In Broadcast - October 2019 - 44

44

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 9 - Issue 9 | October 2019

InForm

Fusion Studio Delivers High
End VFX for Brassic
Sky One's latest comedy drama, Brassic, follows a group of working class
friends finding unconventional ways to win at life in northern suburbia...

Brassic
(Promotional Stills
- Sky One)

F

ilmed in the North West of
England, the series was delivered
in HDR and SDR, with a bold, stylised
aesthetic, as far away as possible from
a stereotypical grim and grey urban
look.
The series' VFX requirements, from
major set pieces through to repairs
and fixes were delivered by Tanvir
Hanif at Digital Imaging fx using Fusion
Studio.
"As with many of our projects, we
worked with the production team from
the outset, to advise on the most timeand cost-effective workflow to achieve
the effects required," he begins. "But
even with the most careful of planning
with the script writing team and crew,
once shooting is complete, there can
still be a lot of work for the VFX in
terms of shot repair or changes in
compliance."
This was exactly the case with
Brassic, with changes ranging from
logos on clothing to disguising famous
cartoon merchandise. "There's one
funny scene, where the main group
are drinking from mugs branded with
cartoon characters, and the script is
very specific as they start to banter
about how they match with the
different persona," Tanvir explains.
"But at a late stage production found
that they didn't have clearance and so
we had to spend a lot of time masking
the images. We used Fusion to age and
fade the mugs and make them look
as though they'd been through the
dishwasher plenty of times!"

total. "That may sound like a huge
investment for a scene where you're
actually hoping that the audience
doesn't notice the VFX work, but that
is where the power of Fusion lies,"
he continues. "The level of realistic
detail that can be produced whilst
still keeping the workflow quick and
efficient is balanced perfectly."
HDR Highlights
Delivering in HDR added an extra
challenge for the series' VFX, for
example keeping the balance for light
sources scrutinised, particularly during
night time sequences. "It was a real
learning curve, but it came down to
careful checks that luma values for
elements added in the VFX pipeline
married up with whatever was already
in shot," Tanvir continues. "We felt
this most acutely doing day for night
replacement work. This is standard
practice for VFX teams, but we had

A Rooftop Re-Creation
filmed, we spent a lot of time using to make sure that the car headlights
One of the production's set action Fusion's precision tools to add the or switching on lights in upstairs'
sequences became a major project for tiniest of details and definition. Moss, windows didn't look out of place across
Tanvir and his team. "The lads decide lichen and even bird droppings were the different final outputs. Sapphire's
to break into a house through the roof, added to the roof tiles, and as the Light plug in was incredibly useful
with one of the group falling through scene takes place on a cold night, for demonising and making sure the
two floors, causing chaos everywhere," we added breath vapour around the effects were realistic and in keeping
he explains. "Initially this was going actors' mouths."
with the scene's authenticity.
to be done on location with stunt
The sequence lasts around 2-3
"Having worked with Fusion Studio
performers, however, the decision was minutes and Tanvir estimates it since its early iterations, it's become
made that it was too dangerous."
was around six weeks of work in almost second nature, so handling new
The scene was relocated to a
challenges like HDR hasn't been
studio with greenscreen and an
too overwhelming," concludes
exact 1:1 replica of the rooftop
Tanvir. "I like that its node
was constructed. This meant
based structure feels almost
a much greater requirement
like an illustration of its own,
for the VFX team to deliver
and that, I feel, fits very well
the authenticity required. "We
with the way creative people
spent several days shooting
think and work to find the most
location plates, including on
appropriate solutions. That,
drone-mounted cameras, to get
and the speed and simplicity
all of the angles for compositing
of the GUI, have made Fusion
the backdrop," Tanvir explains.
incredibly intuitive, whilst still
"Once the sequence had been Blackmagic software including Fusion Studio was deployed being extremely powerful."
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/
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