Nova: Using VFX and Practical Makeup to Bring an Innovative Horror Sci-Fi Short to Gory Life

Ever wondered how the movie magic of low budget indie films comes to life? Join us as we pull back the curtain on the award-winning sci-fi horror short film NOVA. Our esteemed guests for this enlightening chat include the brilliant minds behind NOVA: Kelly Kula, Miguel Amodio, David McAbee, and David Smith. They share their incredible journeys in the film industry, fascinating experiences on the set of NOVA, and current projects that are sure to pique your interest.

We offer a compelling exploration of the realities of producing low-budget indie films, emphasizing the pivotal role of pre-production planning in implementing visual effects and the value of having a VFX representative on set. Join us as we shine a light on the complex process of creating an effective visual effects sequence for an indie film's unique challenges. We'll discuss everything from crafting an authentic throw-up scene to finding the perfect sound effects and the importance of actors' performance and consistency in making visual effects believable.

Get ready for a deep dive into the VFX production process from the creative geniuses behind NOVA and For the Love of Jessee. Learn from their experiences, from navigating a two-day shoot to making smart choices with time and money, culminating in dozens of festival appearances and awards. Listen in as we discuss the significance of the visual effects enhancing the story rather than detracting from it. Prepare to be inspired and educated by this insightful discussion on filmmaking, visual effects, and the journey to success in the indie film space. Tune in and let's explore the world of indie filmmaking together!

Watch Nova

Watch For the Love of Jessee

Plate Pros website

Carstage website

Transcript

Paul DeNigris: [00:00:00] A well-meaning scientist finds herself infected by a possibly intelligent parasite as her experiment goes awry, as the camera orbits around her in a seemingly unbroken take. We watch as the parasite overtakes her body and she deteriorates before our very eyes This week on the VFX for Indies podcast.

Today with me is the team behind an award-winning crazy gruesome sci-fi horror short that my team and I had the absolute pleasure of doing incredibly gnarly visual effects for titled Nova and the team here, we've got Kelly Kula. Producer and actor. Miguel Modio, [00:01:00] editor, David Maccabee, writer, director, and David Smith.

Cinematographer. Welcome to the podcast guys. Howdy. It's good to be here. Yeah, great to be here. Let's start really quickly just with introductions and sort of career highlights and we'll we'll we'll, we'll go ladies first. So Kelly, let's hear from you. Awesome.

Kelly Kula: Yeah, my name is Kelly Kula. I am an actress by trade, and honestly, it sounds silly, but Nova was one of my career highlights just because of the team that you're about to meet and all the accolades that we receive from the work that we did.

I work for Plate Pros where I am the C C O or the Chief Content Officer. So I am basically a stock librarian for 360 footage. And with that I get to actually interact with a lot of more filmmakers than I thought possible. So that's really, really exciting. And right now we're just working on independent.

Feature films and short films because the Rider strike is definitely affecting us, but we're remaining creative in the meantime. Right

Paul DeNigris: on. Right on. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. [00:02:00] Let's move to David Smith. Speaking of Plate Pros.

David C. Smith: Sure. Yeah, so I work with Kelly out for quite some time. So I'm David Smith.

I'm a cinematographer by trade. Although I've been involved in over my career did a lot of editing, a lot of VFX even did some gapping back in the day. So have, have had my my fingers in, in just kind of every, every piece of the filmmaking pie, I guess. And for Nova was the cinematographer.

And we also had an opportunity to invent a couple of camera rigs that were pretty instrumental to the way that that particular project came together. I'm also the founder of Plate Pros, so the company that Kelly was mentioning and then also am a a co-owner of another company that's tangential to that called the Car Stage.

So kind of involved in the VFX and now more the in-camera VFX virtual production side of things. Generally I'm a tinkerer an engineer, and I like to build cool things to make storytelling [00:03:00] better.

Paul DeNigris: Awesome. Welcome David McAbee.

David McAbee: Hi, David McAbee, writer, director producer on a good day. It's, it's, I think it's really funny how I know, I guess the four of you, but the three of these, these lovely humans.

I, I've been in the industry for close to 15, 15 years, Matt, David Smith in my first year of, of working production and figuring out where I kind of fit in in the production world. But as far as Nova goes, Nova and, and for the love of Jesse are definitely my two pinnacle moments as far as my career goes.

And they both have to do with everybody here, which is really cool. But Nova, I mean, it's, it's everything that I. Grew up watching rad horror stuff, and then I got to dip my toe into new technology with

Paul DeNigris: you guys. Fantastic. And then last but not least, Miguel, who was instrumental in [00:04:00] introducing me to this crew.

So Miguel, yeah. Tell us

Miguel Amodio: about yourself. Yeah. Hi, I, I am Miguel as you stated. Been an editor for almost 20 years, which is crazy when I think about that now. Dabbled with camera a long time ago until I met people that were better at than me and realized that my place was, was behind a computer screen making the hard choices and, you know, pissing off a director's.

No, no, I, I, I, I've been, I've been cutting narratives now for. Probably the last 10 years, pretty consistently content, I should say, narrative style content. And yeah man, what I, I got a few features in the works, Jesse and Nova. I have some edits in they, [00:05:00] they great. They gave me that opportunity to edit Nova, but it, it really is it's funny how, how you, you really don't see my edits in Nova at all, which we're okay with.

Like, we were very okay with that. So yeah, happy to be here and, and surrounded by some really wonderful people.

Paul DeNigris: Right on. It's been a while since I've seen all four of you. I think the last time we saw each other in person was actually at the premier of for the love of Jesse up in Wickenburg, Arizona.

Just an hour up the road from where I am right now. And before we get into Nova, 'cause that, that's really the, the, the topic because it's got a lot of juicy technology stuff that I want to dive into. Before we get into that, I do want to talk about for the love of Jesse because it is much more sort of the typical project that, that me and my crew work on.

Indie drama, small character-based story-based, not a no in your face, visual effects, lots of subtle [00:06:00] work all there to support the story. Yeah. So McAfee, since you, you mentioned Jesse earlier, what, can you just give us a quick, you know, sort of the, the back of the D V D cover if they still have those the back of the D V D cover synopsis of the movie.

David McAbee: Back of the beach. I I'll give you the back now. You beat me to it. You beat me to it. Yes. The, the quick rundown on for the love of Jesse is Dr. Luke Matthews loses his wife while she's giving birth to their, to their child. And in that process he goes through a big life changing moment of becoming a dad, excuse me, and losing his partner.

And then he hires a nanny to help with the baby and in turn, falls in love and happily ever after. I lost my wife

David C. Smith: and became a father in the same hour. These things will not fix themselves. So I will stay here for a little while. But you are hiring help[00:07:00]

when as wanted someone to talk to Sage, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't

Paul DeNigris: there when, when you

David C. Smith: lost the baby.

