How the directors of Heretic gave Niche VFX the films biggest and most surprising VFX shot.Niche VFX visual effects supervisors Chris van Dyck and Fenner Rockliffe were already working with directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods on their horror film Heretics effects shots when, at the end of our final VFX meeting, there was a Oh, just one more thing moment.The directors said, We have this idea that we havent mentioned yet, relates van Dyck. They wanted to do a shot where we followed one of the charactersSister Paxton (Chloe East)-up through a ladder shaft, and then we pull back to realize shes actually in a diorama of the house in a room that we then see her run out of and emerge in the room that the diorama is in.van Dyck admits that he shrugged off the suggested pullback shot, which is achieved as a oner in the final film, with an initial laughas it was so elaborate. I kind of thought they were teasing me. They were adding in the biggest shot in the film and the timing was so funny, as we just finished our final review of our budget, shot list and approach for the entire film.Getting started on the pullback shotNiche VFX got straight to work on the shot. It started with us just using a foam core mock-up of the diorama, taking our phones out and moving them around it, explains Rockliffe. This wasnt even the properly built wooden diorama that was in the film. We just started to mime out and start the discussion with director of photography Chung-hoon Chung.Several aspects of the shot needed to be worked out, as van Dyck recounts. We had to consider, what camera are we using? What the height limitations were once everything is rigged? How long do they want her crawling up a ladder? What can we actually film? In the end, it ultimately became a vision that we crafted based on what we had to work with and we need to provide previs to get all of the departments on board.The Niche VFX team began by accessing the art department and props SketchUp model for the diorama that had been used for the foam core version and rebuilding that in 3D. From that, says Rockliffe, we started trying different lenses in CG to see how far wed have to get away from this physically-scaled diorama model to actually be able to clear above it and then get the takeover from the different plates. There was a lot of investigating different cameras and lenses and what kind of resolution wed need to shoot in, in order to reproject a bluescreen element of the actress that we knew we had to get in order to hold up for a 4K finishing image.The ultimate plan was to film the pullback shot with several plates with the character and with a practically built diorama, then build a CG diorama, and finally stitch all the elements together. One plate involved the actor climbing up the ladder and going into a blue cutout shaft as the camera rises up. Another saw the actor walk along a bluescreen hallway path (having exited the shaft). The other live-action plate was now inside the room in which the diorama was on a table, and where Sister Paxton comes in the door after a whip pan up from the diorama. At various moments in the seamless pullback, Niche VFX would have to transition to their CG diorama and a digital camera takeover, as well as stitch plates to match the desired performance beats and timings of the character running through the diorama and emerging at the room door.The previs helped Niche VFX communicate with the directors, DOP and key grip on aspects such as the maximum height they could place the camera in the studio space. This stage was all about problem solving. It was really interesting to be prevising this in a way that would very clearly help us be able to shoot it, says Rockliffe. For example, wed say, OK, for the shot pulling out of the ladder shaft that the actual actress is climbing well use a 21mm lens, then we should emulate that in CG and then project that, ie. wed look to rebuild the entire shot before we even went to start shooting the plates so that we knew once we were in physical production, it wasnt going to be a botched job with everyones time wasted. It was a lot of upfront work and a lot of problem solving with all the different departments.The shootPrior to the shoot, production had a day of rehearsal with the stunt team. Here, an ascender rig was tried out for the physical ladder shaft pullback shot. van Dyck and Rockliffe were both on set for this trial. It was a really nice moment for us when the directors came over, says Rockliffe. They wanted to check it out and then they said, Oh, it seems like you guys have got this. The same thing occurred for the actual shoot with the bluescreen hallway shoot. There was really a lot of trust from the directors to let Chris and I run this set to make sure we could get all the plates we needed.To make sure the approach was going to work, a small amount of time was allocated to shoot a test before the shoot. We didnt have time to even get the footage, so we just filmed the monitor and got the footage that way and did the tests with the footage from our phones, advises van Dyck. Within a matter of hours, we were able to do a quick comp and show a proof of concept while on-set.On the shoot, the previs aided in working out how quickly the actress should move on the different set pieces. We added in different cues for the actress to do a stumble or a crawl, or to double check her shoulder, notes van Dyck. It would be anything we could come up with to have her take longer to do the run. We just had to shoot several safeties and different versions based on how fast the pullout would be so that we could do the whip pan at the exact moment of when she reached the door so that shes pushing the door.The pullback from the diorama in the room was achieved on a dolly by dolly grip Ryan Monro, dubbed the Rotion Control operator. It was wild how accurate he was able to do these takes over and over, marvels van Dyck. But, ultimately, it led to us not being able to go near to the diorama. Thats where we had to do the CG build of it to take over and blend between the two.Building the dioramaThe SketchUp model of the diorama became the base for Niche VFXs CG version, along with LiDar scanning and photogrammetry, and high resolution texture reference stills taken of the finished model on set. This allowed the studio to build a high resolution asset that could fill the frame for the transitions from inside, close-to and out of the diorama.What was really nice is with that SketchUp model, relates Rockliffe, the art department team built it based on that, so we were very much very close to that. And then were able to photoscan and Lidar scan that in order to ensure everything is physically accurate for when we did the physical camera move pulling out from the diorama.From there, continues Rockliffe, it was a lot of taking high-res stills in order to make sure we had the actual texture fidelity to do the seamless takeover back into the physical diorama plate using actual upscaling of the textures in order to reproject that on our physically accurate geometry, so that it is all seamlessly just one thing.When your shot makes the trailerAt one point during post-production, Niche VFX was advised that the diorama pullback shot would be needed for the films trailer. A close-to-final shot was delivered for the promo, with Rockliffe sharing details of how it differed from the final.When doing our CG camera takeovers, there was this effort to try to compensate and have that perfect smooth motion the whole time. The natural dolly moves did not have that smoothness. So, for the final shots, we would be stabilizing and re-projecting cameras and getting seamless takeovers. The shot thats in the trailer did not have some of that work. Its one of those things that probably most of the millions of people watching the trailer would never notice, but every time I would see it, Id go, Oh no!Another memorable moment for the team was attending the Toronto International Film Festival for a screening of the film. It was so great to see it all come together with the sound design and the score, says Rockliffe. Its a very climactic moment in the film. It was all these different departments that really made this thing sing.The shot is just such a fun shot, reflects Rockliffe. It incorporates so many different parts of VFX and different parts of physical production, and a little bit of that old school process of slapping-different-plates-together-magic and bringing it all together seamlessly with more modern techniques. It was also all about, lets try to shoot as much of this practically as possible so its not just a CG diorama that were pulling out of. Ultimately, I think its always going to just feel better to have it grounded in reality.The post one more thing appeared first on befores & afters.