Bridging Hip-Hop and Visual Effects: The Journey of VFX Guru JR Strickland
Guess who's hopping on the mic this time? It's JR Strickland, a visual effects supervisor and director who has made a name for himself in the hip-hop music video scene. Not your run-of-the-mill journey to success, JR Strickland hustled his way into the VFX world, rubbing elbows with big names like Ariana Grande. Join us as he takes us down memory lane, from being a starry-eyed kid in Chicago suburbs to a key player in the music video business and his initial fixation with visual effects.
We're not just talking past and present here. JR Strickland also shares some invaluable lessons in visual effects and the art of client collaboration. We peel back the layers of his experiences, from being a PA to a VFX supervisor, underscoring the essence of passion, commitment, and understanding in this field. We also dive into the delicate balance between preparing for opportunities and grabbing them, as well as the significance of receiving and comprehending feedback.
But it doesn't end there! Get ready to explore the world of visual effects in hip-hop music videos, the role of real-world references in VFX, and how to get the most bang for your buck in VFX. We do a deep dive into the creation of the 'Kobe With the Fro' music video, revealing the techniques employed and the critical role of collaboration in the process. Ready to inspire your inner visual effects artist? This episode is your launching pad. Whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, this episode is a goldmine of insights that you don't want to miss.
Nocturnal Effects website https://nocturnaloperations.com/vfx
'A-Minor' http://aminormovie.com/
Buddy 'Find Me' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWTNbDkalAQ
Cal Scruby 'Kobe with the Fro' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv5kEDlZM-g
Big Sean 'ZTFO' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Dy-czTjAc
Transcript
[Paul DeNigris]: 0:01
What can independent filmmakers learn about visual effects from hip hop music videos? Find out from VFX supervisor and director JR Strickland on this episode of VFX for Indies. Hi everyone, welcome to the VFX for Indies podcast. I'm your host, Paul DeNigris, visual effects artist and filmmaker and the CEO of Foxtrot X-Ray, a boutique VFX studio. With me today on the podcast is visual effects artist, visual effects supervisor, director, entertainment Renaissance man, JR Strickland, who I've known for a number of years. Welcome to the podcast, JR.
[JR Strickland]: 0:55
Yeah, thanks for having me. Congrats on the podcast. Yeah, it's awesome.
[Paul DeNigris]: 0:55
Thanks. So JR and I met 2015. So it's a long time ago in industry years. I was on sabbatical in Los Angeles. And the first freelance gig I took was working with JR at a little post boutique that specialized in music videos. And we worked on a fun project for Ariana Grande that never saw the light of day, but it was fun nonetheless.
[JR Strickland]: 1:24
Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 1:24
And as happens on complicated and difficult projects, all of us VFX artists on that show bonded and have been friends ever since. So as you can surmise, JR kind of lives in the visual, the visual effects side of the music video business and has also branched out into directing. So JR, tell us a little bit about yourself, kind of how you got into visual effects and your journey to working for some of the bigger hip hop artists working today.
[JR Strickland]: 1:55
Man, it feels like, well, for one, when we met, it was like, you are dope. I was like, this guy knows what he's doing. And a lot of times, sometimes people don't really know what they're doing or don't pay attention to details. So it's like, I feel like you stood out because it's like, okay, and even just with the restraints that we had, just being able to work within those constraints. Cause you think that once you get to LA or Hollywood or something like, things are gonna be like more prepared and better. And a lot of times it's the same fixes that you. I'm sure you tell your students that is like back in the day. It's like, it's the same problems that you kind of were fixing from before that actually ended up making you stronger. But I digress, right. So when I started, it's been forever. Like when I was, since I could remember, I just remember seeing a video camera at like Best Buy and just zooming in and zooming out and being like, if you zoom into something green and then zoom out of something green, that's like a transition just. really, or there will be miniatures at the grocery store. And I was just be fascinated with looking at the miniature city of the town and be like, this looks like a real town. So I think it started planting the seeds of VFX into my brain. And then at, you know, growing up in the nineties, it's like eighties babies and then growing up in the nineties, so then you had that boom of just, you know, Titanic and Twister and. Jurassic Park, like every story now that Back to The Future, even though it doesn't have as many VFX that people think, but it's just these stories that can now be told with the VFX. So I kind of gravitated towards hidden, not necessarily hidden VFX, but VFX that were crucial to telling a story. And then there was a TV show called Movie Magic. I don't know if you remember Movie Magic.
[Paul DeNigris]: 3:46
I remember it well!
[JR Strickland]: 3:47
Yes. And they would just say the behind the scenes on how they made all the movies. So they would go over Hocus Pocus and they'll show how they do matte painting and the old school matte painting, you know, where you literally paint on the glass and then put the glass in front of the camera. And now all of a sudden it looks like the sky or it looks like a set extension. And then they'll do like multiplicity. So as a kid, I was literally, um, using Premiere figuring out how to do it. Premiere like 1.5 with the horse on it. It's like since they age like eight, like literally eight years old, learning Premiere, doing a split screen and having myself on one side and myself on the other. Then I'll take a ball and I'll like throw it and I'll catch it on the other side.
[Paul DeNigris]: 4:32
Yeah.
[JR Strickland]: 4:32
And that was before YouTube obviously. So when I show my family and friends, they're like, this is crazy. But even the movie Magic, it was like, they had one version on Sundays for kids, and it just, it wasn't even as advanced. Like I needed the advanced. I didn't need the watered down movie magic tricks. I wanted to know like how the big people really did it. And then going from that, it just was going to a bookstore and then reading magazines, even though I couldn't afford all the books yet, because they're like $40, you know. for the crazy behind the scenes VFX books. So I'll just go there and I'll read them. I'll read the VFX magazines. And that's also why a lot of times when I can come out and give hints on how it's done, because that's really how I learned is by just BTS videos, extended versions on DVD. Like I didn't want the DVD if it didn't have the breakdowns. the Blu-Rays, you know what I mean? And it's like really using that knowledge from all these other people that have done it. And so when I went to college, I went to Columbia College in Chicago. So that's the art school, of course. And then when I moved to LA, it's like I just bulldozed my way into that music video production company that we were for. And at first I was just assistant editing, and then me and our friend Max, he was doing a little bit of VFX, but we really just said, we should just start. doing the VFX and they weren't really budgeting for that and they were outsourcing VFX when they needed it. But in our free time, we would just tell the directors like, hey, we can do a sky replacement. And there was one music video they had where they shot in this mansion in LA and it's like a beautiful music video, but it was the overcast day. Ironically in LA, it was just was an overcast day. And so we was like, we could change the sky. And then he was like, really? And... I've been flirting with Nuke and doing some Nuke, so I knew that you can do it. And I knew that Nuke was more advanced than After Effects in terms of sky replacements with 3D tracking and things like that.
[Paul DeNigris]: 6:35
Mm-hmm.
[JR Strickland]: 6:36
So we just started doing the VFX on the video. Now that I think about it, without really even asking the producers, we kind of just started doing it. And once you started doing it, then I'm like, oh, this is great. And obviously the video looked better. And so from then on, I was like, oh, you guys can kind of do this. And we just started doing more and more effects for each project. And then ironically, like, I tried to bulldoze my way onto sets in LA as a PA, but nobody was really choosing me. But once I worked with that company, we showed that we can do VFX. The first music video set I was on out here as officially was Ariana Grande's music video, and I was the VFX supervisor on that video. And it was. crazy to just go from I wasn't even a PA to just, you're the VFX supervisor, here's Ariana Grande, and then I'm like, I think she needs to do this, and the director's like, go tell her. I'm like, oh, I could talk to her? A year ago I was back home, you know what I mean, in Chicago in the suburbs, and now I'm like, on set with Ariana, and as the VFX supervisor, and it kind of just made me realize that a lot of the work that I put in leading up to it. once you get the opportunity, then you can show it. You know what I mean? So I didn't have to, I've learned a lot in the role, but I just studied so much, like so much and was so afraid that people knew what they were doing and I didn't, that I just like really, really learned the craft and learned what to do. And even though I didn't do some things before physically, I knew the theories. And so I would say, okay, if we do this, like it would work. And then of course you have to make it work, but. And then after that, like it's just the connections and just building from there. So now I have my own VFX company, Nocturnal Effects, and we do a lot of posts and yeah, that's where it is now.