I hope you're not here to interview dress like that interview. Well, I am looking to hire

Miguel Amodio: a nanny. Are you

David C. Smith: serious,

Miguel Amodio: Luke? Are you interested?

Paul DeNigris: Again, you, you hear that and you go, okay, where are the visual effects? We're not, You know, we're not creating digital creatures, nobody's, you know, snapping half the universe into into dust or anything like that.

It's,

David C. Smith: although sequel, the sequel is sounding like it could be really cool

for the, for the revenge of Jesse, I think that that's what's for the

Paul DeNigris: revenge of Jesse. There you go. Yeah. The revenge

Miguel Amodio: of Jesse, revenge of Kelly with an eye.

Paul DeNigris: So how did the, you know, at this is the [00:08:00] kind of movie where you didn't, visual effects probably weren't part of the plan when you were filming. It was, it was, you know, you, you just went about it like a, like a normal indie film shoot.

At what point did it become obvious, or did it, was, at what point was the decision made to say, okay, hey Miguel, we, you know, we need to, we need to get some VFX in here. At which point Miguel then called me and said, Hey, we need to get some VFX into this movie. How, how did that happen? Oh, well,

David McAbee: if I remember correctly, Miguel, it probably was on our 10th cut of the film getting, getting down to the wire of, of delivering it.

And we're noticing, again, not big things, but just small things that would add to the story. And, and the beauty of, of what Wickenburg Wickenburg is, are the big starry skies and maybe replacing a name or two on a business. And we obviously can't use Vaughn's Grocery Store, but we can use Wickenburg Outlet or Wickenburg Grocery.

Right. And [00:09:00] it was, it was knowing that if we added a little effects, it would just make the screen pop a little more and, and no one would notice except for us. It wasn't, it wasn't a Nova type thing where we're stitching, where you guys are stitching all this, all these things together. It's, let's put some starry skies and replace that sign.

Yeah. Or the the time-lapse at the bar, putting some neon signs and make those pop a little more the day

Miguel Amodio: for night. The day for night stuff. The Oh, the

David McAbee: day for night stuff. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

David C. Smith: Mm-hmm. Well, even when we were shooting too, so Paul, we, before we knew that you were an option and, and it, you know, it was an incredibly ambitious shoot on a very, very tight budget.

I think that's probably the understatement of the century. And so while we were shooting so little things like the grocery store sign that's was up, you know, I have a, a tiny, tiny bit of of history in VFX. And so while we're shooting, I was like, well, that's probably something I could do on my own if I had to like, just, just little things, sign, [00:10:00] replacement, that sort of stuff.

So we would shoot it with the idea in mind that if push came to shove, we could kind of take care of the little stuff in house. But then once, once we got into the cut, and, and that's really where it was amazing once you came on board is now that opened it up where it wasn't just what kind of, you know, silly little things can we do in after effects.

We were now we're able to step up the quality level and, and that opened up, yeah, I think more opportunity to do more fixes than I think even while we were shooting, we thought would've been possible. So end result was significantly better.

Miguel Amodio: That, that was, that was a big thing. I, I advocated for a lot of this because when we, when we started the editing process Smith, you know, David Smith had, you know, had, had said, I'll handle whatever we need to do inhouse.

But as David Smith mentioned during his intro, he's got a lot of hands in things and [00:11:00] he always has. So he's incredibly busy. And then to task him with, Hey, we need a sign replacement, or a day for night. Like there was no world. We were, we were already, between Smith and I, we were working on a couple of short films that were just like in Post Hell and they, these were like low no budget project where people were really expecting, and, and David, to his credit, had also helped do some VFX on another feature that his wife had shot.

And, and again, just like three or four little things, you know, can be incredibly time consuming if you days are, you know, top to bottom with doing a hundred different things. And, and especially that not being is. Realm per se, even if he's got that experience. It was really clear to me that if, if we had a, if we had any chance, it was like, we're gonna have to get that solved.

And you and I [00:12:00] had had the good fortune of meeting on Iman's Toppled project years ago, and I always remember being really, really impressed with just the work that you were doing at that level for like, literally no budget. And I had always wanted to work with you. And so when the opportunity, you know, came about, I, I I pimp you out big time.

But it was one of those, it was one of those things that I was, McAfee could tell you. I was, I was in the edit debate, actively trying to make for the love of Jesse a Star Wars fan film. And he wasn't going for it. I kept saying, we need to make this the most unexpected Star Wars fan film. But, but it, it really you, that's one of those things where I, I.

I think you think there's three shots, right? You think, ah, it's just three shots. And then before you know it, you're going down the list and you're like, shit, we've got like five shots, 10 shots. Oh man, we've got like 20 shots. That really, when you really start picking it [00:13:00] apart, you're like, well, if we're gonna do the work, let's, let's do this work.

Right? And but I, I think what we, what we collectively all sort of, when we did that work and we were able to put those lists together and, and, and bring you on board, I think it really helped just keep you engaged in the film without it pulling you out because of something that just feels off because we didn't have time to go shoot it or, you know, do it ourselves correctly.

It's like always better when you can hand it off to people that are laser focused on a. A skillset.

David C. Smith: Yeah. I, I think that is, it's a common trap and it's a trap that Miguel helped us avoid, but I think it's something especially on, on the indie podcast Yeah. That we're talking. Okay. But let's talk about VFX for indie film.

I think that's a big thing, is really being realistic [00:14:00] with yourself about what you could, or what you should take on as, as a low budget indie production, because it's really easy for things to spiral outta control. And how many projects have we heard about that never saw the light of day? Because, you know, they're, they're waiting on VFX, they're waiting on the final sound mix.

They're waiting on final color. You know, there, it, it, it, when you're in a no budget scenario, it's really easy to feel like, okay, well I'll just take that on myself. Not realizing that there's lots of, there's lots of help out there and you just have to ask for it. And you have to be passionate about the project and, and find the right people.

That can help you get it across the finish line. 'cause honestly, if, if we decide to do it in-house, we might still be waiting to see what the final product looked like. So, yeah. Yep.

Paul DeNigris: Right on. And, and how many films have we, you know, have been shot that never see the light of day? Because legal, you know, the distributor, the distributors legal department is like we can't have all these Heineken and [00:15:00] Bud Light signs all over this bar scene.

You gotta get rid of them and they don't have the budget for it. Right, right. And that was, that was an example. You know, we, we had a couple of these These shots in and around the tavern the bar in your film. And I, I distinctly remember, you know, painting out Heineken and stuff like that because it's one, it's not cleared.

Two, they're not paying to have their logo there. Three, it's distracting, and four, it was already a visual effect shot. So let's, let's just kill these and just streamline it. So it's not, it's not like in the middle of this, this dramatic, you know, potentially tear jerking scene. It's all of a sudden like, yeah, drink Heineken.

