Making Of: e x o d u s

It's been a little while since we last shared some behind-the-scenes info with you all, so we're back with an entry on the finale of Interlude A, "e x o d u s." As always, if you don't want the magic ruined, don't read this post!

This episode required the most work of any of the episodes we've produced for the series thus far. We incorporated several styles of filmmaking into this single episode, from live action to animation and everything in between. We wanted to make a finale that was memorable, but also capable of propelling the plot forward, tying loose ends and (hopefully) making the timeline of the series clearer. To meet these demands, we needed to experiment with new film and VFX techniques.

The most straightforward scenes in this video were the opening scenes, which included a graphical animation and security camera footage. The security camera footage was done in Blender as usual, but we used GIFs of sparks flying and haze settling to add atmosphere to these shots. The graphical animations were also done in Blender with wireframes and stop motion key frames. Fun fact: the white pixel animation on the "TOWER ACTIVATION" screen is actually a scene from Evangelion downsampled into oblivion. So technically Evangelion was used in the production of Midwest Angelica. The final shot of this sequence showed Spencer's cryo pod exploding into a Starkill mass, which was done by animating a displacement effect on the mesh to an extreme amount.

Next, let's explain the green screen composites during the escape scene. These ended up being fairly complex. To begin, we finally get to see a closeup of Churchill, who is played by me (angeltempo). I had to purchase a tactical vest and pants for this costume, though I already owned the gas mask. All the acting was done in front of a green screen, and the motion was added later through camera motion recreation in After Effects. When it came to shots where a 3D scene was needed, we used a custom script to export camera track data into Blender. Sometimes, the data was messy so we had to account for that. We then had to overlay the work-in-progress composite from after effects including the original camera track footage and the green screen footage tracked to the motion. We were then able to line up the 3D objects in the scene and introduce lighting. Thankfully, the flashing alarm lights masked a lot of lighting issues that arose from the green screen shots.

3D camera tracking with green screen footage was used for the Deathbringer showdown scene as well. To create the mask for the Deathbringers, we did the same thing we did with the Lightbringers in "Home," using object tracking to insert a 3D triangle on top of the footage and rotoscoping where necessary. For the gun, we used a nerf gun recolored in After Effects to make it black. The characters falling after getting hit was all done by me (angeltempo), and the bloopers for that were pretty funny. One time, the gun flew too far and hit one of the legs on the green screen, causing the whole thing to collapse. For the silhouette cornfield scene with Aaron and Churchill killing one last Deathbringer, we needed to create a Deathbringer mask out of cardboard as a physical prop.

The "golden hour" escape scene with Churchill and Aaron running out of the facility did not look like that in real life. Some severe recoloring was needed to create that look. The shot of the Tower of Babel with the Starkill rising was made in Blender to look like a miniature, and then it was tracked to camera data with a new background to make it look like it was part of the same shot that came before it.

And the helicopters were real helicopters! ...Ok just kidding about that that was just VFX too. Well that's about it for this episode! As always, if you have any questions about anything, you can leave them in the comments below.