Press Kit Moving Day
Synopsis: A small girl embarks on an exciting journey of moving into her new home, an enchanting and lavish estate filled with wonder. The simple discovery of a forgotten box of toys leads to a battle in the garden of good and evil where no one will ever be the same. an fxphd.com production directed by Jason Wingrove executive producers Mike Seymour John Montgomery produced by Matthew Graham director of photography Tom Gleeson editor Richard Learoyd Kate Sherman as Dew Drop and introducing Darcy Griffith as the girl written by Matthew Graham Shot on RED One 2.25:1 with Cooke anamorphic lenses. Shoot Location: Sydney, Australia 2009 Completed: December 2010
Director - Jason Wingrove Growing up near Pinewood Studios, jason developed a love of filmmaking early. Emigrating to Australia & topping the class in film school led to a decade behind the camera honing his directing watching how not to do it. His drama & comedy TVC work has garnered Clio Axis and Cannes awards. Producer - Matthew Graham Matthew loves seeing how it all happens behind the camera, and there is no better seat than producing on-set or in post. Matthew loves telling a good story and making films with talented people. His work as a visual fx producer earned him an AFI nomination for his work on Gabriel. VFX Supervisor/ Executive Producer - Mike Seymour Mike Seymour is co-founder of fxguide and fxphd.com. Mike is an Emmy nominated, and AFI winning visual effects supervisor who has worked in post-production for over 25 years in Australia, London and Los Angeles. Mike consults and lectures on visual effects, camera technology and post-production around the world. He has spoken and consulted in China, Japan, England, Venice, America and Singapore, to name a few. Mike has a degree and masters from Sydney University. Mike hosts several industry podcasts including the RC podcast focused on Digital Cinematography. The Girl - Darcy Griffith Charming, crazy and free-spirited, Darcy Griffith has come a long way in her six years of life. With her great love for anything which requires the use of her imagination. Darcy enjoys learning a variety of dance, including Ballet, Tap and Jazz with RGDANCE and Highland Dancing with Carolyn Woollett. In July 2010 Darcy was a finalist in the West Coast Dance Explosion in Las Vegas, with RGDANCE. Darcy lives at Liverpool in NSW with her parents, her big brother and sister, and their dog Patch.
The story and direction required the film to be set in the world of a small child. The camera had to be free and fluid and allow the 5 year old actress to have freedom to do what she wanted to. The limited shooting hours with a child actor (5 hours per day) meant the production had to move at a fast pace, with 75 VFX shots to be in the final 8 minutes. The film was storyboarded and an animatic created to help pre visualize the actions sequences. This was particularly important to help show the young actress what she was supposed to be interacting with. Festivals Cleveland International Film Festival 2011 - Winner: The Rice Hershey Memorial Award for Originality Seattle International Film Festival 2011 Palm Springs International Film Festival 2011 St Kilda Film Festival 2011 Dungog Film Festival 2011
The Fairies Each fairy had its own unique wing design, in both colour and texture. Colour was an important factor in allowing Dew Drop the main fairy stand out, and allow the audience to follow the rivalry between her and the girl. The wings were modeled, textured and lit in Maya, as were the digital bodies used for the rag doll solution. Rendering was done using Mental Ray. The fairies were handled in 3 different ways: 1) Card fairies A spirit based solution, where stills of the fairies were placed on 2d cards and key frame animated. This was a fast and effective way of populating the fairies and moving them quickly across the screen and perfect for when the fairies are not close to the camera. 2) Rag doll Fairies This was the preferred solution for when fairies were close to camera, but needed more dynamic movement than what could be achieved by filming the actresses on harnesses. Photos were taken of the actress then cut out and projected onto basic 3d geometry of a human, then rigged so the model could then be animated with body expressions. A short cycle of flapping wings was tracked onto the rendered fairy.
3) Live action fairies The key fairies were filmed against a large green screen erected at a trapeze school. the rig and harness were painted out and rotoscoped. The actresses were filmed with interactive practical contact lighting to simulate the flame thrower. For the live action fairy elements, spherical lenses were used instead of the anamorphic lenses. The final anamorphic distortion would be added again to the final composite. The actresses were keyʼed and rotoscoped in Nuke and tracked in PFTrack. The tracking data was then fed into Maya to render their wings and also into 3ds Max to enable the flame sim to know where the fairies were in the scene. Background plates were either made up of stills with a jib move added in post, or close-up live action plates were filmed or treeʼs, bushes and birdbaths. Simulated onset interaction with leaves was achieved by fishing wire pulling on small branches. aerosol cans of air were also used to give water movement and leaf interaction. 4 inch toys fairies were used on set as stand-ins for the live action plates that would be added later. The also gave the compositors a reference for practical lighting and scale. Kate Sherman - Dew Drop
Moving day production images
Moving day production images
Moving day production images
Moving day production images
Moving day production images