Miguel Amodio: I learned a lot, I learned a lot from that experience because that was the first song I had worked with anyone at your, at your level. And I think it was, it was a lesson for all of us, right? Mm-hmm. Like it was a lesson for, well, maybe not David Smith, but for McAbee and I, and, and even Kelly who, who was around watching, watching the long hours and nights [00:16:00] that, you know, McAbee and I were like cutting this film and, and trying to put it together.

It was a lesson, right? It was a lesson of like, oh, this is the shit it takes. Like this is how much it costs. I think, you know, a project, we won't go into it, but a project recently that, that, you know, I had brought to you that you had to respectfully decline for very good reasons, was another education on me, on, on even the breakdown of what it costs per shot.

When you came back and you're like, dude, the amount that they're asking for number of shots versus how much they're willing to pay is like 30 or 40 bucks per shot. It's like fucking nothing. And I remember, and I already remember thinking, oh my God, like this list is out of control. But wow. Okay. Also good to note $40 a shot.

Not appropriate. Not that I didn't think that it was before, but, but it's just more ammunition for me in the future. [00:17:00] When I'm considering bringing anything to you or other VFX people, like what, what the expectation should be

David McAbee: as far as FX go on, Jesse. It, it was kind of the linchpin of the whole experience that made it feel legit.

I had only directed one short before that and, and, and a bunch of reality stuff, but never a, a, a feature. This was my first feature, so I had Smith who I had all my faith in, so camera done. Now I gotta focus creatively on actors. We got some amazing talent. One of them sitting with us today. Done. We got it.

And then getting into post and learning and watching Miguel do his magic, and then getting to that last point of the story where we just need things to pop or be covered and watching how it is supposed to be done gave me faith in future projects that are like, okay. It, not only can it be done, it will be done.[00:18:00]

And it's, and it's a good like, seamless process throughout the whole way.

David C. Smith: So something, there's a, a, a phrase, there's a phrase that you hear a lot that it makes everybody cringe, fix it and post, right? Like, that's, that's the worst phrase you can ever hear. But it actually can be an incredibly important and valuable tool.

But for me, it's fix it in pre, like I, a friend of mine, a V FX supervisor, a friend of mine has a t-shirt that I, I keep asking him to make me a copy of that just says, fix it in pre And for me, I have that shirt, the, the fix it in post idea. So long as you're doing it, knowing what you're getting yourself into, I think where, where fix it and post has gotten a bad rap is because people just assume that it's easy.

And so they just go, whatever The problem of the moment is, I don't have to worry about it. Somebody else is gonna take care of it later on. That's the wrong approach to fix it in post. But if you go into a problem, 'cause just like we were talking about a second ago, make sure you turn the neon sign [00:19:00] off, you know, do what you can on the day, but there is going to be some things that you can't do, and there's gonna be some things that you realize that that actually is a much easier fix later than, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna get a cherry picker out and we're gonna rip the sign off the front of the building.

Right. There's, there are some things that, that fixing it on the day just won't work, or is way harder to do than you know, a simple replace. Mm-hmm. Right. But the key there is, especially for low budget, is knowing who's gonna do your VFX before the shoot. And if you have the ability to have a VFX representative on set as a VFX supervisor, or even just making sure that your DP has a chance to have a conversation, a meaningful conversation with the person who's gonna be doing those fixes, that can help, you know, When is that the right choice and when is it a, a suicidal disaster?

And, and sometimes the thing that feels really difficult turns out to be super easy and the thing that feels [00:20:00] super easy turns out to be a killer. And the more of that you can decide ahead of time, the, you know, for, to Miguel's point on the other project where he's approaching you for a budget after the thing's already been shot.

Unfortunately then the die is cast, right? Like, there's not a whole lot. It's either gonna, it's gonna sink or swim based on the decisions that were previously made. So as much as you can front load those choices, you're gonna have a much better time.

Paul DeNigris: Absolutely. And that, that particular movie that, that Miguel was talking about, about half of those shots were fixes to a costume that had they just pumped the brakes for half hour and let the costumer sew in some additional Velcro so the costume wasn't splitting apart and revealing that it wasn't a creature, but it was a guy in a suit that half hour.

Okay, everybody. Take a break, let the customer fix this thing, and then we'll, we'll, I get it. Like, you're on set, you're burning money, you're burning daylight. Like it's the pressure of being on set. [00:21:00] Been there, done that. That's why I sit behind my computer now and don't go on set because it's, it's, it's insanity.

Right? I totally get it. But had there been a V VFX person, had the director gone, Hey, this is a problem. Can we fix this in post? If I were there, I would've been like, sure, but is that really why, where you wanna spend your money, right? We're gonna talk thousands of dollars of paint outs or pump the brakes.

Everybody go to lunch early. Let's fix this on set. Right? It's figuring out where you want. You know, time and money are always our enemy in pre-production and production and post, and it's figuring out where do you wanna spend that time? Where do you wanna spend that money? And doing it smartly so that, yeah, yeah.

You can get you, when you spend money on a, on a company like ours to do video effects for you. Are we doing something cool that helps tell the story? Or are we just fixing fuckups that could have been fixed in five minutes on set? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So yeah. And there [00:22:00] was one, one thing I wanted to note where I learned, right?

So Miguel, you said it was a big learning experience for you. I try to learn something on every project and take something from every project forward into, into the future. So there was this one shot in Jesse where you guys had this long dolly steady cam move through the er, and it's this big emotional scene, and all the monitors, all the, the vital sign monitors are blank.

And you know, after the fact you guys said, oh, it'd be great if we could populate these with, with something, right? So that it doesn't feel like we were just shooting in an empty empty, in an empty er. So I said, cool, we can do that. We'll, we'll, we'll add all that. Send me the footage. And I killed myself for days trying to track this footage, right?

I couldn't, I couldn't get a solve. I tried it in every. Piece of software. And every piece of software was just e either giving me weird results or failing to solve. And I was like, I don't understand. It is a fairly straightforward just dolly push-in what is [00:23:00] going on. And so I, I started to track individual points.

I'm like, I, okay, if I can't get the, the, the automatic trackers to build a point cloud, I'm gonna do it manually. I'm gonna track all these points. And I started to look at it like microscopically. And all of a sudden I saw the, like, the shapes of things in the background were like warping, you know, there was like a computer terminal sitting on a desk, and all of a sudden it went from being a box to sort of doing this warp.

And I was like, Hey, Miguel, is there a warp stabilizer on here? Our old friend Adobe Premiere, right? The, the Warp stabilizer, which a lot of filmmakers love, right? Because again, time and money being your enemy, you, you shoot it as, as steadily as you possibly can. And you know the little tiny bumps, you go, oh, warp stabilizer.

Take care of that. Drop it on there, click, analyze. Looks good. Let's move on. And you forget it's there. And I was like, Miguel, I think something's going on here. I think Adobe screwed us. Can I see it without the warp stabilizer? And sure enough, the second he gave it to me at track. Perfect. [00:24:00] And now it's one of those things, it's like in my contract now with new clients.

Yeah. Like you must remove all effects. From the timeline, which is crazy,

Miguel Amodio: you know? And, and so that was, that was the David McAfee decision. He said, I don't think Paul is working hard enough. We should make his life more difficult. Put warps, I believe, warp stabilizer on there. I just make his life a little bit of valid.

And I said, I don't think that's appropriate. So here I am throwing him under a bus. 'cause

Paul DeNigris: it's his fault. Really. No, I, I totally appreciate it. I, I love a good naughty challenge. You know, when, when it's like, how do we fi, how do we figure this out? Of course, I like it to be, you know, something a little more flashy than just simply a, you know, a a a simple monitor track.

But again, if I learn something, I, I feel like the project was worth it. Right? Well, and, and you've money, money aside, every, everything else aside. Like, if I learn something, if I get better at what I do, by, by helping you guys make your movie better, then it's win. It's win, win, win. Like we, [00:25:00] you know, everybody comes away with something that, that really helps them career wise.

So, and that's why like, I hope we didn't have any. Well,

David C. Smith: you guys brought Nova Stabilizer. I was gonna say, I hope we didn't have any stabilizer on Nova.

Paul DeNigris: No, no. So the fact that I love good naughty problems to solve you know, it, it sort of tickles the part of my brain that once was a mechanical engineering student before I caught the film bug and switched.

That when I heard the idea for Nova, I was like, yes, we're in a hundred percent. Let's do this. So somebody give me again, give me the, the, the, the back of the DVD or the below below the video on YouTube synopsis of Nova.

Kelly Kula: Basically, it's just an idea of a scientist who creates something that she believes is going to help humanity.

And when she discovers the opposite is true. It's that timeline of figuring out how you can undo you wrong before you die. So the [00:26:00] urgency and the frustration and the passion and the fright. I mean, it was just a combination of all those things, but just trying to undo a wrong within five minutes when your whole life's work is behind it.

And the the drama

David McAbee: ensues.

I got the idea shortly after working on Jesse. I wanted to see, I wanted to see the deterioration of somebody and it was like, is it a zombie thing? Is it a vampire thing? But seeing something in like one real take of someone just melting, deteriorating from life all the way to death.

And and then that's kind of how Nova was, was, was born. And I pitched it to, to the team here. And again, I. I always say this, but I think I was born in the wrong decade. 'cause I'm always thinking like 15 years too or too late. Like, we'll just get a dolly track and we'll put it around our actor and we'll cut behind the [00:27:00] head and easy breezy.

There's our horror, horror movie. And then I, I pitch this to Smith, who, who, who liked the idea or liked the story at least, or liked my beard that day. I don't know. But classic be all the above. Yeah, classic Smith goes, yeah, it's cool, but we can do better. We can go bigger. And I'm just like, okay, what's bigger?

What's better? More cameras, less cameras. And, and that's where it was for me. Really fucking cool to watch each person here individually go like, okay, I got this. I'll take it. I for Smith, I'm gonna invent a robot camera to hang from the ceiling and track and track our, and track Kelly and then Kelly going like, I got Nova, I got Dr.

Nova Thorpe. Let me, let me dig in deep. I wanna rehearse. And, and which paid off. And then Miguel although a lot of his editing

Miguel Amodio: standing around, standing around, that's

David McAbee: all I did. Yeah, it's [00:28:00] standing around. But, but the notes judging the, yeah, always judging. But the notes that, that, I mean obviously the editing work that, that Miguel did was, was amazing.

But also the notes that he was bringing to the table, what if this, what if we try this? Don't do that. Try this. Were invaluable.

Miguel Amodio: And yeah. And knowing that, I mean, we, we had an internal discussion with Kelly and I mean, everyone here that. We knew before we shot anything that we had to bring you on that we, we needed somebody that this was, this was gonna be a combination.

Once, once McAfee and Smith had figured out, okay, we're gonna build a, you know, motion tracking arm that's just gonna get same movement every time and we're gonna go through stages of makeup and we've gotta seamlessly put it all together. We knew it was, it was gonna be a ve you know, and it was gonna require heavy amounts of visual effects from the get.

And that [00:29:00] felt good to know that the project was, whether it was gonna be good or bad was really like that. We went into it knowing like we need a visual effects component that we're not going to have on set, just to blend it all together. And I think from day one, we knew like this whole thing is gonna live or die on, on.

How believable that is. And not you can, you can forgive a lot of things when, when things aren't perfect in, you know, when there's low budget, but you know, when something like keeps drawing you in and doesn't pull you out and makes you cringe and wiss and all that, that, that this was going to be when they made the creative decision to just do a Warner to make it look like a Warner.

We knew, okay, we need, we need this visual effects component so we can see Mc me's idea of, of the melting and we can hide any of those inconsistencies that the motion tracking, you know would pick up because of [00:30:00] Kelly's continuity issues or whatever. So, yeah.

David McAbee: And if, if, if I'm being honest, the special effects arm of this, of this movie, the leg of this movie, it scared me more because I'm, I'm such a practical effects guy and I'm so quick to notice like c g I blood or.

Gore or whatever, and it, and it pulls me out. It pulls me out of it. And it was no that's no shade on Fox Trott or you Paul. I was just like, oh God, you know, it, it's gotta feel real. It's gotta feel grounded. This isn't a Star Wars movie. This isn't a sci-fi, like a space s i sci-fi. I tried, this is tried but fought hard.

Yeah, you did a again, you tried. But I want it to feel like a grounded horror story that, that is that is connected to Earth and it's not big. And then when we started that, I, and I knew like the, the tracking that, that we'd be able to get that, that didn't scare me. 'cause that was the concept from the get-go.

But it was the addition of when we got into the weeds of things, the veins growing up, the arms and [00:31:00] onto the neck her, her face deteriorating. I was like, oh, just I'm worried. I'm scared. And now on the other side of it, obviously going, oh, there's no, there's no nova without that. Hmm. There's countless film festivals that this thing got into where we talked specifically about those things, about the, the beautiful blend of special effects score and, and grounded real gore.

David C. Smith: So the thing that, that, for me, the biggest special effect and visual effect of the whole project was honestly Kelly and mm-hmm. What, so the idea of doing a transform, a transformative narrative in one shot and what appears to be one shot, the technical side of blending the takes together, you know, that was something that I think we had a really solid plan from the beginning on what, you know, we were really [00:32:00] methodical about what the actions were gonna be, what elements in, of, in each frame were gonna be moving from one take to the other, you know, where the transitions were gonna happen.

That I think we had a ton of, of forethought and planning and storyboarding and, and that we had really well in hand. But none of that would matter if Kelly wasn't able to from one. 'cause it feels like one take, but you have to remember it's not, and she's going back into makeup before every transformation.

So she's gotta hold that through line so that it feels seamless. The, the technical seamlessness to me was the easy part. It was the, the consistency of performance. That was, that was the thing that was truly incredible to me. So, I don't know. Kelly, what did talk, talk about that say, makes

Miguel Amodio: me

Kelly Kula: cry on the podcast?

Like I, I know I'd love

David McAbee: to hears, I'd love to hear Kelly's thoughts on that. That's, that's a, that's a really good point, Smith. And before Kelly, I let you, I want you to take it. That is [00:33:00] such a good point because I've talked about this movie a hundred ways this Sunday, and it is, Often overshadowed that it is, Kelly is the core of this movie.

All the special effects, all the writing, all the directing, all the inventive camera work that Smith had to do, all would've been out the window had Kelly not been able to, to make it what it was, what it is.

Paul DeNigris: Absolutely, totally agree. Before, before Kelly chimes in, I, I just want to say, when we saw the raw footage or the, the footage that had been chopped and put in, in sequence by Miguel, I said to my team, I said, Kelly is absolutely killing this performance.

We cannot let her down with our work. Wow. Like, our work has to be at the same level. Otherwise we, what are we doing?

Kelly Kula: And this, eh, this is exactly what I love about filmmaking because like right when I started almost 20 years ago, it's like, I believe that I can find a team where [00:34:00] all the creatives in their respective departments are so passionate and so talented and so dedicated to what they do, that you have the comfort of knowing that you can do your work and trust everybody else to do theirs.

And it may have taken me a lot longer to find these people, but that, that was the comfort in it. Like they're writing the directing. McAfee had the cinema technology and the DPing, David had Miguel with the editing and the support and the creative vision. And Paul, I just met you actually on the phone I think beforehand.

But knowing that you have such a dedicated, passionate team, I, I, I don't care how good of an actor I am, I, I still couldn't have done it without, Any of you guys. And that to me is the biggest thing, biggest takeaway from the short. But yeah, I think the challenge of it as an actor, being from my side, is.

You are supposed to look like you're not acting. And I had to hit a certain mark hunch a certain way. If I was just a little bit off, then it was gonna be, oh, the stitching was gonna be a little bit [00:35:00] harder. And I had exactly two minutes to know where the camera was in the room, but also not be aware that the camera's in the room, but you had to hit certain marks like, when it's over here in my left, I have to do this.

I have to pull my hair off, I have to take my skin off, I have to pull an eyelash off, or whatever it was at that moment. So it was a really big challenge to be technically aware of what was going on in the room, but still trusting that the work that I did personally with the character would still be able to outshine that.

And that you wouldn't see me thinking and seeing the camera, that you could just see me creating the pain in the world that I was

Paul DeNigris: in. Right. Plus you're having to carry all of the narrative weight by delivering that monologue. Mm-hmm. And it was so, it's, its the monologue, it's the, it's the emotional content.

It's remembering all your

David C. Smith: marks, it's all, it's a tour to force really maintaining line, maintaining a through line like that was the part that blew my mind is that because we had five stages and each of those stages needed to, you needed to [00:36:00] feel her transformation and her internal journey. And so being able to, to stay consistent across that, and it's, for me, the fact that, you know, between those transitions, there's a couple of hours of makeup.

So it's getting back to the place you were a couple of hours ago and literally picking up exactly where you left off and then advancing forward and then doing that again, and then doing that again, and then doing that again. So it's funny, we're talking about, about Kelly, the things that you Sorry, go.

I'm sorry. No, no, go ahead. I I was gonna take us in a different direction. You go. I'll, I'll get there

David McAbee: next. No, I, I, I just wanna ask, I I, I've worked with Kelly for years and years now, and Nova is still one of, I think, the best things we've worked together on, but I've never talked to you about Nova. As in like, what was like, what was our rehearsal process like for you?

What were those on day? Because I, Smith and I were in a separate room for me. You had that room day of when we were shooting all to yourself to be in that character. But I'm on the other side of the [00:37:00] wall, gag harder cough up a tooth, you know, pull your hair out. How is, how is that for you as an actor for this role?

Kelly Kula: I, I personally enjoy it. And I think it just, it is obviously actor dependent, but I like to be challenged with it. You should be directable. Those little things shouldn't throw you off, even though they are special effects, heavy, like having a tooth in there. But just finding a way in the moment to create how I can transition quickly to that without it being inauthentic.

So it's a lesson in authenticity. Just make sure that, did I do my work? Did I actually commit to it? And if you threw something my way, like. Eat a pizza, I'll be like, yeah, you know, there's just the things that you should be able to be spontaneous about and able to weave them into the story you've created if you've made your story really clear.

So, I mean, I spent, I mean, it wasn't a really long script, but on the back of every page I just wrote kind of like a, I, that's my process is just writing how I feel, what I'm [00:38:00] thinking, my life story, and just reading it and letting it flow authentically. So if I believe that in the moment and you throw something crazy at me, it shouldn't, it shouldn't stir.

So that's, I mean, you and I had a little bit of a rehearsal process, but it was more technical because like we took all the beats, like, okay, these are your five transitions. These are the five things that I wanna see. So that helped me create, okay, what in my mind is gonna support that as an actor when I have this big technical thing that I have to do?

Again, it's that whole support, like everybody in their own department is, So excited about their vision that this, it, I, it geeks me out. And luckily it doesn't throw you off in the moment because you're just so excited to be doing what you love with the people who love doing what they love. And it's, it sounds so kitschy, but it's it is,

Miguel Amodio: it's true.

David McAbee: I knew we were onto something good. It was day two of shooting, and my then girlfriend, now wife was, was watching [00:39:00] the monitor with Smith and I, and Kelly's in the middle of her scene and she's coughing up a tooth or throwing up the blood and I go get you gag harder. And she does this horrible gag.

It's in the cut. And my wife, who's standing behind me or my girlfriend at the time was standing behind me and she gags for real. And I was like, baby, you can't do that. Like, so we were onto something so good that I knew, I knew we were onto it because the audience, the audience that I live with and love was gagging for real.

So I knew we were on the right track.

David C. Smith: There, there was something you, we talked before, I'm sorry, Miguel, you go first. You've been trying, I'm sorry. No, no, no, go ahead. Go ahead. The, we were talking about something that we learned in, in talking about with Jesse, and the thing that I learned on this one was actually based on the gag.

And, and I mean the actual gagging, not the overall gag of the film, but the having, so we've all, we've all seen the put the pea soup in your mouth and, and the beginning of the take you throw up and then you go on with your take. The fact that [00:40:00] we threw up twice in where you don't know that there was a cut for me watching it as an audience member, that that drew me in more than I ever expected because it felt like I, I know you're so used to that just little gag that, that the throw up happens at the beginning of the take because they had it in their mouth.

