Three months ago, while I was studying visual FX for 3D (stereoscopy),
I realized that I have a big genetic problem.
Whenever I try to blink only one eye at a time, I can only blink the left one.
It doesn't matter how hard I try, I have no individual control of my right eyelid.
But Daniel was born with it. He has great control of his eyelid movements.
We also know that everybody hates 3D glasses, so we came up with this joke/solution.
Francois was doing a film with us at Jonathan Post. His accent and Personality were perfect for the film, We shot everything in 4K resolution, with the sharpest image we could get with the RED camera, with a big help from the photographer Alexandre Ermel.
To make the FX we came up with a simple solution. We created a 3D face, based on image photometry. We used the 3D face to track all his movements. We projected the film on the face, so we ended up with a steady image of the face. It didn't matter the face was moving, we always had a steady image. After that, Rafa had a painful editing job to loop all of Francois' eye-blinking. The final step was the addition of a subtle muscle movement, something between a normal blink and a normal wink.
Luis Carone
Full Credits:
Production: Jonathan Post, Sao Paulo.
Creation: Luis Carone and Daniel Dias.
Direction: Luis Carone
Actor: Francois Vogel
Visual effects Supervisor: Daniel Dias
Director of photography: Alexandre Ermel
Digital compositing: Rafael Vormittag
Editing:: Alex Lacerda
R&D: Fernando Freire
Sound effects: Cristiano Pinheiro Mariano Alvarez (Beep Audio Post)
Gaffer: Rogerio (gerente)
Thanks:
Alexandre Ermel, for the cameras and Studio and Photo.
Sean Hollister, Engadget
Tadeu Schmidt, Globo, Fantástico
James Mulroy, PCWorld
Casey Chan, Gizmodo