Category Archives: Behind-the-scenes

VFX: Constructing a muzzle flash

Post-production on Arms Race Escalation is now well underway with multiple strands going at once:

  1. Director Nigel Clegg is working on the first draft edits of the opening and closing episodes.
  2. Actor and stunt choreographer Christopher Puttock is editing the action-focused episodes 3 and 4.
  3. Artist Nigel Potter (who also cameoed in episode 2) is working on numerous matte paintings and vehicle concept drawings.
  4. 3D artist Mark Wickham is creating various CG zeppelins, landing craft and mechs.
  5. Simon Jones is beginning work on a couple of major cloning wide shots from episode 1, which are the only two shots we can confirm at this point will be included in the edit in some form.

I’m going to focus for a moment on that last piece of the puzzle, mainly because Simon happens to be me.

As part of the web series we need a lot of muzzle flashes and squibs. Technically they’re easy to achieve but you want to make sure they look right, as there’s nothing worse than a poorly composited or animated muzzle flash.

Why CG muzzle flashes?

Purists may wonder why we didn’t use ‘proper’ blank-firing weapons to create practical gunfire, especially given we had an entire weekend of pyro at the end of the shoot. There were several reasons for going the CG route:

  1. Happisburgh beach is a public area and we didn’t have the budget or clout to close it off, therefore we had to contend with passers-by and a ridiculous number of off-leash dogs. Not a safe environment to have any kind of firing weapon, even blank-firing movie guns.
  2. For similar reasons, we couldn’t have noisy explosions or gunfire as it would have disturbed the local residents.
  3. The scale of the opening beach sequences in episode 1 would have meant a ridiculous number of muzzle flashes. For consistency, it’s probably simpler to keep it all CG in this case.
  4. We had a very tight schedule and not having to concern ourselves with prepping practical weapons saved a huge amount of time, even if it adds time in post.

Creating a CG muzzle flash

As we’re using FXhome’s HitFilm for the vast majority of visual effects (other than Mark’s 3D modelling work), generating an infinite supply of muzzle flashes is a cinch using its 3D gunfire effect.

For some of the shots in episode 1 I decided to pre-bake a few muzzle flashes with attached smoke elements. This means that after the brief flash of gunfire, there’s a nice puff of smoke lingering in the air. Particularly for long distance shots this helps to sell the effect, which otherwise can be so fleeting that it is entirely missed – particularly during scenes set on a bright day. I also threw on a bit of zoom blur, which makes the whole thing look a bit more dynamic and binds the multiple layers together.

This is what it ends up looking like:

By swapping out different smoke stock, or even using procedural particle smoke, and by simply altering the random seed of the muzzle flash I have access to essentially limitless varieties of muzzle flashes, while retaining a common design focus. In other words, it can look like the gunfire is always coming from the same weapon model, without every muzzle flash looking identical.

This example is for some of the basic rifles. There’s lots more to be designed yet, including a tesla cannon which will be particularly fun.

More updates soon!

The Arms Race Escalation team

In this photo we have about two thirds of the Arms Race Escalation cast and crew. This photo was taken on the final day of shooting, so is missing a few crucial cast members, extras and crew that helped out on other days. Nevertheless it does serve to highlight that Arms Race is now much bigger than the core It’s A Trap crew and that we couldn’t possibly have made it without the cooperation and hard work of a large number of very talented individuals.

As we move into post-production over the next few weeks, we’re also going to be taking a look back at the shoot and highlighting the work of particular teams, from sound to pyro to make-up to the art department. We want to make sure that everybody’s hard work is shown off, not only as a way of thanking them but also to give an insight into what it takes to produce a low budget web series such as this, in case there’s anybody out there who is thinking of trying something similar.

Meanwhile, the edit continues in the hands of director Nigel Clegg and Simon Jones has begun compositing a few key shots from episode one…

Arms Race Escalation wraps principal photography

On Sunday we wrapped principal photography on Arms Race Escalation, marking the successful completion of our most ambitious shoot to date. The 9 days of filming couldn’t have gone better, mainly thanks to our amazing cast and crew who put in an immense amount of work in often challenging conditions.

Now we switch gears and enter the long phase of post-production, starting with drafting up the first edit. We’re aiming to have at least one update every week leading through to the November release, so make sure you bookmark this blog, follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook if you want to be kept in the loop!

From a small short film to a big web series

Arms Race clapperboard

Principal photography on Arms Race: Escalation continues apace, having now moved to interiors after the weekend’s epic outdoor shoots.

The web series has been designed to be much bigger in scope than the original short film. Check out some of these vital statistics:

  • 6 episodes, each approximately 4 minutes in length.
  • Two custom-built interior sets, complete with moveable walls and hidden panels.
  • A couple of greenscreen virtual areas with partial sets and tracking markers to free up the camera.
  • A dressed Victorian-era boardroom.
  • Several locations along the Norfolk coast – a particularly harsh environment to shoot in, with sand having a habit of getting everywhere.
  • Numerous forest locations on private land, giving us some particularly stunning rural landscapes.
  • A cast and crew of about 45, compared to the short film’s 20.
  • A ton of new, custom-built steamtech props. Make sure you check out our prop-building videos on our YouTube channel for a sneak peek!
  • Less than halfway through the shoot, we already have over 140GB of data. Erk.
  • More VFX shots in just the first episode than in the entire Arms Race short film.
  • A bigger VFX department, with the addition of 3D modeller and animator Mark Wickham.
  • Bigger camera department, with Tom Martin coming on board as DoP and main cameraman.
  • The short was shot on a single Panasonic HVX-200 camera with a single lens. The web series is being shot on multiple Canon 60D DSLRs with multiple lenses and other bits of fancy camera gear.
  • We have a helicam.

