Post Mortem CINEMA 4D

pixellusion vfx, a Cologne (Germany)-based post-production company founded in 2000, has been producing digital special effects for Sonypictures FFP since 2005 for the RTL primetime television series, "Post Mortem".

It all began with the production of a pilot film that was screened to test audience response. The film received such rave reviews that it was decided right away to make a television series of it.

An efficient and stable pipeline for the creation of the series had to be quickly established. Directors and producers worked hand-in-hand to successfully complete the effects for the first season's shows - pixellusion's first in-depth experience with the production of a television series.

"Until then our core experienced had lain with establishing pipelines for individual movie scenes, advertising shots and smaller projects for TV. The differences between the workflow for television production and movie production quickly became apparent. A movie shot requires a lot of research & development and planning time whereas the production of a television series demands that the effect shots are ready to air in short time" says pixellusion vfx CEO, Sebastian Stanek.

"Our decision to use MAXON's CINEMA 4D software combined with Adobe's After Effects was based on the excellent integration of two products offered."

Since the first season was such a success, production of the second season has already begun. Filming began on April 10, 2007 and pixellusion vfx once again has plenty to do.

Regarding the production process, Stanek says, "Monitor feeds are animations that are played live on screen, other devices or on stage and serve to support scene imagery. In one scene, for example, the real-world removal of an eye was replaced by CG. MAXON's BodyPaint 3D was used to edit UVs and for texturing."



"Microscope views were created to make the depiction shown through the microscope on larger monitors in the background more interesting."



"We also created typical sequences of events for crimes which were augmented by animated 2D screen masks provided by Richard Kahl (episodes 1-3), Martin Orbaz and Wolfram Koch (episodes 4-9)."

"The screenplay demanded a wide range of effects. Everything from the simple removal of an eye blink from a corpse..."

"...to combining two camera movements with complete CG sets and the seamless transition to a real-world set."



Stanek Continues, "Camera data and various render pass data can be easily exchanged thanks to CINEMA 4D's excellent connectivity to Adobe's After Effects. This lets us maintain a maximum amount of control, which is critical when last-minute changes must be made. Instead of having to re-shoot an entire shot only the respective layers are modified. This helped us work with the tightest of production schedules."

Example of the making of a VFX shot

An animated storyboard is created so the team can get a better idea of how the shot should look.



Compositing in After Effects:



Final Shot for editing:



Info
pixellusion vfx
www.pixellusion.de

SONYPICTURES FFP
www.sonypictures-tv.de

RTL
www.rtl.de


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