Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1100392
POSTVIS Once principal filming wrapped, The Third Floor created postvis for shots that included Dumbo and other elephants and animals, replacing stand- in props that had been used on set or adding temp versions of the characters and performanc- es where they were needed within the plates. According to Summers, "While the action and performances for some scenes had been visualized pre-shoot in previs with Tim that then fed into postvis, there were also scenes where Dumbo's performance needed to be post-pro- duced to fit the performances of the actors and stand-ins that had been recorded using props and eyeline references, or we temped Dumbo's animation in post over the reference from a suited actor. For some shots, there was not a live-action representation or a previs to work from as we post-vised the plates." The Third Floor's postvis artists used 3D Equalizer to hand over fully tracked Maya scenes lined up against a 3D Lidar scan of the set. Postvis shot creators then animated Dumbo into the postvis using a projection of the plate in Maya for reference. Finally, postvis artists or dedicated Nuke compositors at The Third Floor created finished postvis, compositing the elements, cleaning up the plate and adding any bells and whistles needed for storytelling. With animals throughout the movie being digital, The Third Floor first worked on adding elephants to the clean postvis plates, focusing mainly on Dumbo. As postvis progressed, other animals were added, mainly as background elements, but some characters — like the monkey Barrymore — featured in sequences of their own. In the postvis blocking, artists had to con- sider timing for a CG Dumbo that sometimes needed to move at a quick pace against more quiet crowd action in the background plate. And in both postvis and previs, capturing a sense of the required emotion and mood was always front of mind. "It was particularly fun working on perfor- mance-based sequences that showcased Dumbo's developing playfulness," Summers concludes. "And it was great helping realizing homage moments, like the opening scene where the circus train crosses the American landscape. I'd say the single biggest challenge across the board in visualization was making an elephant fly in a believable way. There is nothing cartoony about Tim's take on Dumbo and he wanted him to look and feel physically real, especially when flying. We really had to suspend everything we knew about the physical rules of our world as we made ourselves believe elephants could fly." A CG simulation of the stage rig. Shooting live-action Previs of assets helped determine staging and camera placement. A Spydercam test