Blind Faith

Work continues on delivering nearly 800 VFX shots for our summer release. We have 6 weeks remaining in our schedule and about 650 shots yet to deliver. This is the point in almost every project that requires us to rely on blind faith. Blind faith that a) delivery of the shots will not affect any other departments and b) that they look good enough to put into the film. It’s a race to the finish line!

I’ve been on this picture since December, yet most of the players have been involved at least 14 months. It’s interesting to see the levels of trust and comfort tested as difficult issues are presented almost daily. Our director is generally mild mannered and handles the amount of work with respectable knowledge and a keen memory. His patience is being tested and we are all holding our breath that the planets align and everything magically comes together in the final hour. He had to raise his concern to a higher level last week, which was completely warranted, yet knowing his generally stable demeanor, I felt for him, knowing what a drain it is to yell at people you generally like and are dependent upon.

The scope of work has been distributed amongst several vendors. Our main vendor is finalizing look development and animation on many scenes. Once approved, the shots will begin rendering and soon we’ll be living in the screening room, with the director approving each shot, one by one. They have about 450 shots to go. The smaller vendors are in varying states of delivering VFX shots. Less concern about these, which is why it’s not a bad idea to spread the work around.

In addition to finishing the VFX shots for the movie, we get side tracked with requests from marketing to accelerate shots for trailers and previews. At a certain point, the shots just can’t be rushed any further. I refer to the analogy that “you can’t speed up the delivery of a baby”, although I’m sure many a mother would like to! So, in these final weeks of the project, in addition to operating on blind faith, we are tracking multiple versions of the shots, making sure that nothing has fallen through the cracks.

The film previewed last night, and we’re hoping it’s the last one before we deliver, yet I suspect we’ll have one more round of challenges! Ahhh, the glamour of filmmaking!