[Paul DeNigris]: 8:25
I mean, it's a great lesson for independent filmmakers or filmmakers coming up or visual effects artists coming up. It's all about learning your craft and then putting yourself in the situations where the opportunities will come.
[JR Strickland]: 8:37
Yes, I've learned that the opportunities aren't as hard to get as you think. It's, I think it's harder to be prepared for the opportunities than it is to actually get the opportunities. Now there is a balance that sometimes you could spend forever getting prepared and not try to get the opportunities. But when I've gotten the opportunities, I've, sometimes I wished I was like, Oh, I wish I was a little more ready, uh, for this, you know what I mean? It's like, Oh, now I got to. figure this out or sometimes there are failures, but it's being prepared for those opportunities. So I think it's both while you're trying to get those opportunities is great, but getting really, really good at your craft allows you to kill that opportunity. And then people are very lazy. They don't wanna keep finding new people every single time they have a project. So when you kill that, you're gonna be on the top of the list for the next project and the next project and next project. You gotta know how to do it.
[Paul DeNigris]: 9:33
Yeah. It's like I always told my students and I actually cribbed this from one of my former students who works in the industry. You know, the secret is be passionate, be committed. Don't be a Dick,
[JR Strickland]: 9:42
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[Paul DeNigris]: 9:42
right? Be passionate. That that's what makes you want to learn it, right? Being committed is follow through and showing up and being the person that when they say, Hey, how do I do this? You have the answers and then not being a Dick is, so they'll call you back.
[JR Strickland]: 9:57
Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 9:57
And that's how you build a career.
[JR Strickland]: 9:58
And I think honestly, to that point, it's, um, growing up when I did, it was a lot of like team, no sleep and it wasn't really taking care of yourself. It's just grind, get the 10,000 hours. And, and now it's, it's more about just understanding when you are tired, when you are frustrated, like maybe you don't answer that call and call them back. You know what I mean? Cause for me, sometimes it's Nocturnal Effects in my company for, because I I'm up all night usually working. And then sometimes people take advantage of that and want you to work all, all night. And it's like, um, I need to know that if I wake up early and you call me at six in the morning, seven in the morning for something, I going to be pissed off. And I'm probably going to snap on the client and I'm probably going to regret it later. Even though I might be, um, validated into my feelings. It's like the way I say it might not be right. So I think there is an art to knowing like, hey, maybe I'm in my feelings, maybe I'm right, but maybe like, just don't respond right now, like just chill because as artists, we get really passionate about our work. And sometimes if they give us notes, you know, you're like, this is perfect. I can't believe. And sometimes you got to kind of chill and take a step back and say, okay, what are they, what are they really trying to say and how can I communicate this a little bit better. Have you, have you experienced that with People saying that they don't like notes or they don't want notes, why do they get notes? And it should just be their way. They should have the creative freedom as a director or artist.
[Paul DeNigris]: 11:25
Yeah, I mean, obviously teaching college for 20 years, I encountered a lot of students who would who would push back on notes, right?
[JR Strickland]: 11:33
Yeah, yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 11:33
And then when they maybe got their first opportunity in the industry, they'd call me up and go, Hey, Paul, they're killing me with notes. What? How do you manage it? And my response is always every note is an opportunity to learn. Right. And sometimes what you learn is I never want to work for this client again.
[JR Strickland]: 11:52
Yeah, exactly. And it's like, there's, it's not yours. Like, I think sometimes Yeah, exactly. And it's like, there's, it's not yours. Like, I think sometimes we think it's ours and you're hired, you know, but whoever's paying for the project is theirs. I remember one group, there was some younger people that said, wow, they should just listen to me and it should be whatever I say. And it's like, if I'm paying money, I get a say in how it is. I mean, if you want to do something how you want it, then you just make it yourself. Nobody's stopping you from making whatever you want to make. But if somebody's paying you a budget, even if it's whether it's a hundred dollars, but whether it's literally. $500 because this is all that artists has for a project and you're working your way up, that's, that's a lot of money for that artists to spend $500 of their own money to something and to not. let them have a say in the result is just crazy. That doesn't even make sense. So you got to think about it's theirs and they're paying for it and they're allowed to give feedback. You know what I mean? And the more you can kind of do it sometimes, once you start doing it, you're like, oh, they might, they kind of would write some, sometimes they're actually right or make a good point.
[Paul DeNigris]: 13:11
Yeah, sometimes client notes are great. And sometimes they're seeing something that you're not seeing. And you know, you do as a VFX artist, you do get tunnel vision. You know, I always joke because I'm not only, you know, the VFX supervisor for my company, but I'm also a compositor. And I always joke that my, the guys that work for me, their, their shots get approved all the time by the client and mine get nitpicked and it's, and I'm like, that's because they don't, I don't have me nitpicking my own shots.
[JR Strickland]: 13:37
Aw, yeah, when your name's on the line and you gotta do it, yeah,
[Paul DeNigris]: 13:42
So I'm nitpicking my team's shots. And so by the time clients sees it, they've already gone three, four revs before I'm happy with it. Whereas all these notes and I'm like, ah, okay.
[JR Strickland]: 13:58
not good. And then I'll see it. Like once it's released, I'm like, oh, that looked kind of nice.
[Paul DeNigris]: 14:04
Yeah.
[JR Strickland]: 14:04
Like, but when you're in critical mode too, it's also hard because you're in analyze, try to find the problem. So when you're getting the shots from your compositors, or artists, I mean, other artists, you're in, let me try to find out what's wrong mode. Cause that's when you can do something about it. But then once it's out and you're in just like, entertainment mode. That's like a different experience. So I think it's balancing that too, when at it and it's a totality. Like nobody's really looking at this pixel on the right. They're really focused over here. Like it's the right amount of lens blur. It's okay. Like it's okay if it doesn't have the correct bokeh bloom on it, like just get it out, it's fine.
[Paul DeNigris]: 14:50
Yeah. I mean, ultimately what we do is we provide a service. It's a service industry, right?
[JR Strickland]: 14:54
Yes.
[Paul DeNigris]: 14:54
VFX is yes, it's artistry, but ultimately we are serving the client, right? Whether it's an independent filmmaker, a studio, a TV show, a musical artist, we are a service industry period, right?
[JR Strickland]: 15:11
And getting your ego out the way. It's like, because sometimes what I'll tell artists, I'll literally be on the phone with the artists and I'll tell them, because sometimes people will say, oh artists give all these notes and blah, blah. And they're really annoyed. And so when I talk to the artists, I tell them, my job is to like make sure you look as good as possible. So just know if I say anything, it's because I'm trying to make you look as good as possible. And usually they respond to that. They're like, I do want to look as good as possible. And I don't want you to get killed in the YouTube comments. I don't want somebody in the comments to say, oh, they look funny here, or this looks bad, and then it's crazy. So I've noticed just being upfront with the artist about your intentions, because if you're coming to them saying, I'm making this note because I think it's better, but if you're like, I think this makes you look really good. Now, if you want to change it, like... whatever, but they tend to trust you, because I do a lot of editing too, and they tend to trust you more when your intentions are, I'm serving the song and I'm serving you, or if it's a narrative, like I'm just trying to serve the story, I'm trying to stay back from it. And they respond to that pretty well.
[Paul DeNigris]: 16:24
Right, yeah, to me the best client relationships are the ones where it's a partnership. And a lot of times as VFX artists, we do have to educate them. Not only do we have to educate them on what's possible, like you were talking about, hey, I can replace this guy, we can fix this thing in post. But sometimes you have to educate them like they want a certain thing. And you're like, okay, fire doesn't move like that,
[JR Strickland]: 16:44
Yes.
[Paul DeNigris]: 16:44
or whatever, right? You're having to educate them. Okay, let's figure out how we can get there and not break your vision. but also not hang me out there as a VFX artist who doesn't know what he's doing.
