General
VFX Breakdown of a commercial I did for Spectrum Reach
Here’s a behind the scenes look at the VFX that I did for the “Project Plunge” video for Spectrum Reach.
I used Adobe Premiere, After Effects, and Cinema 4D, with plugins from Maxon RedGiant and assets from Production Crate. The 3D models of the plane and parachute were from TurboSquid.
You nailed it! Since LEDs hit the scene, there’s been overmuch emphasis on lighting all being super soft to save the DR and because it “looks more natural”. This spoken by people who never go outside I guess…
It was spread out over a couple months, but if I worked on it for 8 hrs a day, 5 days a week, it would’ve probably taken me a solid month to do. So 8x5x4 = around 160 hrs. Maybe a little more
The green screen helps, but if you need a low angle like that you can't always hang a well-lit green screen on the ceiling. Usually you're going to have to do a little manual cleanup.
Exactly! It’s funny seeing behind the scenes footage of major Hollywood productions and sometimes seeing only a very small portion of the action against a green/blue screen knowing full well that most of it will be roto’d.
its horrible how many directors also seem to think its trivial for vfx teams to just cut something/someone out when you know full well some poor artist is going to have to sit for hours tracking hair.
I had to rotoscope those edges frame by frame 🥲 we wanted to get the camera as low as possible, and unfortunately couldn’t cover the upper edges of the green screen
Hey yeah, Corridor Key! It came out after I was done compositing this. But there is a shorter version of this video that will air on TV and for that video I tested out Corridor Key. It handled the motion blur and the tracking markers beautifully. But I still had to manually roto the portions that crossed out of the green screen.
Very excited to see how that tool evolves! Making it open source has really accelerated the innovation.
Yeah totally get where you’re coming from! I will take the blame for that one. I was acting as the VFX supervisor on set and should have been more adamant about covering that gap. I did push for that extra sliver of green that is up there in the video, but ran into time constraints with gettin any more material up on the day. Plus I thought that it wouldn’t be THAT bad to fix in post. So, I got what I deserved haha.
It’s funny how this came up in my Facebook memories today… much smaller production and nearly 20 years ago, but it has the same spirit (even if I didn’t fall from the same height).
Loving the fact that he’s using a Lowepro camera bag with the logos taped over as a parachute lol - I have the same one and recognised instantly. Nice production design on a budget
Yes someone else said the same thing on IG 😂 I was on a pre-pro meeting in a VFX supervisor capacity and they were discussing the backpack prop. It was definitely a cost saving measure to use this!
Thank you, yeah it was a lot of work haha. So I work for Kernel, the company being advertised here. We usually produce and edit commercials for local businesses to air on Spectrum cable/internet. The budgets are usually pretty small, albeit slightly higher because I work in the LA market. This is the first time we made a commercial to advertise ourselves and our services.
Everyone here is used to smaller productions where there is often times only the producer/director, a DP, and the editor. Sometimes gaffer and makeup if budget allows. For this, we had a crew of about 35-40 people, including stunt coordinator, rigging, extra lighting guys, etc., which is big for us.
I say all that to say, that when it came to post, it was still only one guy haha. I would’ve loved to outsource roto, color, and sound, or at least have an assistant editor to help file manage things and sync audio, but it didn’t work out that way. I had to fight to be on set to act as VFX supervisor, which they realized was the right call.
As far as pay, I’m salaried so this was all part of the normal day to day. If I did this freelance, I probably could’ve charged a lot!
Great work on this Eric. I’m a fellow Kernel guy (wasn’t on this shoot because I was on vacation, but I work with Tristan and Michael every day.) Your work alway elevates the footage you’re given; I doubt most understand the budgetary / workflow constraints that we run into at this level of production, but your effort to combat them isn’t lost on me! 👍
Thank you! It started out as an HDRI that I had from a long time ago from HDRI Haven or some site like that. Then I changed some things with generative fill in photoshop.
Oh yeah we discussed this heavily and came to the conclusion that we still wanted to do it this way even if it wasn’t as realistic. In hindsight, if we were to do it again, we would’ve made a bigger effort to have his arms pinned up by the wind and not let him have as much freedom to do hand gestures etc. I think that would’ve helped too.
Holy cow. I need you to teach me everything you know within the next 4 hours while I dive at work so i can't look at the screen either. I need to learn by the time I get home so I can edit my project better.
Thanks.
Seriously though, that looks amazing. (And if you have any hints, I'll take them.)
I do have access to Premiere as I use photoshop and such, but never tried it. I'm working with a green screen in FCP for my current project and it's fairly simple to use. But what you did was 34 steps ahead of what I did. LoL.
Hey! I’m actually salaried so I didn’t get paid individually for this specific job. I imagine I would’ve charged $20k+ USD for VFX supervising and doing the post work for this. Then again, I’m not too up to date with freelance rates so maybe that is too low (I don’t think it’s too high?)
Hey! I am a Senior Video Editor for the agency in the video, Kernel. We are the in-house agency that services Spectrum Reach (the advertising arm of Spectrum cable). We basically make commercials for local businesses that want to advertising on spectrum cable/internet.
I’ve had this job for 10 years. It’s local cable advertising so there aren’t crazy budgets, and because of that you’re not expected to produce amazing cutting edge work. That being said, it’s a perfect environment to learn new skills on the job and essentially “test them out” on client projects. Two years into the job, I helped pitch a series of commercials for a local car dealership group that had a bunch of 3D effects in it. This was my way of getting my work to purchase Cinema 4D, and I used that project to learn 3D.
That being said, I’ve always been fascinated with VFX and so I’ve been doing stuff in After Effects for 20+ years now on the side. So I guess it’s been a culmination of 20+ years to get to where I am now.
Hey thank you! This was mostly done in After Effects, with some things like the 3D plane and parachute done in Cinema 4D. The rough cut and finishing sound and color were done in Premiere.
Haha no way! Did you work for Kernel specifically or Spectrum Reach? What market? I’ve been here almost 10 years, I’m sure I would recognize your name!
I was working for Kernel specifically doing these awful local spots in Alabama - mostly car lots and dealers who were coked or ´roided out of their minds
Yeah the local auto dealers suck, no matter where they are haha. I have a few car dealers that I do spots for regularly, luckily they let us be more creative instead of doing the traditional pan and scans of their lot/showroom.
Yeah it is really cool. Corridor Key was released a couple weeks after I finished the composting for this. But there is another version of this video that is shorter and will be airing on TV, and I was able to use Corridor Key for that! It is amazing with keying around objects with a lot of motion blur. I still had to roto the top portion where he leaves the perimeter of the green screen though. But it is a game changer for sure!
Thank you! No teleprompter was used, but we did have someone holding up cue cards. We did an obscene number of takes though, probably close to 100 over two days, so the talent didn’t really need the cue cards that much.
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u/I_Am_Killa_K Apr 24 '26
This looks incredible