STRIKE! A mole with a Goal! This is a stop motion feature directed by Trevor Hardy and produced by Edward Catchpole and Jeremy Davis. I've know Jeremy for some time and he asked me if I could help "out a bit". Initially on de-rigging (a thankless, tedious and laborious task as any who have done it would agree). Then moving on to take a lead of the visual effects for all elements of the film.
Eventually we had a team of 3 or 4 artists working on over 800 of the 1781 shots that go to make up the film. There was smokes, steams, gasses and explosions. Rain, puddles, lights and fireworks. Complete crowds to be added to a football stadium, compositing and set extensions. A 3D generated pool that was composited on to the in camera footage with splashes and flying fish. A car chase, glowing rings, runaway earth movers and even a special powers, mole eye, through the rocks view sequence created using the built in after effects.
All of this needed to be co-ordinated and managed much of the time on footage that had already been shot with an emphasis of getting the animation done but not necessarily with the post production VFX in mind. With very tight deadlines and most impossibly small budget the pressure was intense. However, it was one of the most enjoyable and rewarding work experiences of my career.
I'm incredibly proud of what the VFX team achieved on the this film as well as my own work. Also of the work of the model makers, animators, de-riggers (big cheer to Rachel who did an extraordinary job) who all worked mad hours and put their own lives on hold through that last few months to get the film through production.
It was a real challenge and a great deal of fun to work out how we were gong to achieve as many high quality, epic Hollywood VFX just with After Effects, a bit of Blender and C4D lite.