[JR Strickland]: 16:58
I mean I had a discussion, there's a music video I did, and in the video there's a comp, but the sun is setting.
[Paul DeNigris]: 17:07
Mm-hmm.
[JR Strickland]: 17:08
So because the sun is setting, the shadows are, so the sun's setting behind a mountain. So I tell a lot of people, what we do is really physics. You've really got to understand physics to be a good VFX artist, especially like compositor, or in any part of VFX, you really got to understand physics. And so the sun is setting behind the mountain to the point where I used to take where the lens flare was gone from the sun. So I can add it on my end and everything was in shadow. So now the talent is completely backlit, right? But there's no shadow because there's no shadow inside of a shadow. Can't have it. Can't have another shadow in a shadow. So I was. So they were like, oh, it's missing a shadow. And I'm like, no, there's no shadow physically. And in their mind, they're thinking it should be. And they're like, well, you should kind of, and I'm like, no, because I'm using references of other things in the frame. So like, you see the tree over there, there's no shadow. You see the wall over there, there's no shadow. So now if this has a shadow, it's not going to be right. And it's kind of annoying because this is still the DP. So they understand lights. And anybody else might just succumb to whatever they say because they're the DP. But you're also the expert in what you do. And it's like, I know this isn't right because there is no shadow. There's a reflection. And then when you play it, I don't think anybody's ever said there is no shadow there. So that goes back into just understanding people are looking for certain things and what you think it is, isn't always what it really is. I think I had this revelation when I was, you know, when you start working on 3D stuff, then when you go into real world, you start looking at everything that looks like 3D to you. Like, is the sky real? Are these trees draw a house and a tree or a kid draws a house and a tree, the tree is pretty much the same size as the house. Like the people are pretty much the same size as the house. and the tree. So in your mind, what you're drawing isn't really what it is in reality. And that's why you got to base stuff off of real world references. Because if you really go outside and look at a tree, it's a lot taller than a house. So if you're just creating this stuff based off of what you think and not what the real world is, that's when it starts looking a little. You know what I mean? Like, have you experienced that?
[Paul DeNigris]: 19:46
Absolutely, real world reference is one of the best tools that we have as a visual effects artist, right? I always, always talk about this. A lot of times we do a lot of muzzle flashes, right? We do a lot of muzzle flashes, a lot of shell casing injections because we do a lot of action movies. Okay, I still, every time we start a new one, I look at what weapons are the actors carrying, go to YouTube, somebody has filmed themselves shooting that weapon. Let's look at what the muzzle flash does, what smoke does, how the shell casing injects, even though in my mind, I know this stuff back to front.
[JR Strickland]: 20:22
Right.
[Paul DeNigris]: 20:22
I never want to be inventing it from, from my imagination. I always want to go back to reality, you know? Um, and that applies to everything that we do.
[JR Strickland]: 20:31
And then you can sweeten it and make it better, but it's based off that reality that really helps sell it. But.
[Paul DeNigris]: 20:36
Right, yeah. You know, so it's, because like you said, your imagination and your, the way our memories work, right? We can think we remember something perfectly, but the more we think about it, the more we do it, the more we get into that sort of complacency. And then before you know it, we've drifted all the way away from reality. And somebody goes, hey, what is this? And you're like, but that's what it really looks like. And then they show you a picture and you go, oh, okay, sorry.
[JR Strickland]: 21:01
Yeah, I mean, it's like that with saturation, I feel like when you're doing saturation on a sky, it's like all over the place. And then when you make it very, very subtle, you're like, oh, this looks better. But you just hear blue. And so you just make it blue. And it's like, what, what type of blue and how blue is it? And then even your references are your references on Google from a, from a camera that's a XLR with heavy, you know, or is it from another film or is it from Like what are your references coming from? So, or, but I think references within the frame is usually a really good help and a really good indicator. So it's like, just don't throw that sky in there and have it super saturated. And then somebody has a red dress on that's not saturated and it's gonna pop off. So it's using other clues within the frame too to make it look good.
[Paul DeNigris]: 21:50
So, you know, I know we've talked about this on a couple of projects, like on the Ariana Grande project, and then we also worked on Find Me for the rapper Buddy, which was all green screen, the flying car, which was a blast. It was totally fun, especially to see the behind the scenes footage or to see the plates where they have the car on this giant green rotisserie and the grips are rotating and stuff. Lot of fun. Were you VFX supervisor on that set?
[JR Strickland]: 22:17
Yeah, I was on the set. Luckily, they hit me up. That was one of those who hit me up early, which I always love. So I went to talk to them early about it. There was a talk where we almost did a CG car. Literally, the video is the entire video. He is in a car that is flying through the air, through the clouds. And you did an awesome job of comping that. It was such a cool project to work on because I feel like more projects since then have used that idea, maybe not from that, but just maybe inspired by it, maybe not. But it felt like at the time that was something that really hasn't been done like that before. And so being the VFX supervisor and the director, Andy Hines, which is really good, it was really awesome. And, um, the producer, Jeff, he, they really kind of trust, they really trusted me and Andy did a really good job of storyboarding, like just everything, like not necessarily storyboarding, but afterwards he gave me a PDF with the direction of the clouds, where they go and all this. So being on set really helped. And then, um, Kavika who I, who works with me sometimes he came with me on set and it's, it was good to have him too, just in case I was second guessing myself with some of the stuff. So I'll talk it over with him. He was like, no, yeah, that's right. That's, you know, that's. So VFX on that was, I knew that we needed. I knew this sounds like a nuke plug, but I knew we needed nuke for that because of what was asked for us. And then also sometimes these budgets can get tight with these music videos. So you still want it to look as cinematic as possible. And it's like, how can we make that on this? But they literally took the car, they gutted the car so it was really light and they just spun it and then they had them on wires. I mean, wire removal alone, it's probably a task for a video like that. But That video I really enjoy because people always reference that video for me. They're like, you did the Buddy... I've seen treatments people give me with that video as a reference in the treatments that they want. So that was, what was your experience on that?
[Paul DeNigris]: 24:24
Oh, that was great. I really enjoyed that. Clips from that were on my reel for a long time, because we got to, again, not to turn this into a plug for Nuke, but we got to do some cool particle-based clouds. And Kavika gave me the cloud sprites
[JR Strickland]: 24:43
Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 24:43
of the different clouds that he had generated in 3D. And then I was able to put them in a particle system and build. build a Cloudscape that was instantly customizable, and you could just change one number, and it would just change the way the clouds were laid out, and stuff like that[JR Strickland]: Oh no, the clouds were done by my
[JR Strickland]: 25:00
Yeah, Abubakar, he did a lot of the Houdini. Yeah, you're right.
[Paul DeNigris]: 25:03
That's right. This is a while back, so it's a little fuzzy.
[JR Strickland]: 25:06
no, but you're right. Yeah, because we combined the Houdini with clouds with this. And it was a team effort.
[Paul DeNigris]: 25:14
Mm-hmm.
[JR Strickland]: 25:15
I look at it now and I'm like, man, there's more stuff that I wish we could have done. But again, that was a few years ago. So.
[Paul DeNigris]: 25:22
Yeah, it's a few years ago. And time and budget being what they are, there's always room to improve.
[JR Strickland]: 25:27
Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 25:28
For the most part, it was shot great.
[JR Strickland]: 25:31
Yes.
[Paul DeNigris]: 25:32
The green screen was always beautifully saturated and lit. We had very little problem pulling keys. The biggest issues were it's a car. It's covered with chrome and reflective surfaces.
[JR Strickland]: 25:43
Oh yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 25:44
But what are you going to do there? Like there's nothing you can do about it other than like cover the car and dulling spray, but then you start to lose the, lose the
[JR Strickland]: 25:51
Right.
[Paul DeNigris]: 25:51
feel of it being glass and metal.
[JR Strickland]: 25:53
And I remember too, just having to give you notes and it's like, I respect your work and I respect that you took the notes too because it's like I'm seeing all this, like everything, you know, I'm listening to the director and I'm seeing things that you're probably not seeing. So I learned on that project too that even if you're an expert and you hire experts, you still got to be like, okay, but this and then because you were able to do that, it just made it work. Yeah, me too.
