Update: Game of Thrones VFX team took home the Visual Effects Society Award in Beverly Hills, prevailing over first-time nominee The Flash.
The Flash’s scarlet speedster regularly does impossible things — like running super fast down West Hastings Street to rescue a bike messenger or running super fast on the surface of English Bay to dispose of a human bomb or running super fast up the Guiness Tower — thanks to a visual effects team led by Armen Kevorkian in Los Angeles. Encore Hollywood is nominated for a Visual Effects Society award tomorrow night and today Kevorkian talked to me a bit about his “meta-human factory”.
The key to making those scenes look as photo-real as possible — a light stage capture of The Flash and other characters to create top quality digital doubles. From Grant Gustin’s face to a full body scan.
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Via FXGuide.com.
For example, the scene where the Flash rescues a bike courier struck by a Central City cab was done first as a stunt on the 1000 block West Hastings Street with the stunt performer pulled up and out of the way by stunt wires each time the cab hit the bike. I was there to see the live action.
Encore Hollywood then added a fully CG Flash with his signature red blur and bits of lightning to save him. Slow-motion cameras let them slow down the action to see The Flash connecting with the courier.
Since then, fully CG Flash continues to do impossible stunt after impossible stunt but with different less-expensive cameras (ARRI Alexas) and more work done in post-production.
My favourite: fully CG Flash running on water at English Bay with human bomb Plastique and then running back to land as the water explodes in a sphere behind him.
Kevorkian’s favourite: he’s “most proud of Firestorm” (Robbie Amell) — especially in next week’s The Nuclear Man. It’s not the first time Kevorkian’s team has animated Robbie Amell — Encore Hollywood did the visual effects for shot-in-Vancouver The Tomorrow People.
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Armen Kervorkian credits the cast — Grant Gustin does a lot of his own stuff– and The Flash stunt team — especially Grant Gustin’s stunt double Cody — for the seamless overlapping from live-action to computer-generated doubles.
And a “really talented pool of artists” in Los Angeles — James Baldanzi, Jeremy Jozwick and Andranik Taranyan. The time constraints of network television mean that everyone has to be in one spot to talk through the work although Armen Kevorkian does travel to Vancouver for big sequences and there is someone on set to oversee the filming of visual effects. That includes director’s prep and the guiding of new directors unfamiliar with The Flash’s visual effects.
Plus let’s not forget Andrew Kreisberg’s writing team who keep the challenges coming.
Visual Effects Society Awards take place Wednesday, February 4th, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.