The fact that in the middle of the scene there's a second throw up. That felt so real because where'd it come from, right. That, that, that pulled me into her world. And I never in a million years would've thought that that puke would be the thing that would give me empathy. And yet, that's exactly what my experience was as an audience member where I finally saw the cut all put together.

So anyway, so use, use two pus. I think that's the, that's the big takeaway from this whole thing.

Miguel Amodio: I, I remember, I remember, because you know, this, this was such a, such a, a big challenge for [00:41:00] Kelly Knot challenge as from an acting se. It, it was a challenge from an acting perspective, but because of all the technical stuff, She had Maccabee and Smith at her disposal, but she didn't want anybody else around.

So I was, I, I was really kind of tr already trying to think, okay, how are we putting this together? And I was trying to think about the stuff we were gonna be giving you. And I remember a, a point of debate that I kept trying to bring up, but what, it wasn't always appropriate because they were just so in it and they had to get it done.

And, and our first days sort of got bone because of the, the arm that was built wasn't working right. So we had to have an extra day. And, but I remember thinking like, so what are we doing at the end when, when Nova's alien clone or whatever she is, is, is killing? The doctor, how does that act? What does that look like?

And I remember there was debate about like, oh, maybe it's a tail, maybe it's spikes or whatever. And we couldn't really lock it down. And [00:42:00] then of course, you get into posts and you're like, fuck. So how does she fucking kill herself? Because a big dick tail is just not gonna look cool and the boys have already done it.

Right? But, but, but also, but also, but also I, I remember thinking that that was a fun, creative challenge that when we actually put our, I was, I just, I don't remember what we were, we were in a cut and I was just like, what if it was just like a sort of a, a force push or, or a something and that, that had shockwave effect.

Yeah. That Hadoop and that, that shockwave effect that you added. I think with the sound effect and the sound design and all that, it's just sort of, you didn't need to know what it was other than Yeah. It worked like it totally worked. And, and just sort of the ripple effect. It sort of pushed us through the camera, I thought was really awesome.

But I knew, I fucking knew we had Gold Man. As soon as we saw, I think the, as soon as, as soon as Kelly hits the ground and she [00:43:00] turns on the face mask and you see the hud and, and I remember seeing that HUD and freaking Jesus, like the, we've, we've already surpassed Jesse just in terms of the believability of that HUD display on that $3 face mask from Home Depot.

Mm-hmm. Like, it was incredible how authentic that look and it, yet, it didn't pull us out of mm-hmm. The design choice that you made and your teammate and, and the way you put it together. It didn't pull away from Kelly. It felt very, very natural. But then the thing that was. Killer was just how it, it lives there.

Like it, it continues to live there. And then on those tracking shots, we can see her. And I know that that was a point of challenge, which I'd love for you to talk about, but just really cool. Like when you're there, you're not, you're not noticing those little things that you probably notice. But yeah, it's

Paul DeNigris: very cool.

Yeah, I mean, for us, the, the [00:44:00] you know, the watch word was always authenticity because we, we had obviously we had everything had to hang on. Kelly's performance, but then we also had the practical effects that you guys were doing. Mm-hmm. From take to take to add, to continue to add more and more gore to her as she deteriorated.

So with that informed, 'cause we were doing the black veins and stuff, and so we were, we were sort of connecting the dots, right? So there would be something on her arm, and then that would be where the black veins would originate at the beginning of the take. And then as we orbit it around, we'd have to, as we came back around to that side, those veins would've had to grow and also now connect to like the next lesion that was added to her skin practically.

And so it was always, we were always being guided by how Kelly was reacting, scratching, itching, pulling, you know, spinning our teeth, whatever it was. That was always. We, we were always the, like the digital arrow, like pointing towards, okay, this is where the next gross thing's gonna [00:45:00] gonna happen on her.

Why? Wow. And, and we had to get it all to stick seamlessly, you know? So that was, that was a big challenge is, was just we used every trick in the book to, to track her skin. You know, I think at one point I did. I did a full face track and created a digital mesh of Kelly's face that had her, her texture projected onto it and sent, I think I sent you guys the, the, the screenshot of it.

Yeah. And Kelly was like, oh my god, what is that? It was just her disembodied face floating in the, in the digital void.

Kelly Kula: Yeah, to me, too bad. I was already taking 'em in a great dating profile

Miguel Amodio: pic.

Paul DeNigris: So we had, we had all of those challenges. You know, the stitches were, were a challenge, right? You, you guys did, did really great work trying to, trying to match Kelly's position and body language.

But, but even then, you know, there was always gonna be little things that would That wouldn't match up. And so we, you know, we did a bunch of [00:46:00] different morphing tools and tried to make, anytime you saw a shift in sort of her back, as the camera went across, make it look like a breath or connect it to her, you know, she gasped or something.

And we'd have the, so it looked like her shoulders moved in, in pain and it wasn't just some weird artifact of, of the stitching. Yeah. But the, the hud, you know, the HUD was actually once, once it was the, the mask was down. It, it basically just sat there and we, we were able to get a really good track, you know, on that.

Like hard surfaces are relatively easy to track. And I, I've got a great match mover who, who basically gave us the, the full rotation of every take. And because it was the same, I think he only had to do a solve once. I think you guys gave me a clean plate. With just the helmet sitting in the middle of the floor.

And so he was able to track that, and I was able to use that single track on every take because it was exactly the same because of the, the, the camera tech that you guys had built. So that, that part was easy. The [00:47:00] hardest part was when, when Evil Nova picks up the mask and we're looking through it, and this thing is bouncing all around and it's got no, it's transparent, it's got no tracking dots on it.

So that one was, that one was a little bit of a, a challenge, but but otherwise, yeah, the, the, you know, we like hard surfaces, especially things that just sit and the camera, the camera moves and the thing doesn't move. Those are, those are perfect.

David C. Smith: Miguel, Miguel mentioned it a second ago, but that, that the first day was kind of a wash.

And that comes back to, you know, what we were talking about before, about knowing when you can fix something and, and the fix that, that we came up with. So the motion control rig didn't work it, so we, we, so we literally burned the entire first shoot day. Trying to figure out why the thing that worked in rehearsal didn't work on the day.

And it turned out that there was a glitch in the software, the motion control key framing software. So the original plan was for us to have [00:48:00] all of the camera movement, not just the spiral, the dolly, but also panning and tilting, and zooming was all happening under motion control. So that was the original plan, and we had built the rig to allow for that.

But the software that drove that had a glitch, all of our rehearsals was only two minutes. We never went over two minutes. And it turns out that there was a glitch that the software would crash at two minutes. And we didn't know this until we were actually trying to do the longer takes. And, and so what that meant was all of our key framed camera movements were out the window.

And that was the decision then was, okay, let's just ditch all of that and get rid of the software and just do a very simple, we're only gonna key frame using the, the, the, the motion control head has the ability to set key frames internally as well as to take external computer key frames, but you're only limited to, I think, nine key frames internal.