[Paul DeNigris]: 26:22
it's I mean, again, it's you get tunnel vision as an artist, right? The longer you look at a shot, either the better it looks or the worse it looks. Right. The longer you look at a shot, the more you're like, I love this. This is the best shot I've ever done. And then you send it to the client and they're like, what? OK, no, this
[JR Strickland]: 26:37
But that also taught me though, I was doing a lot of the comps myself. And I think that was probably the first project that I really was like, let me get another comp artist in here. And I felt just as good as if I did it. I think that was the fear. I think growing up doing all this stuff yourself, you get the dopamine rush of I did this myself. Or parents would say, you did this all yourself? And you're like, yeah. And so what that does is it kind of creates a system in your mind where you equate doing it yourself with being good and being proud. And that's something I'm still trying to get over. It's like therapy has helped me with that. So like I'm, I get excited because I did it myself, but at this stage, nobody really cares if you did it yourself. They just cares if it looks good. And so because I was able to like let go of that and not just have to say, Oh, I did this. It's like, no, Paul did it and we did it. And it looks, you know, like Paul did the comp and we did this, which means I still have like pride in that. You know
[Paul DeNigris]: 27:44
Yeah, absolutely
[JR Strickland]: 27:44
what I mean? I'm trying to get better at that. Cause I was so used to trying to do everything myself. And that is not how you're able to grow. You got to get this team around you. And you say, get other eyes on it. And then with tight deadlines, like I can do some, I think then I did some of the comps. I think I did a couple of comps.
[Paul DeNigris]: 28:01
I think in the 11th hour, there were a couple of shots that got added and you picked them up. Yeah to, just to help, help me because we were, we were, we were right up against the deadline.
[JR Strickland]: 28:12
Oh man, it was, it was, it was, and I remember too, I think I tell people, oh, I remember now, cause there was a, a weekend and then they were trying to crush us on the weekend. And he was like, oh man, I got to, and I was like, don't worry about it, we'll figure it out. And then he was like, man, people don't really say that. You remember that? You're like, people don't really say it like, oh, take your time. But I think when you, when you've been in that situation,
[Paul DeNigris]: 28:32
Yeah.
[JR Strickland]: 28:37
you have some sympathy and empathy. And I think because I said that, you was like, man, let me just, I'm gonna just stay up and do it and just like... And it ends up working out. But I think when things aren't organized, it's up to the person that's planning it. Like that's your fault. That's not the artist's fault, like the compositor or whatever. It's not their fault that you're not organized. You know what I mean? If things are coming up against the deadline, I get it. Sometimes you can't avoid it. But for the most part, you can't let other people's. mismanagement of situations like make you feel bad for you having boundaries. Cause they're not doing the, they're not doing the actual work. They're just saying stuff. They're like giving the notes and then they're living their lives. And then you're spending 10 hours doing that note. You know what I mean? And you got to, and also I feel like if you don't have a clean mind and you're not refreshed, it takes longer and it looks bad. It doesn’t even look better. You can tell that you were tired when you did it. If you just take a break and come back to it, you'll actually do it faster and better.
[Paul DeNigris]: 29:41
Yeah. I mean, VFX is a team sport, you know, right. And it's, and, and as a fellow entrepreneur, I know you know this, right. It's, it's like, it's re... you, it's really easy to get into the, I can't delegate this. I have to do this part myself kind of trap. I do it all the time and people are always
[JR Strickland]: 29:57
Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 29:58
telling me, no, you need to delegate that. You're right. It's your business is not going to grow if you're trying to do it all,
[JR Strickland]: 30:03
Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 30:04
you know, and it's part of the, it's just part of the curse of entrepreneurship, right? We get into this, we, you started Nocturnal. I started Foxtrot. because we love what we do and we want to do it for ourselves. And so, you know, that becomes lots of sleepless nights and lots of, you know, agonizing over pixels and things like that
[JR Strickland]: 30:21
Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 30:21
and learning how to let go and learning how to go, okay, I think I need to increase my team. I think I need to call somebody else in another expert that, you know, to, to balance me.
[JR Strickland]: 30:28
Yeah, for sure. But it is a good option though, if it doesn't look how you want it to look to be able to be like, all right, well, let me just fix it real quick. And it's fun.
[Paul DeNigris]: 30:38
Yeah, there’s always that
[JR Strickland]: 30:40
fun. It's just, you can't, it's not sustainable for every single project, especially the ones you wanna make sure you get right. It's just kind of good to have other people on it.
[Paul DeNigris]: 30:49
Yeah. And when you have a client, whether it, you know, in that case, it was you, you were, you made it, you didn't, you never made it feel like you have to fix this, Paul. This is your right. It was, it was, okay, we, we have to do this. Right. It was a difference between, between saying I statements and you statements versus we statements. Right. It's the, it's the, uh, we're in this together. Let's fix this. Right.
[JR Strickland]: 31:09
yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 31:14
And you were like, what? How can I, what can I do to help you with this? I was like, I need you to take this shot because I don't, I just, I'm out of time and out of bandwidth on it. Um, as opposed to on bigger projects with bigger clients, it becomes very much the, um, employer-employee relationship. And that's hard. That's hard sometimes because it, because it is, it does sometimes feel like. I'm going to give you a note and I don't care that it's going to take 36 hours out of your life to work on that note. I just, I need it Monday morning. Right. Whereas. When, when you, when there's an understanding that like, this is a team sport, we're in this together. If I fail, you fail. If you fail, there together rather than, you know, making it adversarial.
[JR Strickland]: 31:56
And realistically knowing how long this stuff takes and what to spend the time on. It's like, do we want to spend all this time on this or do you want to spend time on this? And I remember, I think there was stuff that you mentioned. It was like, look, and it's like, what do you need to just speaking up? Like, what do you need? You know, and which are the priorities? You know, is this, is this the money shot or is this a quicker shot? Like where are our priorities and what do you need? And I feel like. That's probably one of the biggest things because you could spend so much time on shot number one and never get to shot 50. It's like,
[Paul DeNigris]: 32:26
Mm-hmm.
[JR Strickland]: 32:29
yo, the whole video was shot on a green screen. So we have to prioritize. Like maybe we want this, maybe the reflections, we want this, but that's like on the priority list, that's like on the bottom. You know what I mean? It's more important
[Paul DeNigris]: 32:45
And I know we did have to, there are certain shots in that video that clouds aren't reflected in the glass or the Chrome and they should
[JR Strickland]: 32:49
Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 32:52
be, and they would be if you were really flying that car up, you know, that Buick or whatever up in the sky.
[JR Strickland]: 32:56
But the interesting thing about that is, I think on the first watch, you're not even watching for that, because you're like, wait, he's dancing on top of a car? It's only on our watch over and over. I'm like, oh man, we should do a 3D car and then 3D, but then that would have been insane.
[Paul DeNigris]: 33:10
Yeah. And you know, and so much of it like it's his it's I think the reason a lot of people, because I check in on that video once in a while and a lot of people still come back to it and like, well, this is one of my favorite videos of all time. It's him. It's his performance. He's he's
[JR Strickland]: 33:24
Oh yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 33:28
all in for that concept. And just like, he's totally vibing the way he's like surfing on the car and stuff like that.
[JR Strickland]: 33:32
Right.
[Paul DeNigris]: 33:34
He's selling the reality of it, which we could do our job, you know, perfectly 100% perfect. And if he's not selling the reality of the whole The whole video fell. So again, it's, it's a team sport.
[JR Strickland]: 33:45
Right.
[Paul DeNigris]: 33:46
Yeah.
[JR Strickland]: 33:46
And like I said, the director, I love Andy Hines. He, and the way he did it was just so clever and the way they edit it. So yeah,
[Paul DeNigris]: 33:50
Yeah.
[JR Strickland]: 33:50
I can talk about that video all day.
[Paul DeNigris]: 33:56
Well, let's actually talk about some of your more recent projects that you've been both VFX supervisor and director on. So you sent me a list of them. I'm gonna let you pick which one we're gonna talk about first.
