LCW’S SFX INTEGRATED SYSTEM ™

This project is based on an integrated special effects system created by The Leonardo Cruciano Workshop and Smart Brands, in cooperation with partners in the same field. The system’s target is to create complex and elaborate creatures giving them a realistic performance on real movie sets, interacting with actors, using the same light together with the imperfections that an extreme realism brings. The solution to this is a strong integration of classic live techniques and CGI techniques, made possible by a customized improvement of previz, set mapping and the concealment of puppeteers.In this way, there is no need for separated green screen sets or major CGI reconstructions in post-production and the director can verify the scene on previz and on set. Another interesting point, is the economic one: costs in production and especially post-production are considerably reduced.

The artistic and stylistic needs of the system are to be able to utilize articulate and complex creatures, not only by making them perform realistically, but also using them on real-life backgrounds, interacting with the actor’s performance, illuminated by the same light and photography as on the set, also with all the imperfections and “dirt” that extreme realism requires. The answer is a strong integration of traditional real-life techniques with digital compositing, which is made possible thanks to the refining of previs technical steps, set mapping and puppeteer hiding, each of them totally personalized. The system is made specifically for cinematographic works and generally for videos when the author or director needs the most accurate possible visual result for a “natural and realistic” light. It’s also made to avoid influence from contextual set delocalization on the performer’s acting, caused by the usage of special and visual effects.This system’s objective is to execute the effects as well as possible in front of the camera in real places and resolve these “illusions” in post-production always using optical and visual film takes.So, this system is based on the development of a series of technical support solutions and prototypes for the acquisition of optical real-life information and collimation for a composite digital post production integration. The optical pattern recreated at the end of the process has to apper faithful to optical naturalistic reality as in every visual illusion. In order to do so, every creation process and development of authentic character and fantasy worlds is organized in a procedure that involves general cinematographic, television and video production processes.Pre-production, production and post-production of a video work are all operative and developmental phases of the integrated visual SFX system.