective practical plates and the integration of the digital rain elements.

The film was completed earlier this year and has been picked up by the Weinstein Company.

Storm Warning is due to hit screens before the end of the 2007.

CITY HOMICIDE (TV Series)

City Homicide is a new police drama produced by Seven which aired earlier this year.

Chroma was brought in to provided a wide range of production solutions with the sole aim of delivering high-end visuals, stunts and effects for the limited budget and tight schedule. Chroma's Scott Zero worked as VFX Supervisor on the first six episodes and worked closely with series Directors, DOP (Craig Barden), Stunt coordinators (Zev - True Grit) and practical effects (Brian - FilmFX) to create several high-end effects sequences far exceeding the shows budget.

Some VFX shots included:

• A huge sequence inside a burning house where two children and trapped by an arsonist, to be later saved by the City Homicide team. The sequence involved a massive practical 'burnable' set (built and overseen by Brian Holmes) rigged with practical flame rigs, smoke machines and removable walls. Due to the tight confines of the rooms and the safety issue with actors and children in a burning set, the practical flames were later augmented with digital flames. 3D tracking was used to add huge flames, digital sparks, smoke and heat convection to the 6 minute sequence.

• A 'one-shot' scene where an actor strolls into traffic and is struck by multiple vehicles to the shock of onlookers. Created using multiple plates and a separate jerk-harness rig shot against green screen, acquisition took only an hour yet delivered a visceral an unexpected shock to viewers as the wide angle and hand-held camera give no clues as to what is going to happen.

• An in-vehicle car accident which involved a studio shoot combining a practical car, body drop rig and rain machine with HD rear projection featuring VFX content created to convey the convincing illusion of the car hitting multiple objects and spinning out of control. The final shot creates a claustrophobic, dramatic accident scene from two separate angles for a fraction of the cost of a location/low loader style shoot and the entire effect was produced in camera with no post required.

• Several exterior views of a commercial airliner in mid-flight created to match the interior set. This high-poly model was created with custom livery and featured volumetric clouds. The final shots were rendered at 4k and pulled down to 1080 to give it the clarity of high altitude footage.

NOISE (Feature Film)

After the success of Roy Hollsdotter Live, Writer/Director Matthew Saville returns with the visceral feature film 'Noise'.
Set in Melbourne's outer suburbs, Noise is a black comedy about a disaffected young cop and the slightly excentric people who surround him. The film explores the ripple effect that occurs across a city in the aftermath of a mass murder that occurs on a suburban train.

Critically acclaimed and beautifully captured, Noise is a strong evolution of the same formula that made Roy Hollsdotter Live so easy to watch. Noise was produced by Retro Active Films and released in Cinemas (and DVD) by Madman.

Chroma were commissioned to produce several VFX shots for the film including a CG helicopter sequence that appears in its closing scene. Opening titles were also produced by Chroma.

THE KING (TeleMovie)

Set in the 1950's and 70's in Melbourne, The King follows the rise of one of Australia's best loved TV personalities, Graham Kennedy, played by Stephen Curry. Directed by Matthew Saville and produced by Fremantle Media, The King is a bittersweet tale of fame and isolation against the background of postwar Melbourne.

Shot in S16, The King oozes Saville's trademark visual style, emotional storytelling and intrinsically Australian flavour.

The film featured opening titles and branding by Chroma in addition to several VFX shots and other post production work.

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*UPDATE - Congratulations to Matt and the whole team for their recent win at the 2007 AFI Awards. The King brought home shiny things for: Best Direction, Best Lead Actor and Best TeleFeature.

ARIGATO EVENT, JAPAN (Visuals)

After a huge year at the 2005 World Expo in Japan, the 'top three' rated Australian Pavilion has just claimed a Silver Medal for its efforts.

To commemorate its success and as a thank you to our Japanese hosts, a huge concert was staged in the massive Expo Dome that saw a diverse range of Australian acts performing in front of a huge live crowd. Featuring popular Australian artists, Amiel and Christine Anu alongside Tetrafide, ARC, Saffire and the Nagoya Children's Choir the event was hugely successful.

Chroma was commissioned by Jack Morton Worldwide to provide a unique visual show for each of the 5 acts, presented on a huge Komaden LED screen that dominated the stage. All content was created specifically for the event (in NTSC) with Scott Zero travelling to Nagoya to perform the visuals live on stage.

LET LOOSE LIVE (TV Series)

Featuring some of Australia's best known comedians and produced by the same team that brought you Fast Forward, Seven's new late night comedy series "Let Loose LIVE" is performed live in front of a studio audience and features opening titles, bumpers and program inserts produced by Chroma.

In addition to the broadcast identification and brand development, Chroma were also responsible for the creation of physical set pieces, neon signage and graphic panels to create an integrated visual packaging for the show that shares elements of the opening titles.

Due to the very short time line, specific program features and sheer size of the featured cast, a concept was developed that conveyed all of the requested show features while still retaining a late night feel and comedy flavor.

Working closely with director Ted Emery and the shows producers, production designers and composer, Yuri Worontshak - Chroma's understanding and experience of broadcast television resulted in a smooth, flawless delivery of, not only the titles and post production components, but of signage, set pieces, graphic panels and even crew apparel.

A studio shoot was organized , where the 12 cast members were shot against a green-screen key in two takes to create the 'big head' characters. Work on the 3D set and the cartoon backgrounds began as soon as boards had been approved, working ahead of the acquisition.

Overall, the completed opening titles were delivered with the various breakers, bumpers and program inserts along with the physical set deliverables in only 2 weeks from brief.

Famously, the show was cancelled after only 2 episodes... that's gotta be a record!

WE CAN BE HEROES (Mini Series)

Chris Lillie's new mini-series, ' We Can Be Heroes' is due to hit screens later this year.

With all characters played by Chris and Matt Saville directing, Chroma produced a series of VFX shots where a 'bouncing castle' has broken free of its moorings and sails high above the city, with Chris' character trapped inside. We went out and shot some DV 'shakycam' footage similar to a UFO sighting and tracked in the tumbling castle which we built from photo references.

WORLD EXPO 2005, JAPAN (Visuals)

After a years work, the think!OTS team have successfully completed construction of the Australian Pavilion in Aichi, Japan.

The project was quickly hailed as Australia's most innovative and crowd pleasing pavilion yet, with Prime Minister John Howard praising it as the best yet.

The centre-piece for the pavilion, the Data Forest, was developed as a huge, high-resolution 'forest' of vertical video totems made up of over 80 plasma panels. These totems presented a digitally driven, tesselated show where the 80 screens overlap and fragment to create huge, three dimensional imagery. These animations were produced as massive 'superbitmaps', or single completed scenes that were then diced up into the 80 separate feeds, resulting in a 360 degree display, far exceeding the HD format or even iMAX film with a total resolution of 36 Megapixels running at 25 fps - making it the world's largest single moving image to date.

The final act also required character animation of the official mascot (originally designed by Nathan Jurevicus) to appear in various projected videos.

I was commissioned by think!OTS in late 2004 to produce the animated content for all three acts of the Australian pavilion. Working alongside fellow creators David White and Martin Buchhorn, the Data Forest team were also involved in the development of the overall concept which included all acquisition and creation of hundreds of original design and animation components. Operating as a separate unit out of Chroma's Sandilands office the team worked tirelessly to produce the 13 minute presentation, making use of 3D visualization tools and a scaled-down 'Mini Totem' to present work to the client in this unique vertical format.

The project was completed on budget and schedule in December of 2004.