Arms Race Escalation begins shooting!

The 6 episode web series follow-up to the 2010 Arms Race short film begins shooting this weekend on the Norfolk coast. We’ll have lots more information filtering through over the next few months leading up to our November online premiere of episode one.

In the mean time, the video above gives you a sneak peek at some more of the props and costumes created for the web series. For more videos, make sure you check out the It’s A Trap YouTube channel.

The Making of Arms Race book!

Here’s something cool: a 42 page behind-the-scenes book taking a look at the making of our 2010 short film Arms Race.

Here’s a 15 page preview:

You can buy it direct from blurb.com in hardback or paperback by clicking the ‘buy’ button just above, or by clicking here. We’re selling the book at production cost, so we don’t make any actual profit from it.

Steampunk gatling guns, binoculars & backpacks

The Arms Race project began when director Nigel Clegg built a steampunk gatling gun – as you do – and found himself needing a project in which he could show it off. Two further props were designed and built after the script was written: a pair of binoculars with mobile lenses by Pete Ayre and a backpack for fueling the gatling gun with power and bullets.

Due to the nature of the film it wasn’t possible to linger on these beautiful props for as long as we’d like, so here’s a chance for a proper close-up examination. Click any of the images to embiggify.

If you like the look of these props but haven’t seen them in action yet, here’s the film for which they were created:

Director Nigel Clegg interviewed

Arms Race director Nigel Clegg has been interviewed by the Spiffing Review podcast. He talks about the genesis of the Arms Race project, techniques for building steamtech props and miniatures, how to work on a tiny budget and what’s he’s going to be working on in 2011.

You can download the podcast episode by clicking here.

Alternatively, you can subscribe on iTunes.

For more information check out the Spiffing Review website.

The post-production of Arms Race

Arms Race was shot in late summer 2009 and was released in November 2010. For a 5 minute short film, that’s a rather long gestation period.

This is due in part to it being a volunteer project, with the work taking place in evenings and at weekends in small chunks. Such is the way of micro-budget indie filmmaking. Compounding this were the visual effects needs, requiring additional shoots of stunt performers and the miniature robot, the construction of additional props for the cockpit interior and the creation of several matte paintings. All these pieces then needed to be combined into the visited film, plus there was a 5.1 sound mix, a colour grade to be completed and music to be sourced or composed. Even for a short film there are a remarkable number of moving parts.

The miniature shoot

The robot required its own special shoot on a small greenscreen stage. It was as very simple setup, with a ‘lazy susan’ turntable used to make rotating the animatronic creature a little easier. The robot was built on a ‘Robosapien’ chassis, with a completely custom skin giving it a unique appearance for Arms Race. Its actual motor functions remained the same, however, somewhat limiting its performance capabilities. The VFX shots involving the robot were designed to fit around its abilities.

The robot’s faceplate was painted blue as we were still unsure exactly how it would be portrayed – would the pilot be visible through the faceplate, or would it be opaque? What colour would it be? What would it look like from the inside? The blue would make it easy for us to replace it with whatever we wanted once we got to the compositing stage.

Filming two armies

The shot of the armies fighting in the distance, as glimpsed by Clinton through the binoculars, was one of the trickiest shots to conceptualise and execute. It involved several pieces, starting with the miniature greenscreen shoot above as well as a lengthy ‘stunt’ shoot involving different actors flinging themselves around. Multiple shots of the various actors would later be mixed together to give the impression of large squads of British and Russian infantry.

All these different pieces were combined with stock footage of explosions, computer generated muzzle flashes and tracer trails and a matte painting of the battleground (created by Nigel Potter) and several layers of grime representing the binocular lenses to create the final shot.

The edit begins

Tarantino has said that the final draft of a screenplay happens in the movie’s edit. With micro-budget films this can be even more true, with production limitations and resource juggling prompting unexpected tweaks and  changes.

The editing process is complicated yet further when visual effects are involved, as crucial shots will often not even exist yet, necessitating the use of placeholder which are never really suitable substitutes. First comes the rough cut, a very loose assemblage of the live action footage. Generally unwatchable, this tends to be a meandering sequence of shots lacking any sort of pacing, sound mix or atmosphere of any sort. It would be a long haul before the film began to resemble its finished state and before that the visual effects would need to be completed.

VFX

The VFX fell into a few categories: the gatling gun, cockpit interiors, cockpit viewport and the robot itself.

Here’s a frame from one of the gatling gun shots, without any VFX:

First up we have the CG muzzle flash itself, positioned and rotated in 3D to match the barrel’s orientation. We used FXhome’s VisionLab Studio for this, which has probably the easiest and most effective muzzle flash generator you can find.

The appearance and behaviour of the muzzle flash was based on the minigun in Terminator 2, which has a two-part flash consisting of the large spread and forward ejection seen in the image above as well as a thinner, longer ejection without the rear halo.

Although the prop had an authentic rotating barrel it wasn’t able to eject empty shells in a convincing manner. Given the nature of the weapon as presented in the film it looked very unrealistic for it to be firing without any kind of shells being ejected, so some CG shells were composited in:

The bullet chain coming out the side of the gun looked great in the shots showing the weapon being attached to Private Higson. Once the gun started to fire, however, it became rather obvious that the bullet chain wasn’t moving. With the barrel rotating, muzzle flashes roaring away and empty shells ejecting out the opposite side, the stationary bullet chain was breaking the illusion of the weapon being operational.

The solution we arrived at was to apply a variety of distortion and blur filters to give the chain the appearance of undulating, rapid movement. The end result is subtle but certainly helps to disguise the chain’s immobility, especially when seen in motion: