The special Halloween episode of Nirvanna the Band the Show Season 2 (episode 204 The Book) is a combination of scripted and improvisation. A low budget and modest crew size inspires an atypical VFX workflow, which is required to support an evolving narrative while providing freedom for experiment. I collaborated with lead editor Curt Lobb and DOP Andrew Appelle designing 80 visual effects shots amounting to 3 main sequences: Van Pelt (Jumanji), Honey I Shrunk the Jay, and a Canadian Werewolf in Canada.
IF YOU’RE SO BROKE, HOW’D Y'ALL CAST JONATHAN HYDE?
That’s no lookalike, that’s the real Van Pelt from the REAL Jumanji! We scoured the Van Pelt hunting sequences within Jumanji, choosing selects that complimented the architectural layout of our character’s apartment while telling the most compelling story possible (continuity be damned). We were able to have Van Pelt enter the apartment with a blast, walk across the living room, corner Jay at gunpoint in the kitchen and deliver a monologue before pulling the trigger.
After locking our sequence, it was clear where and when our characters had to be in relation to a performance filmed 23 years earlier by our Hollywood-level second unit. We knew the source material’s camera moves and lighting setups would need to be mimicked in order to seamlessly blend our world in composite.
This informed our narrative to include a surreal blue blast of light through the door, so we could light our nighttime apartment to match the daylight footage from Jumanji. I studied the Van Pelt performance and mimicked his physical beats through our set to create natural interactive shadows to help blend the opposing worlds. The result is, the first known sampling of a character from another movie. All thanks to some VFX wizardy and some very good lawyers.
fig.3 Jumanji plate
fig.4 Composite
SHRINKAGE ON A BUDGET!
Shrinking Jay began with body scans and 3D printing mini versions of Jay in hero poses we could use for wide shots that weren’t critical visual effects, ie. the chip flying sequence. The overall shrinking section was compartmentalized into smaller sequences, each requiring unique setups and builds; Piano Bench, Feather Duster, Art Attack, Magnifying Jay, BIG Piano, Gravitron.
We could afford two days with a green screen cyclorama. Which meant with 60+ setups, organization was the key to success. Extremely thick VFX bibles dictated where every crew member, prop, light and piece of gear was going to be and at what time it would be there. Totalitarian level megalomania! Let’s explore the most interesting techniques...
Feather Duster Ride. Anyone who has any experience riding feather dusters KNOWS that velocities and directional changes at this scale are incredibly powerful. YOU CAN’T JUST PRETEND. So we rented a mechanical bull and strapped 50k dollars of camera equipment onto it, along with Jay of course.
After shooting Jay’s element, we needed to capture an accompanying movement of the feather duster being whipped around in the apartment. We rigged the two feather dusters to the camera to compliment the mechanical bull angle. We split the 4K frame in two parts vertically; a) feather duster behind Jay and b) foreground feather duster, the Jay element would be composited between. When the camera whipped around on the set the light interaction between all the elements would be in-line (offsetting the foreground element by -2 frames insured proper sync caused by spatial difference in frame).
For our BIG Piano sequence, it was imperative we construct a functioning version of Jay’s piano keys, to-scale, which accounted for mini Jay’s weight in the real world. This served many purposes but most importantly allowed us to capture a comedic physical performance that adhered to real world physics. It was all about the bounce in his step.
The corresponding piano plates were shot on our set with Jay’s real piano, where we matched camera position and perspectives. We recorded Matt interacting with the piano while taking cues from Jay’s recorded green screen performances. Each piano key that Jay contacts was recorded as a separate element, then animated up or down to compliment Jay’s physical performance across the green-screen keyboard.
Magnifying Jay presented the challenge of having limited time to render CGI glass magnification with accurate interior HDRI reflection/refraction. Our solution was to utilize a rear projection inspired method, which provided accurate magnification and set reflections/refractions for free. We used a 4k apple monitor that would loop a to-scale real world composite of Jay on the rug. This allowed Matt (the other character in the scene) to riff off Jay’s looping performance, freeing us to shoot Matt’s coverage as we would normally whilst maintaining the improvisational spirit of the show.