Whereas we had a hundred key frames that we were trying to achieve. So we threw [00:49:00] all that out. And at the end of that first day where everybody's looking at me going, this whole thing is this. If this doesn't work, we don't have a film. And it's like, okay, we're gonna get rid of all that and we're gonna do all the camera movement in post.

So we're gonna let the dolly happen in real, and that that's what's gonna be motion control. But all panning, tilting and zooming is gonna happen as as opposed reframe. And what? What I think happened in that process is that we made now the post the the, the VFX were a lot easier. I can only imagine how much harder your world would've been if that system had worked and if we'd given you now something, now you're tracking zooms and camera movement that that is happening in real time as opposed to to the post effect.

So the fact that you were able to do the blend and then we could use reframing to also hide some of the challenging areas. It's like, look, this edge up here in the hair really is [00:50:00] not, we can get everything working on the shoulders. The hair's not working. Okay, well let's just reframe around it a little bit.

So what started out as a failure of the mechanical technology ultimately I think turned into a benefit. In the end, but that was also everybody having the faith in the moment of going, look, this is gonna work. Yes, we did just kill an we, it was a two day shoot. We, we, 50% of the shoot we threw away because the system didn't work the way we thought it was going to, and then coming back regrouping and, and then hitting it hard the second day and being able to get everything done.

You know, but those are the, those are those challenges in the moment. And that, that's what Filmmaking's all about is, you know, and, and to everybody's. I, I, I owe everybody a debt of gratitude that they all went, look, we, we believe you that it's gonna work. We're gonna come back tomorrow and, and we'll figure it out.

And yeah. Yeah. Later.

Paul DeNigris: So how many festivals did did Nova ultimately end up playing, and how many awards did it win and all that? [00:51:00] A

David McAbee: great question. I, I don't have exact numbers because it came out, or we finished it right at the, the, the tippy tip top of Covid. Right, right. When everything was shut down, which to me is.

Was a real bummer because we got into dozens of festivals and we won dozens of awards. And we were only able to go to, I, I only went to one or two, maybe. I think we did some of the virtual ones together, which, which, which were a, a great was a great punt if we can't be there in, in real life.

But it, it wa it was accepted to some of the coolest festivals definitely that, that, that I've only hoped to be a part of. It was so bitching and the few that I got to go to, to actually sit in a theater and listen to people as they watch our movie and whisper. Oh, gross. Oh, cool. Oh, oh, ew. Was so awesome.

And, you know, the plaza is always nice, but it's, I love sitting in the back and watching just how people reacts to [00:52:00] Kelly

Paul DeNigris: melting

Miguel Amodio: the Joe Bob Drive-in theater was, oh,

David McAbee: coolest. Oh, the Joe Bob. Thank you, Miguel. That was so cool. That was the coolest year. I'm a huge, I, I just, so it's out in the universe. I'm a giant who, geek nerd to the core about this stuff.

And being a part of Joe Bob Briggs haunted drive-in, I, I guess it must've been October of 2020 was so cool having all these cars park right up, look at the screen and watching everybody to the right, to the left and front and back, all watching this giant screen with our movie on it. Ah, beautiful.

Paul DeNigris: Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Where can people watch Nova right now?

David McAbee: I've go to YouTube, type in Nova Short. It'll be the first thing that pops up.

Miguel Amodio: It's on it's on alter on on

Kelly Kula: YouTube. Altar?

David McAbee: Yeah. Altar. Yeah. Al the Al the Altar. The altar and Dust and dust page. On, on YouTube. But if you just type in [00:53:00] Nova short, it, it goes right to those pages.

Paul DeNigris: Great. I'll link that in the show notes. So moving on. Let's hear about what you guys are working on now. Let me let, let's hear about Plate Pros and kind of quickly, 'cause I know we're, we're coming up on an hour here. You know, quickly, what, what's, what kind of work are you guys doing with, with Plate Pros and, and where can people find out more about that?

David C. Smith: So it's kind of tying into the whole VFX part of it. And this is, this is where having a little bit of a, a background in VFX turned into an opportunity to be able to provide we, we recognize that there was a, a gap in the industry around shooting VFX elements outside of the normal production pipeline.

So, so often when a television show or a feature are, are trying to, to rush through the, the [00:54:00] storytelling part of the day, it's really easy for. The little tiny elements that are helpful for VFX to have, get either handed off to a PA or forgotten altogether. And so for years now, we've been, we've been through a company called Third Law Productions that we're now rebranding as Plate Pros.

We've been providing production services that are geared specifically for creating VFX elements on set. And that very quickly turned into a lot of array work. So shooting with multiple cameras to get 360 environments, that's, that's a kind of bread and butter for us. And then that turned into really doing a lot of 360 environments for driving.

So Play Pros, that's, I would say 95% of what we do is, is moving environments for driving scenes. So when you see an actor driving in a car nine times outta 10, they're on a sound stage, either a virtual production l e d stage like car stage, [00:55:00] or they're on a green screen. And so we provide the content that you fill what's going on outside the car with, with array photography.

So our new thing that we announced at a a b just this last week, I'm sorry, not a b Cine gear cine gear in Paramount is a new stock footage library for those 360 plates that are prest stitched. So it's now a 12 k prest stitched library that you have literally every direction you can possibly look inside a car.

Every pixel is, is represented and is is there. So you can look straight up, you can look behind you, you can look in any direction, but it's all one massive file. So that's, that's an innovation, that's something we've been dreaming about being able to do for over a decade. Traditionally we do it with a bunch of individual small angles and you can somewhat merge those together.

We're doing all of that so that you don't have to, so it's all prest stitched, ready to

Paul DeNigris: go. That's fantastic. On behalf of all VFX artists worldwide, we thank you [00:56:00] because I, I have used some of your packages from the, you know, the previous iteration where it was different Yeah. Different plates and, and yeah.

There's challenges al always Right. Trying to get those to stitch and hiding seams behind the a pillar, B pillar or the car, you know, things like that.

David C. Smith: Yeah. So that's very cool. Don't

Paul DeNigris: have to do that anymore. Yeah. Fantastic. And, and then you guys are affiliated with Car Stage, which is in New York.

David C. Smith: Yep.

In Long Island City. And we are in the process of we've, we've established a, a location here in la so we're opening an LA stage as well in the next few months. So it's, we just celebrated our two year anniversary last week for the Long Island City car stage. So that's a, a purpose-built sound stage that's full of of large format l e d screens.

It's, it's very different than what, if you're familiar with like the Mandalorian virtual production, big curve volume, that's one way to do it. We take a different approach where it's seven mobile screens. So [00:57:00] they're flat screens that are able to move anywhere in the room really easily. You can grab our largest screen with one hand and drag it 80 feet down the middle of the stage.

