Awesome Vfx

SoKrispyMedia dabbles in the emerging media of 360º VR video with their latest clip, as our protagonist finds himself trapped inside of his TV set, bouncing between channels with the flick of his remote. Yeah, it’s already been done before, but not in the round.

ILM shares an effects breakdown reel from last summer’s popcorn blockbuster. By today’s standards, it’s a fairly typical, yet still impressive mix of CGI, rotoscoping, and matte work, but the way they did the kiddie rides and the mo-capped raptors is worth a chuckle.

A robot designed to be a temporary office worker is ignored by his co-workers, save for the new HR manager. Neill Blomkamp’s 2006 short film effectively uses a robot as a metaphor for someone who thinks that he is above his peers yet still craves human contact.

Editor Vic Rincon put together this awesome roll call of the nominees for the 2016 Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects: Ex Machina, Mad Max: Fury Road, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Martian and The Revenant. The song is Ryan Taubert’s No Other Name.

Photographer Julian Tryba spent a total of 100 hours shooting and 350 hours editing over 150,000 photos to create another beautiful layer-lapse, this time featuring some of the most popular spots in Boston.

Visual effects studio Brave New World shares some of its contributions to Mad Max: Fury Road, including adding the movie’s eye-popping blue skies and orange deserts, adding Furiosa’s metal prosthetic arm and removing tire tracks from the sand.

In AndrewMFilm’s latest action short, a game of chess between two old men leads to a lethal duel as the two geezers use every trick up their sleeve to come out on top. Man, the only old person quirk we’ve acquired so far is the one at the very end.

After making people disappear, surrealist CGI artists Menilmonde turn their attention to buildings. Apparences (“appearances”) features shots of Paris, but with the buildings and other landmarks reduced to their facades.

SkiFree, die hard. YouTuber Andrew McMurry and his friends must have missed Chris Pirih’s memo: no skiing beyond 2000m. We guess the Abominable Snow Monster was the one who uploaded this.

A secret agent is forced to make lethal lemonade out of lemons after she accidentally exchanges her bug out bag for some dude’s gym bag. She’s resourceful, strong and beautiful, but she doesn’t know how to run. The lesson here is that nobody’s perfect.

VFX wiz and pet owner Aaron’s Animals sends his cat Michael to school, where he encounters some of the more annoying things we all experienced in high school. The procrastination part is still with us though.

Practical effects wizard Joey Shanks shows us how to replicate the lightsaber effect seen in the first Star Wars movie not using digital trickery, but the same 3M Scotchlite reflection effect that Lucas and his team used back in 1977. The spinning blade trick was brilliant.

The latest short from RocketJump parodies the worst of Hollywood, as two studio execs face off to see who can come up with the best scene where a hero uses their fist to stop a moving vehicle. We’d punch a Super Star Destroyer if we could.

A few years ago, Andrew Mc Murry made a short film about being a real life Roller Coaster Tycoon. His newest short revisits the classic theme park simulator, this time from the perspective of a customer.

It starts out like any ordinary aircraft landing, but this video of a Boeing 777 coming in at Frankfurt Airport in Germany takes an unusual turn about half way through, thanks to the use of some clever VFX. You’ve gotta love the discussions on YouTube whether it’s fake or not.

The Dark Side of the Force meets the crazy side of Los Santos as Michael and Trevor duke it out Star Wars-style. Sadly this wasn’t made with a Grand Theft Auto V mod. YouTuber Boris the Blade spent a month and a half with After Effects to add the lightsabers.

Zack “Final Cut” King scribbles down some ideas for his animations, when the ones he discarded decide they’re not quite done with yet, and come back to life to wreck havoc on Zack’s room while he’s away. An fun and well executed short film with clever VFX.

Movie characters run as their world – the film itself – burns and melts. The Mill made this clever short film for the British Film Institute, a charity that restores British movie reels and archives them on discs and digital files.

Terri Timely and Park Pictures’ short film messes with our preconceived notions, juxtaposing ordinary, everyday actions with highly unexpected reactions. Its playful and quirky visual style is reminiscent of the work of the great Michel Gondry.

Julian Tryba edited the footage that he and his friend Mike Sutton took of the American Southwest into a mesmerizing layer-lapse, where parts of different time-lapse shots are merged into the same frame. The song is Kygo’s remix of M83’s Wait.

(PG-13: Language) Even if De Staat’s intense track isn’t your musical cup of tea, Studio Smack’s mindblowing music video will pull you in and won’t let go. The low-budget video was made with mo-cap and CGI trickery. We haven’t felt this way since seeing Mad Max: Fury Road.

The Rebels have Dumbo? The First Order is screwed. PistolShrimps mashed up the teasers and trailers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens to include Aladdin, Olaf and many other members of the Disney family.

Corridor Digital’s latest video is blatantly shilling Game of War, but that doesn’t make it any less worth watching, with their clever use of VFX and game-textured environments and a tilt-shift effect to transform the real world into an RTS-style civilization. Making of here.