[JR Strickland]: 34:09
Um, let's see. I feel like we'll talk about the Kobe with the Fro video. So Kyle Scrooby, he's a, he's a good friend of mine too. And he had this idea for, he had a song called Kobe with the Fro and was like, well, what if we do, he just says, he, he just feels like Kobe Bryant when he played with the Lakers and had the Afro. I'm like, well, let's put you in the middle of Staples center. And I don't know why I said that, but I think it's always been my dream to do like a basketball, like CG basketball kind of arena court. So the entire video, he's just performing in the Staples Center, but we shot it all on the green screen. And that took way longer than I thought it was going to take. But I think part of it, I'll tell you the lessons that I learned. The lessons I learned is I didn't need to build the entire, like, every seat. Like, my OCD kicked in, and I was looking at maps of the Staples Center, and I was counting the number of seats in each row. in the hundred level and most of it is crushed to black. And I did not need to have like 10 seats in row five. Like I, just the OCDness kick in to where I, by the end I learned how to prioritize and what to cheat. But at the beginning, my thought process was build the entire thing and then you have complete control on where you put the camera. And I would never do that again. It's like, what does the camera see? And then build for that. Like for instance, even the banners, I think going in, I was like, I'm gonna make the banners, texture the banners, but they're all the way in the background, you know? And as I was going on, I said, okay, well the banners, these should just be a PNG. Just grab a PNG, just put it on a card, and then put it up and throw a spotlight on it. You know, and so, but shooting that green screen, we shot it with a jib, the camera movements. And I feel like part of me wanted to look photo real and I was in this weird space of like, does it look photo real? Does it look video gamey? And he was in my head a lot saying, JR, it's gonna look good. Like whatever you're doing is gonna look good. I'm sure you're just in your head. I'm like, no, it's gotta look better, but is this the right amount of grain? Is this the shadow? So, but I'm really proud of how that project. uh turned out it's just sometimes you have like you say you have to take a step back and then just watch it and you say oh okay yeah this is kind of dope
[Paul DeNigris]: 36:38
Yeah, it is pretty dope.
[JR Strickland]: 36:41
yeah what were your thoughts when you watched it?
[Paul DeNigris]: 36:41
I thought it was great. I mean, you know, at I knew, I knew going into it, obviously, that the Staples Center was VFX. But I also, you know, after a few shots, I stopped going, I stopped looking at it and trying to trying to see what you did. And then I was just like, wow, this just looks great. Because I know, I'm again, I'm sure you were up against it time and money wise. And[JR Strickland]: Yeah. it looks amazing. It's like the camera movement and his integration and his reflection in the floor and all of that stuff. It just, yeah, is it reality? No, is it music video heightened stylized reality? Yes, and does it work? Absolutely.
[JR Strickland]: 37:18
Yeah, that's what I learned too, is like sometimes as an artist, because I went down this journey of studying painters before, I'm like, I don't get why Picasso, like, it doesn't look real. Why are people so enamored with it? And when I started doing the research, I learned that, you know, the impression is, it's like, it's how you, how it makes you feel a lot of times, not necessarily if it's real or not. Like what we're seeing with the references, those a lot of times are for photorealistic type of things, but also like, also the feeling that you're going for, how does it make you feel? So whether he is or isn't, it's like, we're doing this because we have freedom to make it feel a certain way. You're doing this painting, not necessarily to make it look exactly like the person, but to capture the essence or the feeling of what you're doing. So with that project, I wish I went more into it. It's just the feeling of him being here. And by default, it's gonna look pretty, like pretty real. Like it's not gonna look so corny, but it's more about the feeling of this. Yeah. Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 38:25
I've mentioned this a couple of times and you mentioned a couple of times budgets and schedules and things like that. And, you know, I'm a little older than you, but we both kind of, kind of came up during the heyday of MTV when, you know, Michael Jackson and bigger acts would spend millions and millions of dollars on music videos and, you know, the premiere of something like Thriller was an event and, you know, those days are over, right? videos are not in the million dollars, millions of dollars range anymore. Uh, and to me that that's, you know, the, again, the name of the podcast is VFX for Indies,
[JR Strickland]: 39:01
Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 39:02
indie filmmaking, music videos, very much kind of in that same mode of we, we have to make the most out of every dollar because there aren't a lot of them and we have to make the most out of every second of shoot time because we don't have a lot of days.
[JR Strickland]: 39:15
Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 39:16
Um, you know, what, um, Talk about some maybe some strategies like going into a video like Kobe with the fro What are some strategies that you're using? Upfront maybe in pre-production or during production where you're keeping that in mind like I don't have infinite money to burn I don't have infinite time to spend on this. So how can I maximize the effect that I'm getting for my client?
[JR Strickland]: 39:39
Well, the most frustrating part is when they waste money. Like I get that you don't have money, but then they waste money because they don't have the experts advising them. Like I don't wanna do extra VFX just to do it. So sometimes I would tell them, this is better done practically. It's like really being able to work with everybody and work with the set decorator. or production designer and, or at least the producer and director and say, no, this should be practical. Like there's no reason why we should build this. It's going to kill the budget. I'd rather spend that on something else. So it's not always just fighting for you to do more is saying, like, because it's almost the opposite. Some things that they think is hard, isn't really hard. And some things they think is easy is actually really, really hard to do. And that's going to kill your budget. So I feel like it's with the, with the Kobe video, I just knew if it's going to be green screen, what it couldn't be is a 2D card. It had to be, we see him in three dimensions. So that had to be a jib, but we had to have camera moving as if we were there. You know what I mean? So the budget goes towards the green screen and making sure the green screen is high enough that we can get low angles without him clipping on the ceiling. Cause a lot of these green screen places in LA, you can't get low angles because then you'll see this ceiling. So it's also, we got a green screen spot that like it went over his head so we can get the low angles. And so that's where it went. And then just making sure that you have a good team of people that track it, you know, I had a good team of people that track the cameras because like you said, we love to do this. So you think that, oh, I can track all the shots and I can roll to all, and it's like, okay. No, let's spend time doing the other stuff and let's get, I feel like I'm more inclined to composite. If I get people doing some of the other stuff, it makes the compiling a little easier, but the compositing becomes really hard when you still have to track all the shots and you still have to key all the shots and you still have to, so even if, you know, whatever your budget is, or if you're indie or you can get some friends, just, you can do it, but just outsource a little bit of it so that you can. strictly spend your time on the comp. Cause I think a project like that, because I can't, I think I would probably would have been a jerk to whoever comped it because I would have been like, I can do this or I wanted to look, it's like saying what I know, I'm saying it twice when I could just press the button. You know what I mean? So when it gets to that point, it's quicker if I do that, but it's not quicker if I Roto every shot. And it's not quicker if I, you know, key every shot. And it's not quicker if I track every shot.
[Paul DeNigris]: 42:25
Well, let's, so that that's post stuff. Let's rewind back to you're getting ready to do this shoot.
[JR Strickland]: 42:31
Mm-hmm.
[Paul DeNigris]: 42:32
Right. And Cal and his team are going into it, asking you, how do we, how do we achieve this on the, on the budget that we've got? So what are some, as direct, as both director and VFX supervisor, like how, what are some techniques or some things that you're, you're maybe saying, okay, we have to do, we have to do storyboards. We have to plan this. What are some things that you're doing to maximize that budget so that you're not making mistakes during production that ripple down into bigger problems in post?
