Recent Composite Articles

VFX Breakdowns Of Kevin Margo's Short Film 'Grounded'

Kevin Margo, a VFX/CG Supervisor at Blur Studios recently released his directoral debut with his short science fiction film titled 'Grounded'. The film, while the general audience may not fully appreciate it, will entice cinephiles with its stunning graphics and read between the lines themes. In the following video he breaks down the CGI that was used in the film. The film was shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and post processed using 3DS Max and Fume FX.

BTS Video Of DesignWork's USA Bobsled Commercial

DesignWorks Media Group is made up of Mike Stog and Lee Barwick. The USA Olympic Boblsed/Skeleton team commissioned them to do a campaign which includes bobsledding fused with everyday activites, i.e. grocery shopping. Mike and Lee kept things pretty easy and minimal as far as lighting goes. They used a lot of the ambient, then supplemented for an extra kick where needed. Lighting diagram and final photo ad included after the jump. Enjoy!

Brian Andrew's Blurs The Line Between Human and Animal

Using salvaged x-ray films and a somewhat disturbing design sense, Brian Andrews video "Hominid" has blurred the lines between human and animal anatomy. The resulting video is the result of a year of work with Ex'pression College of Digital Arts, mapping the movements of different animals to create a realistic blend between the two or more species being represented.

How to Create a Giant Croc Munching on Your Friends

Good special effects are the ones you don't really realize were "special." They are the moments that give you that sense of awe without dragging you away from being caught in the moment. Fuel VFX specializes in creating special effects for a wide range of movies, some of which you've most likely seen this year.

Using Photoshop To Turn A Wedding Day Into A Zombie Apocalypse

Multimedia Artist Josiah Moore had always wanted to do a fun wedding picture when he and his wife got married. Well that opportunity came, and his wife agreed to go along with it! Armed with only a couple of props, he told the photographer his idea, and after the wedding Josiah got to work in photoshop to turn his wedding day into something out of a horror movie. This video shows a sped up look at his process.

How To Fake An Underwater Scene In A Pool

For over a year and a half now, David Reynolds has been filming his "budget" series of short films called The Underwater Realm. Each week he and his team release a behind the scenes video on how they overcome some technical aspect of filming (previous Fstoppers posts here). This week Eve explains how he tackled the challenge of making a small diving pool appear like an infinite ocean using something other than green screen. If this is what is required on a budget, I can't imagine what the full blown productions look like!

Behind The Scenes: Shooting JB And The Moonshine Band

Matthew Hogan, a talented photographer and videographer from Tyler, Texas, shot country band, JB and the Mooonshine band. He not only shot the band for a promotional photoshoot, but for their music video, as well. Using Alienbee lighting, a Nikon D700 and a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens he composited the individual band members together for the final image.

'Prometheus' Visual Effects Broken Down

MPC or The Moving Picture Company is famous for creating truly stunning visual effects for blockbuster films like, 'Wrath of the Titans', 'John Carter' and 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'. They also did the effects for the mind blowing 'Prometheus'. In the first video VFX Supervisor, Richard Stammers, explains how they created the plant surface (or moon's), of LV-223. He explains how they used Google Earth as a reference for locations used for the film's backdrop. In the second video MPC shows snippets of various scenes broken down.

Ben Von Wong's Mastery Lighting...With An iPhone.

Montreal photographer, Ben Von Wong, an Fstoppers favorite is at it again with his latest shoot. The folks over at Nikon sent Von Wong a Nikkor 400mm f2.8 lens to shoot with. Typically with a large lens you would shoot nature or sports, but not Von Wong. He decided to test the lens using the Brenizer Method. He took several portraits of musician, Andrew Kesler, on top of a rooftop, but one problem presented itself. How to light Andrew in the middle of the night on such short notice? In typical Von Wong ingenuity, they chose, an iPhone.

Compositing A Unique Family Portrait With Ben Von Wong

Back again, Benjamin Von Wong takes on family portraits this time in another one of his behind the scenes videos. See how he put together 4 different scenes to make typically mundane photography style come to life. Using a D800E and Photoshop, check out how Ben works his magic.

BTS: ASU's 'Sparky' Gets A Fiery Update

Arizona State University's mascot, 'Sparky', and its football team, the Arizona Sun Devils, have lit up several stadiums over the years with it's blazing and rock-driven intro video, but after seven seasons it looks like poor Sparky is in need of an update. The people over at True Story Films have taken over the task of sprucing the Sun Devil up for its new remake of its traditional stadium intro video.

Behind The Scenes: Cover Shoot For Backpacker Magazine

For the yet unreleased October 'survival' issue of Backpacker magazine, adventure photographer, Bud Force, decided instead of having a model dangling perilously off of a cliff that he would do a creative composite. He shot the background at 'El Capitan' peak in Guadalupe Moutains National Park and the subject at Mineral Wells State Park.

'Dabo Magis': A Devilish Photo Manipulation

There always comes a time while you're surfing the web looking for inspiration that you stumble upon something so striking that it just blows you away. You sit back and wonder... 'How in the world did they manage that?' Jean Osipyan, a professional fashion photographer from Armenia and now based out of Russia takes the extra steps from ordinary to extraordinary in his retouching.

Using a Miniature World With Green Screen

We are in an age where CG dominates today's movies and cartoons. While the effects can be pretty cool, it can be refreshing when people work old-school and create a work based off green screen and creativity.

The 3.1 Billion Pixel Image Of Women's Volleyball At The Olympics

Last week we showed you David Bergman's Gigapan image of North Greenwich Arena (home of the Olympic gymnastics meets). That image was roughly 1.7 billion pixels! Two days ago, David released his newest Gigapan image of Horse Guards Parade that contains 200 stitched images totaling an incredible 3.1 billion pixels. It's amazing to zoom in and see so much detail both in the audience as well as on the field. What interesting things can you find in this image?

