While we don’t normally think of Saturday Night Live for its visual effects, the show actually requires quite a few of them these days. Take a look at some of the work their VFX artists must deliver under the gun each week, often with less than 12 hours before airtime.
Launched in 1997, the Cassini space probe has been providing NASA with data about Saturn and the moon since 2004. It’s now running out of fuel. Erik Wernquist made this excellent CGI short film to sum up Cassini’s contributions and its final mission.
A report on the plight of visual effects artists. While a single actor can get millions of dollars for a film, VFX studios compete with each other for fixed bid contracts that often end up being unprofitable because of additional expenses from costly revisions. More here.
Want to stage a massive battle, fill an empty stadium, or take on a zombie horde? There was a time that you’d need thousands of extras to pull off such epic scenes, Golaem shows us some of the ways their software has been used to make movie, TV, and video game magic.
Effects house Framestore walks us through some of the 365+ insane and trippy visual effects sequences it created for Doctor Strange. Were Benedict Cumberbatch and Mads Mikkelsen even in this movie, or were they just their digital doubles?
These days, much of what we see on screen wasn’t there at the time of filming. This short video by Roy Peker explains how techniques such as green screen, rotoscoping, matchmove, CGI, and color grading can place actors and objects anywhere without ever being there.
McClatchy Video Lab’s documentary explores one of the nastiest secrets of the movie business, that visual effects studios and artists are often forced to work ridiculous hours, often at fixed bid pricing to meet unrealistic demands of movie studios. Premieres online on 2/22/17.
Visual effects company Oblique FX share some of the work that they did for Denis Villeneuve’s excellent sci-fi film Arrival. Naturally, the spaceships were computer-generated, but we weren’t expecting the freakin’ grass to be virtual as well.
An up-close look at a rig built for the stop-motion film Two Balloons. The animators used an intricate network of strings and push rods to move dozens of shiny plastic layers to create the undulating waves of an ocean. The trailer for the film looks amazing.
YouTuber Snake Buddies gathered and edited videos of peacock spiders from fellow YouTuber Peacockspiderman to make it seem like the Casanovas of arachnids were partaking in the Holiday spirit. The snowspiderman is somehow both cute and creepy.
(PG-13) Contemplating suicide, a man with cannibalistic tendencies remembers the defining moments of his life. Director Nina Gantz’ award-winning stop-motion short is creepy yet tender, and filled with visual and emotional juxtapositions.
For his latest video, Devin Supertramp replicated the classic speeder bike chase from Return of the Jedi – but instead of flying precariously between giant redwoods, they did the stunt on water, using specially modified Jetovator jetpacks. Duct tape ftw.
CaptainDisillusion is getting so good at debunking, he’s now tackling two lies in a single short video. The cup levitation trick is easier to do, but at least you know it’s a trick. The train track near miss video on the other hand leverages realism for views.
The chefs in this kitchen use some pretty unconventional ingredients, serving up car chases, explosions, angry velociraptors, and more in this awesome ad spot for TV network CANAL+. The spot uses a wonderful mix of CGI and practical visual effects.
The guys at The Viral Factory made skiing even more exciting by enlisting animator Nick DenBoer to fill the course with all manner of deadly obstacles, from dinosaurs, to giant sawblades, to falling meteors. Just one question: when can we play this video game?
At first glance at the crazy flying lounger in this video, we figured it was the work of Colin Furze. Sadly, the awesome hovering hammock is just a well-executed VFX trick in a commercial for Dutch insurance company Centraal Beheer. All we can say is: Your move, Furze.
Industrial Light & Magic shares some of the visual effects work that they did for the movie Warcraft. As you may have guessed, it’s basically the entire movie. The Alliance. The Horde. Their hair. All of it.
“Narutoooo!” “Sasukeeee!” “Narutoooo!” “Sasukeeee!” RackaRacka promotes Naruto Online in a hilarious live-action battle between Konoha’s premiere rivals that’s filled with inside jokes. And outside jokes.
A cult goes to extremes to “experience a taste of God” in Pierre Michel-Estival’s proof of concept short film. The first 40 seconds are nearly worthless, and the transition to the climax is janky, but what a climax it is.
We had high hopes for Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla, but it had far too little destruction for a Kaiju flick. Japan’s Shin Godzilla makes up for that in spades, as is clear from this VFX reel from Shirogumi and StealthWorks, set to a soothing ambient soundtrack.
Corridor got their hands on a prototype of the year’s most hotly anticipated new toy, the Anki Cozmo Robot, and sent him on a mission to take on an army of angry machines, a couple of which happen to come from Anki’s biggest competitors. Behind the scenes here.
(PG-13: Language) Corridor’s latest video puts its protagonist smack dab in the middle of the obscenity and violence-filled world of Grand Theft Auto after he puts on a pair of schmancy VR goggles, and runs into the real Trevor. It only gets worse once the modders show up.
YouTuber Aldo Jones spent about a month making the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story trailer look freaky. Witness the Empire’s creepiest Star Destroyer, the Death Party Troopers, the Rebel soldier ALF and more.