[JR Strickland]: 43:02
Well, with that one, luckily I produced it too. So I had an advantage where the producer agreed with me and Cal does a really good job of letting the artist be an artist. Like Cal, yeah, now that you're saying it, it's like, Cal is really much like, I trust you, whatever you think I need to do, I would do. Like I'm literally telling him, okay, lay on the floor and we're going to put you on the, he's like, all right. And he, and he, and he does it and he trusts you. So that opens it up to just know that. And the reason it does tie into post because you're thinking about the post while you're doing the pre, you know what I mean? So I'm thinking, okay, what's going to save us here? A lot of it is we're going to shoot it all on green screen. So we're not having a crazy locations. And then the parts where he's in a locker room, we shot that on another side of the building. And, um, and just understanding like the editing. there's going to be some parts that I'm going to edit together and cut it together. So let me make sure that I get these long sweeping shots. It's like the more you do it, the more you know what to shoot. So, you know, okay, let me get these long sweeping shots because I can cut between those. And if I were to do it again, I will also understand this. There's a lot of value in the static shots. I thought that I would have to have everything moving to keep the energy and keep it going. But some of the good shots are just where it is static. And then it's a slow push in, or it is just a low angle and it's whatever. So I think the green screen definitely saved us, but also building this before we shot it, building the stadium before we shot it and kind of playing it. It wasn't like an after the fact or afterthought. So it's kind of working in conjunction with each other on not necessarily previs. but just knowing that this is the plan, this is what we're gonna do, these are the team that we're gonna have and just having that in place will come down a pipeline. But that project went way longer than it was supposed to. It went, I shot way past the deadline. And I think that was because I was just in my head, but also I was learning some things along the way. When you haven't done something before, it's like a learning curve.
[Paul DeNigris]: 45:14
Absolutely.
[JR Strickland]: 45:15
I mean, even just the render farm, you know, that was. Now it would have probably been Unreal Engine, but it was just figuring out what render farm works best and how much is that going to cost and trying to budget. Because when you're doing the render farm, for those who don't know, it's just, you're not just using your machine, you're using multiple machines through the internet to render your frames. And you don't know how much it's going to cost until it's done rendering. And so you're trying to budget this and you're like, I don't even know how much this is going to cost, but there's no way. I can do this. That's why real-time rendering is so exciting, because now it probably would have been... Like, you're probably thinking about it too, how you would do it now.
[Paul DeNigris]: 46:01
Mm-hmm.
[JR Strickland]: 46:02
The stadium would have been built in Unreal, and it at least would have been comped live so I could see through the camera what it's gonna look like
[Paul DeNigris]: 46:10
that video would be a perfect candidate for virtual production.
[JR Strickland]: 46:14
Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 46:14
Big, big LED wall, LED floor, fly in a
[JR Strickland]: 46:18
Or not even LED
[Paul DeNigris]: 46:18
panel for the LED ceiling, and then the camera can move any way you want. And the Unreal Engine model just is in the background. And yeah,
[JR Strickland]: 46:27
But even if it’s not the LED, even if it's just the real-time key, even if it's just the real-time key and you see the camera, but then you'll have to just, then I would have a 3D character, I would reanimate the 3D character to get the contacts with the floor and the shadow.
[Paul DeNigris]: 46:46
Well, some stages now have the ability to build an LED floor so you could actually display.
[JR Strickland]: 46:46
Really? I gotta check that out.
[Paul DeNigris]: 46:56
there's still always cleanup, there's seams, things like that, but
[JR Strickland]: 46:59
Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 47:00
it's pretty amazing. I went to NAB earlier this year and virtual production was in literally every booth. Everybody was showing some sort of virtual production
[JR Strickland]: 47:11
Oh wow.
[Paul DeNigris]: 47:12
solution. you know, for doing all kinds of neat stuff. And that's just that it's a lot of it's for broadcast. What I saw, obviously, the National Association of Broadcasters, but like the ability for two artists, one on either side of the country to be able to appear in the same virtual set in real time and interact with each other as if they're in the same space. Like, we're going to see all of that sort of stuff move into the music video space for sure.
[JR Strickland]: 47:39
Yeah, my advice is if you're coming up right now, is to really learn Unreal. I mean, it's free, so really no excuse. But I think that the more you can be good.
[Paul DeNigris]: 47:56
Yeah, right on. Why don't we move on to ZTFO, Big Sean.
[JR Strickland]: 48:01
Yeah, so that one was really small, man. We had a crew of five people, and we shot it at his house. And the beautiful thing about that is, like I said, the director, he really trusts me. Like he trusts me, I'm involved early on, and he says, hey, I got this idea, because we worked together on multiple Big Sean videos, and he said, I got this idea. I want Big Sean. uh floating uh throughout the whole video because it's about him being zen he's like i want him floating at different parts of his house well that's cool and he's like and i wanted to be one like feel like one take it's like okay and he's like and um we didn't have a steady cam we just it was handheld so i'm like okay and then he's like and then at one point i want him floating next to each other well next to himself on the couch i'm like Okay, this is getting more and more complex. And I tell somebody the other day, like, when you're starting off a lot of our job, we can Google or look up, right? So it's TV replacement. And you're like, oh, how do I do a TV replacement? How do I do a phone replacement, screen place, whatever, right? Then as you ascend, it's stuff that you can't Google. It's stuff that you, they're hiring you to figure out how to do it. And that's when you got to use the tool. So like what the buddy is like, I want him flying through the sky. I can't just be like, how do you make somebody fly in the sky dancing on top of a car? You start putting the tool and someone like, I want him floating. It's like, how do you make rapper float in that? You can't do that. So now, and then they said it like, and then the person I was saying it to said, like, yeah, you be, now they Google you. They, there's a YouTube video of somebody breaking down how they think I did it. Yeah, and I, cause I was looking on YouTube and there's like how they did Big Sean. And now there's a precedence for it.
[Paul DeNigris]: 50:01
Mm-hmm.
[JR Strickland]: 50:02
And in theory, you could kind of figure it out, but it's like, you're hired, like when you're coming up, you're hired to be the one to figure it out, figure out how to do it. And so, It's those theories and understanding physics and understanding that because the crew was so small, it was just me, the director, DP, I think like a grip, like and a best boy. And then like Big Sean’s like barber and that was it. And so it felt really indie and it felt like college. The only difference was we actually were like, when I was in college, we were still figuring it out. and I thought it was gonna look good. And then I look at the footage like, this don't look like what I thought it was gonna be. This one, it was just people that was at the top of the games now shooting it like it is an indie thing. And I think that that's why it worked. But the cool thing about working on some of these projects is that you, instead of just seeing you and your friends, you're seeing like one of the biggest artists in the world on your computer, but it's the same, it's the same feeling. of before. So some of the technical parts of that video, I made sure that when we shot him, like he's floating over his pool, but adjacent to his pool, there's grass. And so we shot equal distance. I made sure we shot equal distance so that his, the lens distortion of his body, like the Z depth of his body is equivalent. We didn't take a closeup of him and then put it back over the pool. Cause then even the subtle like distance from his nose to his ear would be off. So we shot the over the pool, measured where he would be over the pool, and then went over the grass, measured where it would be, and then put them on a green apple box. And that way, I'm just literally copying on top of each other and then adding back the shake. Then there's subtle things like the birds in the sky is stock footage that I comped into it. So it starts with these eagles in the sky, and then you come down, then I did subtle sky replacement that you can't see. And it's like all those little kind of tweaks. Then we had the lizard shot, then the hummingbird. The hummingbird was interesting because we pan over, there's a hummingbird sniffing a flower. And we're, at first I'm like, this should be 3D, but then quickly realized that should be stock. So it's a stock footage of a hummingbird, and I roto the wings, but it goes so fast and there's so much blur that it actually like works. You know what I mean? So it's things like that. Then when you go inside the house, I got to release the breakdown. I never released a breakdown. When you go inside the house, the house is completely CG inside. So this is actual house. And then the only way to do it, because the camera was moving like crazy, and he has really reflective floors. So if the floors were not reflective, I could have painted it out. If it was carpet or anything else, it could have probably been painted up. but because it was hardwood floors, you have the reflection of the light on the floor. And as you move in 3D space, the reflection angle changes. So there's no way to paint that out. So.
[Paul DeNigris]: 53:21
So you had him sitting like on a green apple box and
[JR Strickland]: 53:23
green apple boxes.
[Paul DeNigris]: 53:24
filmed it practically and then the final comp is he's the only real thing in the in the shot and you've replaced the entire background with the CG replica of his house?
[JR Strickland]: 53:35
Yes,
[Paul DeNigris]: 53:36
How did you guys manage the CG replica? Did you did you do...
