DAVINCI RESOLVE STUDIO | FUSION STUDIO
The Foliascope team explain the complex process they used to create stop-motion feature No Dogs or Italians Allowed
For upcoming animation No Dogs or Italians Allowed, one of the major challenges for the whole production was that of compositing the shots together. The film is made up of stop-motion, photography and live-action material, and bringing all of these elements together into a single, harmonious sequence required plenty of forward planning and careful thought throughout the process.
To give a feel for how complex the shots were in terms of sets and production, here is a brief breakdown. The live shots were made in Ughettera, Italy, with classic cameras and drones. We also created Alain’s workshop in Foliascope for other live shots.
The Hybrid shots create a link between Cesira, his grandmother (puppet), and Alain the narrator (live-action). Meanwhile, our stopmotion world was created using sugar, pumpkin, broccoli, coal, cotton and chestnut. The difficulty wasn’t just in the fact that there were a variety of different scenes to take into consideration, but that those scenes were made up of different cinematic disciplines and animation styles.
To help with all of this we decided to carry out a variety of simple compositing tests using DaVinci Resolve Studio and Fusion Studio. By compositing everything together at an early stage, we had the ability to make the correct decisions on-set and ensure we captured exactly what we needed from each set and shoot. This tutorial will unpack our pipeline and workflow for compositing all of those shots together.
01 GET THE RIGHT SHOTS
One of the key considerations when trying to ensure a successful composite is the individual shots that will contribute towards the final output. For complex films with lots of layers, including in this instance stop-motion, photography and live action, it’s vital to get everything planned out ahead of time.
We carried out a number of compositing tests ahead of time to ensure, as much as possible, that we got the right shots the first time. In general, you’ll have foreground and background elements, and some of these will have transparency or need keying out. For transition or camera moves, we make different kinds of pre-comp in DaVinci Resolve to adjust the duration of shots.
02 CAPTURE IN THE RIGHT FORMAT
Once you know what shots you need, it’s time to work out how you’re going to capture them.
