VFX: Deer Being Shot

K

KyranFord

Well-known member
In a film that I am directing soon, there is a scene where a man is standing in a field, spots a deer, and then shoots it. I have a visual effects artist who has the gunshot taken care of, but for the deer placement, I don't. My other regular go-to VFX guy said that he can't rig animals in 3D; he also said that most animals in films are in 2D anyway, and that they aren't traditionally shown being shot. Is this true? I can't recall anything off the top of my head..

I will probably resort to doing it in the manner shown at 2:17 in the following scene of O Brother, Where Art Thou?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apq46lA0uSM

The gun being shot, followed by an immediate cutaway of the deer falling. Would this be 'acceptable'? How would this be done?

If anyone here can/could do this, please email me at [kyran@sleepingsunfilms.com]; I'd be glad to work something out with you.

Thanks in advance.
-Kyran
 
In every case that I can think of editing is the method used. I'm not sure I've ever seen it done differently, or at least not with VFX of a gunshot being added. It would never look right.
 
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Didn't they do something like this in 'The Deer Hunter' (1978)... I distinctly remember a very convincing scene where the deer just drops straight to the ground.

Ahh, here it is, something from IMDb on how they did it:

According to the film's cinematographer - Vilmos Zsigmond - the scene where the deer is shot [by Michael (DeNiro)] was filmed by giving the trained deer a sedative; it took half an hour for the drug to take effect; they had fenced off an area limiting the deer's range and two cameras were used.
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Cassius said:
In every case that I can think of editing is the method used. I'm not sure I've ever seen it done differently, or at least not with VFX of a gunshot being added. It would never look right.
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What do you mean by editing? Assuming you are referring to standard cuts from the deer to the shooter, that's the method I was leaning towards. I have a CG artist who can insert the 3D deer, as well as a masked photo of the deer lying dead in a static shot. So, I'm thinking:

-Shot of the hunter; cutaway to a clip of the deer
-Shot of the hunter raising his gun
-Shot of the deer as it gets shot (VFX of gunshot in its neck or side-- the deer is not shown falling to the ground)
-Immediate cutaway to the shooter; smoke around the gun is seen (no muzzle VFX in this)
-A deep shot of the hunter walking towards the deer in the left of the frame (this is where the photo of the dead deer is masked lying on the ground towards the right side of the frame)

Does this sound like it would look 'right'?

kylevant said:
Didn't they do something like this in 'The Deer Hunter' (1978)... I distinctly remember a very convincing scene where the deer just drops straight to the ground.

Ahh, here it is, something from IMDb on how they did it:
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Ah, yeah. I just don't have the budget for a tamed deer. Haha

My presumed method may not be as seemingly convincing as that of The Deer Hunter, but it might look decent for micro-budget.

Thoughts?
 
Yes, that could look right if the deer is convincing enough. Just make sure the impact shot is as quick as it can possibly be so people don't look too closely. It would look even more right if you had a practical for the carcass during that last shot. I'm sure someone could rent you one.
 
Cassius said:
Yes, that could look right if the deer is convincing enough. Just make sure the impact shot is as quick as it can possibly be so people don't look too closely. It would look even more right if you had a practical for the carcass during that last shot. I'm sure someone could rent you one.
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Well, it's going to be immediately after the deer had supposedly fallen to the ground, so I think the deer lying dead should be fine. I'll see what the VFX artist I'm working with on this comes up with. I'll keep this topic posted. Thanks for the input!
 
And a bit of nice Foley for the deer falling to the ground... unless it's supposed to to be a large distance away.
 
Gord.T said:
A long shot but maybe give this guy a shout (MassimoRighiCG on youtube). You'll have to offer him something at least but he might be interested. Worth a try anyways. Good luck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cybsd_ET0Ek

http://www.youtube.com/user/MassimoRighiCG


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX9ob7fBiR4&list=UUcZllK7abzMLi6dhAYRIz_w&index=5

^The cat chase for reference. The guy has some skill.
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Yep, that guy has AMAZING talent. He sells his models and rigs on Turbosquid, you can buy the deer for $500. Then all you need is to hire an animator to animate it how you want, and 3d tracker to motion track your live footage and a compositor to put it all together. ;)

http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/deer-animation-3d-model/542770
 
kylevant said:
And a bit of nice Foley for the deer falling to the ground... unless it's supposed to to be a large distance away.
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It is going to be a long distance, but I'll wait and see what it looks like in the post-production phase.