[JR Strickland]: 53:36
Well, I took a
[Paul DeNigris]: 53:40
3d scans or what?
[JR Strickland]: 53:40
lot of reference photos with my camera and then the team that tracked the shots, they gave me a rough outlay. Always give me rough wire frames of the layout of the space. Even with the Kobe with the Fro video, they give me the green screen as a wire frame.
[Paul DeNigris]: 54:01
Oh, great.
[JR Strickland]: 54:01
So I see. like the geometry of the green screen. So when I put Cal in the thing, I see the green screen geometry and where he is. So when they gave, when I got the Sean footage back, I have rough where the stairs are. I have like rough where everything in the place is. It's not exact, but it's like rough. And then I created it.
[Paul DeNigris]: 54:27
So it sounds like you're doing, you're almost doing tech viz
[JR Strickland]: 54:31
Yeah, interior design literally is interior design. And finding the right materials to put over. Again, now it would be Unreal Engine and it'll be a real time. But I mean, not real time on set, but it'd be a real time render of what the place looks like. I will put them on a card and have the interior of his, but just finding the right textures, finding the wood texture, making sure it's to scale, finding the texture of the fridge. But like, yeah, I model like so much. I modeled the entire inside of his place. got chairs. Again, I have OCD, so I have to balance it because I'm like, this isn't the right chair. And I'm like, but nobody's going to know it's not the right chair. But that's why when you go into the house, the piano floats because the piano was CG because everything was CG anyway. So I said, I might as well just float this piano up when you come into it.
[Paul DeNigris]: 55:23
Yeah. I knew the piano was CG. I didn't know that the house was CG.
[JR Strickland]: 55:27
But that's why it worked.
[Paul DeNigris]: 55:27
I was like, okay, they're, they are, you know, doing a, like a card projection, 3d projection paint out to paint out the, the Apple box under him. Like I was, I was trying to see the scene, how it would play out in nuke. It didn't never even occurred to me that you, you would have modeled the entire house.
[JR Strickland]: 55:43
Oh, that's awesome. That's like the biggest compliment because it's only, like I said, it's only because of reflections. Because if you watch it again, you go behind them and there's a window, like a door in the distance and it's white underneath, but the reflections move and that paint out would never, it would never work. But also I don't know if the director knows that it's a, because I made sure to not tell him until like, cause I knew if I told the director, that this is fake, I would get notes
[Paul DeNigris]: 56:15
You'd get notes on it
[JR Strickland]: 56:16
this doesn't look real. So I knew if I were to say, oh, the background's fake, they'd be like, oh, wait, but, oh, that does look a little fun. That chair looks a little off. This,[Paul DeNigris]: Mm-hmm. you know, the floor looks a little, so I didn't tell anybody until the project was out and it was released. And I still don't think I've technically told the director, but I knew that's just the stuff you learned. You agree, if you were to tell somebody something was fake. they will automatically start saying, oh it does.
[Paul DeNigris]: 56:45
Yeah, yeah. It's like, you know, ILM during the development of Iron Man, right?
[JR Strickland]: 56:51
Yeah, oh yeah,
[Paul DeNigris]: 56:52
They showed John Favreau two shots. One of the practical armor and one of the CG armor and didn’t tell him which was which And he picked and he was like, this one, we need to go with the real one. It looks so much better. And they're like, you're pointing at the CG one.
[JR Strickland]: 57:04
No, exactly. And then Sean, he has a statue of that Buddha, and we had to make that float, but it's so reflective that you can't just get a scan of it. You know, it's like a statue that's fully reflective. So I just got some reference pictures and had an artist sculpt it in 3D and then texture that in 3D, and that way we have control. But the fun part is, the parts that you don't know, like it's reflected in the glass. So it was like putting a glass and then reflected in that glass too. And then the depth of field. And, and so we, we ran the camera rehearsal to time everything out with the Buddha there going in, coming out. And then we place it with a C-stand and then, and then did it. So there's a split where it goes from the fake, from the fake kitchen to like the real back to the real world. But we, even though it's handheld, we ran to multiple times so that we understood where we're gonna be and where the camera is gonna be and where the eyelines are gonna be and where Sean's gonna be and things like that. And that made us have the control over it. But I'm really proud of how that video turned out. And then the cool thing about it too is, when they colored it, they ran it through film. So after they colored it, they ran it through a film process. So it has like kind of a film look on it, but that handheld shakiness. I just have really good people that are really good at tracking because that would have probably annoyed me. But it helps sell it a little bit because it's that.
[Paul DeNigris]: 58:43
Yeah, it's neat. The film grain and scratches and stuff kind of give it this homemade lo fi kind of feel. But then it's obvious that there's a whole bunch of really advanced techniques to pull off all the illusions that are that are happening in there. Yeah. So it's a it's a nice
[JR Strickland]: 58:51
exactly.
[Paul DeNigris]: 58:51
blend. A nice blend.
[JR Strickland]: 58:51
Exactly,
[Paul DeNigris]: 58:51
Sounds
[JR Strickland]: 58:51
no,
[Paul DeNigris]: 58:59
like
[JR Strickland]: 58:59
I appreciate
[Paul DeNigris]: 58:59
you guys.
[JR Strickland]: 59:00
that.
[Paul DeNigris]: 59:00
Yeah, sounds like you
[JR Strickland]: 59:00
No,
[Paul DeNigris]: 59:01
guys
[JR Strickland]: 59:01
I'm
[Paul DeNigris]: 59:01
spent.
[JR Strickland]: 59:01
glad
[Paul DeNigris]: 59:01
Yeah.
[JR Strickland]: 59:01
we fooled you. I'm glad we, I'm glad, it's like a magician. It's like, okay, you can fool another magician. Yeah, I was really proud of
[Paul DeNigris]: 59:12
Yeah, that's fantastic. Why don't we switch gears and talk about your short film A Minor, which I watched before we recorded and I think is awesome. Fantastic performances, beautiful photography, and a star turn from your lead actress, who I think we're gonna see some interesting stuff from in the future.
[JR Strickland]: 59:32
Yeah, we've auditioned 100 people for that. Like I literally auditioned over 100 people for those four roles, because I know how critical it is. And my background has always been directing, like even in college, my major is filming video, but the concentration is directing. So it's kind of getting back into that mode. You know, you get out here and then you start advancing in your career. And I just always looked up to like George Lucas and... James Cameron and people that are able to have their VFX company, but also, you know, be, be storytellers. And so I had this idea that irony is there's minimum VFX in the actual, in the actual short, you know, you would think I would make this crazy sci-fi whatever, but it's like whatever just serves the story. But it's a, it's a story about a young, a young girl, 16 years old who wants to be a singer and her parents kind of don't really understand what she's trying to do. So she takes matters into her own hand. And the benefit I had is that I'm able to have connections now that I didn't have before, like working in this industry and working with people on some of the biggest music videos and projects in the world. Then you just get people that really are good at what they do. And so Anthony Camada, he's my DP and he- And then I also have a story for each part of it. So with the cinematography, I want to have a story with it. So I wanted to make sure, you know, when she's doing her art, it's very colorful and it's very, very vibrant. But when she's not doing her art, it's very monochromatic and it's very dull and it's very, you know, and so you see hints of, even when she goes to her room, there's like a little more color in her room, but it's still dull. It's not until. she goes out into the world, whether it's the opening scene or whether it's in the middle, where we really start feeling this vibrance to it. And I know a lot of times with independent projects and short films, there's kind of a grace that we like to give people. We kind of like to grade it on a curve. And I didn't want it to be graded on a curve. I didn't want to say, oh, it looks good for a short film or it looks good for an indie project. I just wanted to say like, it looks good. You know what I mean? And that's why having... Vanda, my producer, Vanda Lee on it, and just everybody that helped. It's even what we were talking about before with the sound, like making sure I have somebody that's really good with the sound mixing on it, making sure that the resources that I built, I used to work out of that music studio and just using that as a resource. So, and just like honestly, like people just kind of believing in you and supporting you and friends and family and. You know, like my girlfriend at the time making sacrifices. It's like everybody kind of pitching in and then you, you see that what you're creating in your vision is actually like literally employing people and like allowing people to, to live out their dreams. So I'm really excited to, to do more of that. I have some features that I'm working on and a feature that, um, it's just tough because There's just levels to it. So there's like, okay, this feature will be this budget, but this feature, you know, will be this budget and just making all of that work. But the response to A Minor has been amazing. And now it's released publicly. So I encourage everybody to just go watch it and let me know what you think. But like everybody that's watched it, we had a screening in Chicago and we had a screening in LA. And one of the biggest compliments is afterwards, they're not talking about the techniques first. The first conversations are. Oh man, like the story, you know what I mean? And then we get into, you know, how'd you do it? But one of the biggest compliments is that the first reaction is, oh, the story. And we really dive into that. So that's what I'm proud of.