So it's about being really adaptable. We can, we can conform the room to whatever each individual shot needs it really, really efficiently, really quickly. But it allows us now to create a, a 360 degree lighting world. So you're, everywhere you look, you're looking at a pixel of, of actual light coming from a screen.

So that means that the, the lighting and the scene is, is the scene is being lit by the plate itself. So everything moves in a very believable way and it, it's a much better end result. And now it's also, and my apologies on the VFX side of taking work outta your pocket. Is you walk away with a finished shot, so the, you're capturing it in real time in the actual camera so that you you walk away with a final product.

But our goal there, similar to what we're talking about before, do you really wanna spend your money [00:58:00] on these effects or those effects? You know, the driving comps, I think have been the bane of most VFX companies' existence for a long time. Because it's not the most creative in terms of it's just straight comping.

So our goal is how can we, how can we take those shots, get 'em done in the can so that you can spend your time doing more important stuff. So, so again, let the VFX be the cool, fun stuff and, and take the drudgery out of it.

Paul DeNigris: Absolutely. And the VFX world is definitely still benefiting from all the innovations that are happening in the, what they call IC VFX in camera VFX or, or virtual production.

You know, we're, we're folding Unreal engine into our workflow, whether it's post or it's in camera. You know, with, there's l e b stages here in Phoenix that we have relationships with and, and I'm always looking for opportunities to, you know, to bring work to you guys at car stage. Sure. As, as clients need it, I, again, it's [00:59:00] the right tool for the job just because Sure, you guys could, you know, a client could pay us to do this to, to do driving comps, but if we can get the same result or better for the same amount of money, and the director can see it in real time by going to a place like Car Stage, it just makes sense.

What's one piece of advice you would give to filmmakers who are new to using visual effects in their storytelling? What, what's one advice you would give them as far as. Helping them through the process, helping them, you know, get over whatever intimidation factor there is or, or or fear of the, of the process and the expense.

Mm-hmm.

David McAbee: I'll, I'll, I'll start it out. Swallow your pride and trust the process again. Still, as a guy who knows next to zero about all of all, to me, it's, you guys might as well be doing voodoo. It's all voodoo. You guys put a little thing in a cauldron and cool stuff comes out, but trust the process and swallow your pride.

I be

Kelly Kula: from the actor's standpoint, I [01:00:00] say that there's no question that's too stupid. Again, I think pride goes along with that one, but always ask questions if there's something there, because I feel that the questions I have asked have made me a better filmmaker overall because now I'm able to make the filmmaking process easier for my

team.

Miguel Amodio: Yeah, I I'll, I'll follow that up exactly what Kelly said. Ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask questions. And, and, and really you know, to add onto that, I would say reach out, reach out to the biggest houses imaginable and the smallest, and ask those questions. I think, I think it's incredible how often people are willing to help if you, if you allow yourself to show that you don't know something, but you're genuinely curious about learning.

People want to see you succeed. And I think most of us remember when we started versus where we've ended up. So ask a lot of questions, as Kelly said,

David C. Smith: I would say, and this [01:01:00] might be a little controversial depending on what software you have access to, but move the camera. So many times people think that the, the, the trick to a believable visual effect shot where you're trying to add something into the shot.

Is to have a lock off. It turns out that a lock off is actually a little bit harder if you move the camera. There's such good tracking available right now, and this is where, make sure you've had the conversations that everybody's talking about. Make sure you have the guy on the phone who's gonna, or girl who's gonna do the compositing work.

Don't take my word for it. Take their word for it. But my hope is, and my experience has been you can hide a lot with camera movement. And so, and that also can really lock an effect into a scene. If it's well tracked, it now suddenly feels much more believable. And it turns out that some, for certain shots, for certain circumstances, moving the camera can be a much, much easier process than if you have a lock off.

So don't just automatically assume because the VFX shot that it has to [01:02:00] be a lock off that oftentimes is the opposite of truth.

Paul DeNigris: Agreed. And I, I, I always tell clients when they ask, is this gonna be easier if we just lock it off? I always say, Don't shoot it differently than you would, right? It's our job to make it fit your photographic style.

I don't want it to be, you know, a bunch of handheld shots and then we cut to a lock off. 'cause this is the VFX shot. Like, that's not how we do things anymore. It's good advice. Everybody's advice is fantastic. That's that's great. I hope that the independent filmmakers that are watching this episode feel empowered and, and and realize that it's a team sport.

It's a team effort. And you know, asking questions and planning and fixing it in pre are the key things. But also learn what's out there. Learn, learn what tools are available to you in terms of VFX and let it expand your, your story, right? Because the story of Nova is a really great example of a film that doesn't happen without technical, in innovations, [01:03:00] without special effects makeup, without digital visual effects added in post.

And it's, it's not, it's not effects for the sake of effects it's effects. To help sell the authenticity of what the character's going through and the story that you guys wanted to tell.

David C. Smith: And now with, with the new AI tools that are coming, there's a whole, this world is changing so fast right now. Every three days there's a new white paper that completely changes everything about how all this works.

So yeah, try and try and stay up with it or find somebody who does stay up with it because what was what was impossible a week ago is easy today. It's moving that fast.

Paul DeNigris: So what's what's next for each of you? Any upcoming projects you wanna plug or, or or cool stuff that you're working on?

Kelly.

David McAbee: Miguel and I have a new short coming out shortly. It's called Blue. It's another horror short because that's what I do. So keep your eyes open for blue.

Miguel Amodio: I have a, I have a feature coming out at [01:04:00] the end of the month. We're premiering at the Chinese mans the Yeah, just another feature. Two Lives in Pittsburgh, by God, sorry, sorry, I should've plugged that sooner.

And

David C. Smith: then we're, you know, in terms of, of play Pros Car Stage right now, unfortunately the, the business side of my life has been pretty dominant, so I haven't had a lot of time to to devote to more the artistic part, but I'm looking forward to getting back to that. But on the, on the business side yeah, play Pros play pros.com, that's the new library.

And then Car Stage, which is the car stage.com. Those are, those are my two big passion projects right now. They just happen to be passion projects on the entrepreneurial and and technology side. Less so on the filmmaker side, but we're getting back to that too.

Kelly Kula: Yep. I'm support class with Plate Pros.

So like right now my creative end is, I wanna say stagnant. It is building, I. In the background, so [01:05:00] working towards recognizable feature films and television. But in the meantime, my loyalties are with Smith and we are going to make Plate Pros. We're expanding the library and hopefully people will catch wind of it and be as excited about it as we are.

Paul DeNigris: Thanks so much for joining us on today's episode of the VFX for Indies podcast. You can find transcripts, images, and other cool stuff at our website, VFX for indies.com. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, follow, like, rate, review, comment on either YouTube or your favorite podcast app. On behalf of everyone at Foxtrot x-Ray, I'm Chief Pixel Pusher, Paul ris, and we all thank you so much for your support of the show.

See you next time.[01:06:00]