La Salamandre (2021)

Salamandra / The Salamander / La Salamandre / A Salamandra

Distributor   IMDB   

Sadly there is very little to find and therefore show regarding this film. I worked mostly on compositing. For multiple shots in a fire scene I was adding fire and smoke to add to the SFX on the plate. During the beginning of the scene there is a shot where Catherine is pouring gasoline from a can, where a larger amount coming out was desired, for which I animated a 3D version of the can to match the plate and then simulated liquid splashing out during the right time using the Phoenix plugin for 3ds Max by keyframing the emitter to the right time. As some liquid was in the shot, just not enough, I had a good reference to match when something would spill and how it would look, which aided also in comping the final render of the simulation into the plate.

For a scene outside a club that looked a bit empty I rebuilt the scene in 3ds Max, and then added some characters with appropriate idle animations for the location with the population tool in 3ds Max. As the movie was shot without originally planning for VFX I could only work with the plate itself and recreated the lighting  based on lights I could see in the shot and the matching scene geo. Then I went on to match the shading for the floor, as it was slightly reflective stone flooring. After that was rendered I tracked the movement of the shot in Nuke and merged them in.

In another shot inside a club they asked for more exaggerated lighting, so I comped in a plate of a flashing light effect, which I modified to have it change color, and also added a very slight overlay of the same effect very blurred to add to the atmosphere.