[Paul DeNigris]: 1:03:33
Yeah, I think it works fantastic as a short because you really quickly, uh, endear the character to the audience. Like we really, you know, start to feel for her. I'm, and maybe it's because I'm, I'm an artist and I've had those conversations across the table. I imagine, I imagine some of that comes from, uh, comes from a autobiographical, uh, sources, you know, having that conversation. Like, are you really going to be an artist for your, for your life? When don't you want to do something? that's going to pay the bill,
[JR Strickland]: 1:04:01
Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 1:04:02
having that conversation. So immediately I was in her corner rooting for her. And I saw where the story was going, but I was hoping and hoping and crossing my fingers. I'm like, don't take the story in that direction.
[JR Strickland]: 1:04:15
Yeah.
[Paul DeNigris]: 1:04:15
You did, but where you put a twist on it was her response to what happens to her.
[JR Strickland]: 1:04:22
Yeah. And it's like, and it's just like, it's what comes first too, you know? Things could be different if this happens and these could be different if this happens. And sometimes there's anxiety and feeling like something's gonna happen and you don't know if it's gonna happen or how it's gonna happen and how they're gonna respond to it. So it's just keeping that, keeping that at the forefront and really just focusing on the story. I feel like sometimes I try to write a theme but sometimes it's better just to write the story and then let the theme kind of just. happen. And it's like, these are the events that happen and these are the dramatic events that happen. And you just follow it along because you really are rooting for her. You're really, really rooting for her. Do you know which shot is CG in there?
[Paul DeNigris]: 1:05:06
No.
[JR Strickland]: 1:05:06
There's a matte painting in there. There’s a matte painting of it's the car and then it's the city and that city is completely matte painted. Because the location closed at night. And so we had to shoot at a park. And so at the park, it's just trees. And then there's a lot of roto. There's a lot of roto and a lot of... And so what I did for the matte painting is first, I had a picture, because it's supposed to be looking over LA. First, it was just a picture, but it looked weird. Then I had to make the picture look really grainy and really bad, because obviously, it's at night, so there's a lot of grain. It still looked a little off. So what I did was me and my friend went to fly a drone. We flew the drone where that picture was taking of the city. And then, so I can get the twinkle of the lights. So the drone quality wasn't high enough to just use the drone, but it was high enough to get the exposure of the lights. So then I overlaid the drone on top of the picture. And so the lights dance because although those are the lights from then, but the rest of it is clear because it's a picture. And so that's a comp, you know, it's not, I'm talking about, right?
[Paul DeNigris]: 1:06:24
Yeah, I do. I do. And again, I bought that as they went up on Mulholland and shot the classic La La Land shot, you know.
[JR Strickland]: 1:06:35
And that's frustrating that nobody knows. Like it's good that nobody knows, but it's frustrating because I had to roto so much, but it's such a crucial part of the movie that it has to be an invisible effect. And I feel like that's where sometimes it's kind of fun. It's stressful because you're like, why am I doing the most crucial part and the most moving part? And it has to be a hidden effect. But what we're talking about with the Cal video and stuff before when you're planning something and you're trying to figure out how to save money and how to make it economical. And honestly, it will, it will be way more dangerous to shoot at an actual overlook where people can get hurt, you can fall, like it's not enough space. So it was cool just to have us park that we had all the space we needed. And then I replaced the background. But Roto in that is Roto in that is no joke, but even just I'm really happy though I had the lights twinkling because that, but that goes to the references. When you're looking at a video and you're like, why does this look real? Why are you like, because it's not moving. I mean, we see that when people use CG trees, like if you use a picture of a tree, like none of the leaves are moving. And then if you go to 3D trees, some of the leaves move just a little bit. And it's like that subtle thing. My friend who I talk to all the time. He catches those things. He's not even necessarily a VFX artist. He's just my friend. But he'll say, man, this looks fake because the trees ain't moving. And he's like, yeah, that stuff doesn't make a difference.
[Paul DeNigris]: 1:08:06
Yeah, it's the details that the audience often won't notice, but they'll notice if they're not there.
[JR Strickland]: 1:08:14
And like you said, people can really relate to this. Like I showed Jay Shetty the film and he immediately was like, man, I relate to this because like my parents, it's like whatever, when you're following your dream and following your goal, that's what people relate to. So it's for anybody with a dream, pretty much, that can relate to this story. And you really do root for her. And she's... Her name's Anani Taylor, she's amazing. Like she, and she really has that voice. Like in the auditions,
[Paul DeNigris]: 1:08:49
Awesome.
[JR Strickland]: 1:08:49
I made her sing Whitney Houston and some of the other girls in the other room almost just walked out because she was so loud and so boisterous. And I was like, she's amazing. And props to just the whole crew because they're dynamics and working together. Yeah, I could talk about it forever, but go check it out and like definitely let me know what you think. It's just A Minor. Look up A Minor Movie on Instagram, aminormovie.com, or it's on Vimeo. Yeah, just let me know what you think.
[Paul DeNigris]: 1:09:17
I will include the links in the show notes for this one. My last thought on A Minor is it's a really textbook example of making the story specific and by making it so specific, you make it universal. I'm about the furthest thing away from a 16-year-old black girl, but I really, really rooted for her and identified with her. So kudos.
[JR Strickland]: 1:09:41
thank you, I appreciate that. Even hearing people's perspective, where you come from also affects how you view it. My grandma, when she watches it, feels a certain way. Her relatability from a parent standpoint, sometimes women's point of view from the little girl, sometimes men's point of view, where they don't understand what's going on. I've had that too. It's like, when does... when do things start to click? And depending on somebody's personal experience, so like starting to click right away, it's starting to click later, what people are hoping for, what the reality is, it's like, it all kind of depends on the person's experience. I feel like in a way it's a film, but I like to think of it as a piece of art, as well as like an art piece where you can interpret it. And I'm trying to get better at that, knowing what am I writing that might be more commercially like accepted? in terms of a feature or whatever. And then what do I want to live as just a thought-provoking art piece and get out of my head on, is this good or is this bad? It's not like, no, no. When people finish this, they're gonna think about this. And that is the goal of this specific project or just to create and tell a good story. So I'm glad you enjoyed it.
[Paul DeNigris]: 1:11:00
Yeah, thanks. And you are obviously a storyteller. Every piece that you do, whether it's making a music artist float through his CG house or telling a personal story, it's all storytelling, right? We're pushing pixels around, but ultimately we're telling stories. If we're not connecting with the audience, if we're not helping the director tell the story, then we're not doing our job. So kudos to you. J.R., thanks so much for being part of the show. I really appreciate you spending your time and sharing your insights with the audience. Again, I will put all of J.R.'s links and links to the music videos that we've discussed and to his film, A Minor. I'll put those in the show notes. And if you enjoyed the show, if you're watching on YouTube, if you wouldn't mind hitting the like and subscribe button and also leave me a comment if there's something you wanna ask J.R. or you wanna ask me or you wanna see me cover in a future episode. Please share it. If you're listening to the audio only version of the show on one of the multitude of podcast aggregators out there, please leave us a follow and a star review and let us know what you think of the show. For VFX for Indies and for everybody at Foxtrot X-Ray and for JR Strickland and everyone at Nocturnal Effects, I thank you so much for your time.
[JR Strickland]: 1:12:20
Peace.
