Knucklehead’s Director duo The Dempseys create this film for Neulasta, which shows the benefits of receiving medication in a home environment instead of a hospital. As the main character goes to sit down in the hospital she is magically transported back to the comfort of her own living room. It was a pleasure to work with the Dempseys for the first time whilst acting as VFX Supervisor for the transitions in the 2 films. Featured here is one of those 2 films: ‘Rather Be Home’.
This transition was shot on a Panther motion control rig in 2 separate locations in Cape Town, South Africa. Each of the two scenes were deconstructed over a series of plates where all furniture, magazines, people etc were gradually removed until the rooms were completely empty. The main actor was shot along with the couch in the home environment but lit to appear like she is in the hospital. She was then rotoscoped into the scene and the plates combined as her lighting slowly changes to complete the transition from hospital to home. In supervising this shoot, it was key to get all measurements of camera height, track position & angle, room size, plus the positions of all furniture and people to enable us to rebuild the scene exactly after the rig had been moved to our second location. It was also important to carefully plan the order in which items were removed from the scene to enable unobscured plates of each object and person allowing freedom in the compositing stage to remove and insert items in any order throughout the transition. I was also able to turn around rough comps with a selection of plates whilst on set in order to give reassurance to the production crew and to assist with explaining the transition to the end client. The final comp was completed at Method Studios New York by John Yu.
I’ve posted here a heavily edited version of the actual film in order to focus on the effects shot. Unless you are shopping for both a VFX supervisor and cancer medication then you don’t need to sit through the other 90 seconds of legal disclaimer. In case you are shopping for Neulasta and not a Flame Artist, then be sure to read everything on this page instead.
