Three's Company in Being Human

Supervisor Mario Rachiele sinks his teeth into Syfy's remake of the popular BBC monster mash.
Posted In | Magazines: VFXWorld | Site Categories: CG, Television, Visual Effects

Image
They built a complete snout in 3D and motion tracked the actor's face.

"The audience has seen all the other shows with werewolves, and we have to be somewhat different. We are working in TV, not feature film, but we want to make an impact. Having said that, everyone has an opinion of how he should look, how he should act, how he should move. It's a big team. We're delivering all the wolf shots and we're all satisfied -- so far, so good.

"The fun part for me is shooting the scenes with the wolf and trying to make everybody else in the scene see what I see in my head: where the wolf is going to be, what he is doing and where the camera is and what motion tracking will have to do, the lighting of the wolf and where the shadows will be cast. It's very hard for everybody to imagine that wolf when we shoot the scene, so it's my job to make sure that everybody sees it."

Meanwhile, the vampire vfx are straightforward: basically eyes turning black when they get upset or the growing of their teeth. When the vampires die, they turn to dust. That will be in the final episode, so they are just starting those vfx. It's a combination of particles and well-planned rotoscoping and some layering in which the outside layer will disintegrate while the inside layer will be dust. But some of them will be a bit more interesting in what we call the "raisin effect." Before they disintegrate, their skin will instantly dry up.

Image
Ghosts also relive their deaths -- this one drowns with CG water.

The ghost appears and disappears with a flickering in or out. "So we try to make the disappearance effect relate to her mental state at that moment," Rachiele continues. "If she just had a fight with somebody and she disappears, she won't disappear the same way if she's running from something. Each disappearance is different but the effect is a standard particle generation. But, again, it's a very subdued effect. Ghosts are also supposed to relive their deaths, so in one episode, a ghost died from drowning, and once a day he drowns again. How do you visualize somebody drowning in a house? Again, we did some concepts and we ended up shooting the actor in a water tank over a greenscreen and we basically designed a way for him to drown using CG water in two or three places in the show.

"Most of the big effects will be in the later episodes," Rachiele suggests. "But there's a nice morph in the first episode of Josh when he becomes a wolf, but you don't see the end of his transformation. We zoom in on his face where his nose is very obvious and hair grows into a near werewolf. We cut just before the final stage.

"Another interesting shot is where he's in the woods on all fours and we see his rear and human legs becoming wolf-like. But it's in the middle of the transformation. We built a complete snout in 3D and we motion tracked the actor's face and added our CG on it. Episode 10 will have lots of animation with a wolf fight."

Bill Desowitz is senior editor of AWN & VFXWorld.







Comments


Great hmaemr of Thor, that is powerfully helpful!

Gerrilyn (not verified) | Fri, 11/11/2011 - 20:29 | Permalink

1. I'm not British im Serbian idiot.
2. The number of american shows remade for british viewers is below 4 percent compared to 96 percent for British ones remade for America.
3. You call me feebled minded yet in the same post you say they are no such thing as an original idea, thats feeble minded.
4. Tell the rest of Americans and your president to stay "across the pond" and out of other countries business. And remember American scum KOCOBO JE SRBIJA.

TheCetnici (not verified) | Fri, 03/11/2011 - 21:49 | Permalink

That path goes both ways. The British remake alot of American shows as well my feeble minded nationalistic friend:

List_of_US_television_series_remade_for_the_British_market at Wikipedia

The list goes on. There is no longer such a thing as a new idea, but there is always a way of presenting an old idea in an new way.

From across the pond.

Yeahwhatever (not verified) | Tue, 03/08/2011 - 17:28 | Permalink

Stupid Americans always remake already great British shows. Being Human, Shameless, the IT crowd, Life on mars and Skins to name just a few. Why don't you get up of your fat ass and create your own ORIGINAL ideas.

TheCetnici (not verified) | Tue, 03/08/2011 - 16:35 | Permalink

Don't worry, it's not Aiden. I highly recommend watching the BBC version, too.

Anonymous (not verified) | Fri, 03/04/2011 - 11:26 | Permalink

I too love both verisons of this show!! I loved the BBC marathon leading to the new season. Can't wait until it comes out on DVD!

LuAnn (not verified) | Thu, 03/03/2011 - 19:05 | Permalink

Noooo! He turns into DUST?!!!

Anonymous (not verified) | Thu, 03/03/2011 - 18:41 | Permalink

i agree wth connie,LOVE is show ,its awsome all the way around .

sonia (not verified) | Thu, 03/03/2011 - 16:04 | Permalink

I love both shows. I wouldn't miss an episode of either one.
Talk about "being human," they really make us feel the longing in each character.

pat (not verified) | Thu, 03/03/2011 - 11:37 | Permalink

Absolutely love this show! I agree that the effects match the show well. They're not too over the top but they're not a joke either.

I'm sure many people enjoy the BBC show but honestly I am just not a fan. I think the acting is just sub par. When I watch this show on SyFy I get lost in the story and the characters, but on BBC I feel like it's so over acted that you can't believe in the story at all.

Melanie (not verified) | Thu, 03/03/2011 - 11:00 | Permalink

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Use <!--pagebreak--> to create page breaks.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.