Zoom - The Movie
A Canada/Brazil co-production I made while working at O2 Filmes.
In 2013 and 2014 I had the unique chance to work closely with director Pedro Briza Morelli from O2 Filmes at O2Pos, helping bring one of his ideas to the big screen. We started well before pre-production, with visual research and tests to choose the techniques. I was involved at every stage, from previs to VFX supervision, placing tracking marks and traveling to different locations. I even appear as an extra in the movie! 馃ぃ
I worked with a talented team, including executive producers like Paulo Barcellos, and great artists. The budget was small, but we had passion, freedom and fun. I also worked on compositing and as a 3D generalist, and I led a team of over 20 artists on this production. I'm very proud of our work.
ZOOM is a multidimensional sci-fi comedy about a comic book artist, a novelist and a film director who tell each other's stories across different dimensions. It stars Alison Pill, Gael Garc铆a Bernal, Tyler Labine and Mariana Ximenes. The atmosphere was creative and exciting, lots of problem-solving but no big stress. I even helped direct a scene, in Brazil and in Canada.
The movie was nominated for Best Special Effects at the 2015 Canadian Screen Awards.
VFX Sup - Digital Artist - Creative Direction - Lead Post and CG Supervisor
On the red carpet at the Canadian Screen Awards. ZOOM was nominated for Best Special Effects, and it was a great way to close this project with the team.
Making-of photos (shot by me while waiting for the next setup)
On-Set Supervising
One of my calls as VFX supervisor was to shoot everything that needed to be drawn over in the studio. To make that work, the actors needed references to interact with and to understand their space. My solution was gray objects and mock-ups standing in for furniture and other items, so they could read the 3D space. Later, in post, the sets were replaced by 2D drawings tracked in 3D over those scenes. Since the drawings weren't ready at the shoot, one of our lead background artists stayed on set sketching the environment and showing it to the actors, so everyone was on the same page in each scene.
This approach saved money and let the camera move freely, giving the actors and the director much more room to improvise.
It also meant I was on set helping direct the actors and putting down a LOT of tape to mark spaces and interaction areas. I also added lots of tracking marks, as you can see in the images below.
Production Images