Check Out This Amazing GigaPixel Image Of The Olympics

Our good friend David Bergman was hired by Sports Illustrated to shoot the Olympics once again this year. David is becoming more and more well known for his Gigapan images which require a camera to take hundreds of pictures that are then stitched together in post. The result is a single image that you can "zoom" almost endlessly into. If you want to see every detail of the gymnasium at the Olympics, check out this incredible GigaPixel image.

A Habit of Gravity Defying Photography

Li Wei has earned his way to recognition in China through his trademark gravity defying images. This video, recently featured by the Creators Project, gives a little behind the scenes glimpse of how Li Wei was inspired to pursue his aerial stunts and how his creative ideas have reflected the quickly changing culture and country around him.

Crappy Green Screen Footage? Fix It Like This!

I have been learning a ton of video know how in the past few months from watching the tutorials over at VideoMaker. I recently shot a green screen video for some background compositing and didn't take as much time as I should have setting up the lights for the green screen (the subjects on the other hand were flawlessly lit, haha). I thought I was out of luck until I came across this video which showed me how to fix my beginner's mistake and also has a few more handy tips for other green screen screw ups. Enjoy!

BTS On An All CG Scene From The Amazing Spider-Man

The Amazing Spider-Man has been out for about 2 weeks and has made 137 million dollars. I saw it last week and was really impressed by the special effects but I've never had a full understanding of what really goes into it. In this video Jerome Chen from Sony Imageworks takes us through the basics of creating an all CG fight scene. Check out the full post for 3 additional videos.

Eleven Beautiful Architectural Photographs And How They Were Made

As I continue my articles on interior, architectural, and real estate photography, I thought it would be interesting to see different approaches to shooting these types of subjects. So, for this month's article, I've invited a number of professional interior, architectural, and real estate photographers to share their images and techniques with everyone who reads Fstoppers.

Shooting Architecture on Location With Mike Butler in Bogota, Colombia

We've featured architectural photographer Mike Butler before, when he shot the Intercontinental Hotel in Miami, FL. This time, Mike heads to Bogota, Colombia, to shoot the Virgilio Barco Library using a slew of hot lights and assistants. If you've ever wondered why it takes 8 hours to create a single architectural image, this BTS will show you exactly why.

Jeremy Cowart Walks Us Through His Portrait Of Imogen Heap

Jeremy Cowart is the newest photographer to be featured as a part of Profoto's Master Series. In this video he explains his work flow of his well known Imogen Heap portrait. Jeremy thinks way outside the box with much of his work and he is a true artist at heart. Hopefully hearing him talk us through this shot will move you to find new ways to shoot whatever it is you do. Enjoy!

Photographing The New Pepsi Super Car BTSV

Pepsi Australia recently teamed up with Kelly Racing to produce the Pepsi Max super car. Photographer Chris Benny was hired to shoot the new car and lucky for us, he filmed a quick BTSV of the production. As with many shoots, the weather became a problem but Chris had a backup plan. With a little post work Chris made the outside shots pop and then moved the car inside to finish the shoot.

GoPro's New WiFi BacPac Commercial Will Make You Smile

GoPro has become one of those companies like Redbull where everything they put out there is pretty cool. It has been fun seeing such a small startup become the industry leaders in tiny HD video cameras. With their new Wifi BacPac, GoPro gives users the ability to control their cameras through tablets like the iPad and smart phones. Unlike previous versions of the Hero, you can now control the shutter, camera modes, and other options with a simple remote. It's pretty amazing to see what this camera has become in just a few years. Rock on GoPro!

The Making Of An Automotive Magazine Shot-Explained Visually By Scott Dukes

Have you ever been going through the magazine rack of your local book store and just stood staring at the cover of a car magazine? No? Ok, well maybe that's just me. But when I see a photo of a blazingly fast sports car clinging to the corner of a race track it certainly piques my interest. Even if you aren't a "car person" chances are you have at least wondered how these cover shots are made.

[BTS] How To Create HDR Images Using Bracketing With Trey Ratcliff

Trey Ratcliff is perhaps one of the most well known and adored HDR photographers today. The High Dynamic Range images he creates are not subtle by any means and he takes no apologies when it comes to creating images he personally enjoys. In this video, Trey talks about his gear (mainly Nikkor 12-24 and Really Right Stuff Tripods) and how he thinks through his compositions as he visits the beautiful Gorda in the Virgin Islands. Watch the 2nd video in the full post

[Behind The Scenes] How To Photograph Birds of Prey In The Studio

Photographing birds out in the wild seems pretty tough. Oregon photographer Jon Myers wanted to make the challenge even tougher by bringing the birds into his studio. Using large softboxes to create a space for the birds to fly, Jon was able to photograph eagles, ospreys, and hawks perfectly while in flight. The shots are spectacular, and if you click the full post you can see them shot against grey as well.

[Pics] An Incredible 24-Hour, 360º Panorama

This is what it looks like when day and night meet in a single image. Including the prep time, it took photographer Chris Kotsiopoloulos thirty hours to capture the hundreds photos needed to stitch this together. The shot was taken in Sounio, Greece. It got so cold at times that he had to use a hairdryer to keep the lens from fogging up. See the full post for more details!

[Video] Shooting The Ad Campaign For Discovery's River Monsters

Our good friend Blair Bunting is at it again. This time Blair was hired to shoot the ad campaign for The Discovery Channels hit show River Monsters. The concept was relatively simple; to have the show’s host Jeremy Wade wrestling a giant fish in the shallow waters near South Beach, Florida. To do this Blair's team used a fake fish that was then replaced in post. To freeze the water with a quick flash duration and stay portable Blair used the new Photoflex Tritons.