Werewolf Transformation Shots
This episode has a big battle between Derek’s Pack and the Alpha Pack. Although Scott wants to negotiate with the Alpha Pack without having a battle, Derek decides to fight against the Alpha Pack. Therefore, Scott decides to transform into a wolf. In this werewolf transformation sequence, I composited the growth of beard, ears, and fangs after directing my crew members and shooting the elements. We shot the footage of beard hair getting pulled through the green mesh, and I reversed the footage, tracked the actor’s face and composited them together so that it would look like they are growing from his face. I morphed his ears and teeth into the elements of wolf ears and fangs. I shot the elements from different multiple angles because the actor turns his head around while struggling to transform into the Werewolf. Also, I morphed his normal face into the Werewolf face which has special effects prosthetics on him. There are not that many Wolf Transformation references out there that show off the effects entirely, clearly and visibly like we did. They usually skip the actual transformation by elaborately editing cuts in this show, but the director for the episode was Robert Hall, and he wanted to show off our VFX skills and special effects by specifically focusing on the transformation. Many people have given compliments on how well done the effects were, and I was very proud of my work
Chest Blood Splatter Shot
In this shot, Ennis holds Boyd while Kali delivers a roundhouse kick, clawing deeply into Boyd's chest. I tracked Boyd’s chest and added blood splatter. We shot green screen footage of blood splattering by using piston equipment with holes. We connected it to the air compressor and gave the initial push to make it fly in the air naturally.
Teen Wolf is an American supernatural teen drama television series developed by Jeff Davis for MTV. It is loosely based on the 1985 film of the same name. This show is about many Werewolves and Supernatural monsters/creatures with super strengths and magical powers, so it has a lot of effects shots. Also, it has many action/fight scenes, so there are many exciting VFX shots. Almost Human, which I was working for at the time, was in charge of the makeup/special effects department on set and VFX in post-production. We worked on achieving the Supernatural characters’ looks. VFX tasks mostly involved enhancing the special effects and combining the plates and special effects elements as well as some of the action/hero shots. I was the lead compositor in season 2, but in season 3, I was the VFX Supervisor. As the Lead Compositor, I worked on the most challenging hero shots at the studio and helped other Artists solve their compositing problems. We worked on a lot of VFX tasks involving the actors and Werewolves/Creatures prosthetics. Therefore, they required good tracking on the actors’ and stunts’ faces and bodies. They move and turn around, so some of them are difficult to track. I did planar-tracking in Mocha and accomplished good quality trackings. For action scenes, I shot green screen footage of VFX elements at the studio and composited them together with the actors’ plates. As the VFX Supervisor, I analyzed the VFX shots, bid the budgets, communicated with the creator Jeff Davis and the director Robert Hall, assigned VFX tasks to the appropriate artists, analyzed revision notes, gave advice and problem solutions to help artists, etc. I gave inputs and VFX ideas about the effects and shots to the creator and director so that we could make the best of VFX and practical effects. I got the rough cut from the editor and analyzed our VFX shots. I estimated how many work hours they would take us to finish as well as think about the revision notes that we might get just in case. I already knew the levels, strengths, and weaknesses of all the Artists at my studio, so depending on the task levels and types of work, I considered all the aspects and assigned the tasks to the Artists in the most effective and efficient ways.