Gord.T said:
A long shot but maybe give this guy a shout (MassimoRighiCG on youtube). You'll have to offer him something at least but he might be interested. Worth a try anyways. Good luck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cybsd_ET0Ek

http://www.youtube.com/user/MassimoRighiCG


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX9ob7fBiR4&list=UUcZllK7abzMLi6dhAYRIz_w&index=5

^The cat chase for reference. The guy has some skill.
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Thanks so much for pointing that guy out! I've actually gotten in contact with him; we've worked everything out and I'll be using his deer CG materials! :thumbsup:

ErikTande said:
Yep, that guy has AMAZING talent. He sells his models and rigs on Turbosquid, you can buy the deer for $500. Then all you need is to hire an animator to animate it how you want, and 3d tracker to motion track your live footage and a compositor to put it all together. ;)

http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/deer-animation-3d-model/542770
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The great part is that everything is already animated by a rigger/animator named Dmitry; the death and all! Massimo just did the modeling, texturing, lighting, and rendering.

I've got a guy who is filling roles as the compositor, motion tracker, and rotoscope artist. Not to mention that this film takes place around the Appalachian area, yet won't be shot in the mountains. I've got a matte painter as well for that. I can't wait to see how this turns out. I have a VFX supervisor who will be supervising the process, so I'm hoping it ends up looking pretty decent.

Ahh, so much work for just a sub-10 second scene. Don't you guys just love filmmaking. :grin:
 
Great to hear that it's working out. Maybe post the final shot here, watermarked or what-not, so we can see what you got once completed.
 
kylevant said:
Great to hear that it's working out. Maybe post the final shot here, watermarked or what-not, so we can see what you got once completed.
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I'll definitely keep this thread updated!

Thanks everyone. I've sent all of you PMs, so be on the lookout.
 
Good news is everything is coming together.

Bad news is, my rotoscope artist claims there are terrible artifacts within the antlers, so he is having to mask the antlers frame by frame, which is roughly 480 frames.

I really hope this turns out decent. :/
 
He's roto'ing a 3D render? o_O It should already have it's own alpha channel. I'm confused on what the issue is.
 
Sorry... I should have clarified that we are only getting royalty-free use of previews, and not the full 3D objects. I guess it's sort of a hindrance, but I'm still happy enough with Massimo permitting us to use the previews. I think this is literally the best we can possibly get without spending a dime on it.

He is rotoscoping the previews to give them an alpha channel, that way when post-production rolls around, he already has them ready for use. It's actually the same guy who is doing compositing, so I just let him come up with his own workflow.
 
I'd ask him if he could render out a still with an alpha channel for you. I'm not sure what he would charge.
 
Do I need a single post to be able to edit my profile? Well this will help me find out haha.

I'm the guy in charge of the roto work for this particular model and such. It's been quite a fun ride.

ErikTande said:
He's roto'ing a 3D render? o_O It should already have it's own alpha channel. I'm confused on what the issue is.
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We were giving a preview render with a gradient backdrop for actually displaying the model, not a file of the animated model with an Alpha Channel. If we were actually given the 3D model with animation and everything, my job would be a whole lot easier. I could just work from within Cinema 4d.


As for the process.

I tried to use various other techniques to split the model from the scene. Keying, a strage combinations of effects to highlight the edges of the deer and black out the background to do a luma matte (I'm still confused on this process myself.), and just so much more. But there was a ton of blocky artifacts causing the background and antlers to basically blend together.

So I ended up just having to do Rotowork. The hard way, but hell. Sometimes you just have to make the best of the materials you're given.

Separating the body from the background was fairly simple with the Rotobrush, but when it came to the antlers, the compression (assumed) was just not having it. There wasn't enough of a difference to single out the antlers.

So I've had the pleasure of masking out each antler frame by frame.

It's going very smoothly. It's just time consuming.

After all is done, it's just a simple lossless export with an alpha, re-import and await for the actual live action footage to composite it into.

Get some tracking data from the shot with Boujou.

Then the usual Quality match, color match, ambient shadows/shadows, Matte refinement, etc.

Just a time consuming process.
 
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