Umu: Do you specialize in anything? I hear you do a lot of wrinkle removal...
Ian: I wonder if I can talk about that.
*Rossini's Semiramide plays*
Ian: My name is Ian Johnston. I'm a visual effects artist.
Uhh, and I've worked on a number of music videos, movies and TV shows.
Some of the more notable ones are- I worked on the third and fourth Hunger Games films.
The Netflix movie "The Kissing Booth", the second season of Westworld.
A handful of music videos by Rihanna, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Demi Lovato, P!nk
U: Holy sh*t!
*both laugh*
U: Just to name a few!
I: Yeah...There's a bunch.
U: CL's Lifted
I: Oh yeah. We did CL's Lifted. That was a fun video.
We did the video for Despacito.
And a bunch of others that I'm not remembering from the top of my head.
U: Right,
Thank you so much for just pulling those out of the top of your head.
Can you please explain what visual effects are to people who might get cinematography, physical and special effects mixed up?
I: Yeah, uhm, so visual effects are basically anything that's done in the computer.
A lot of times people describe it as CG or CGI.
Which means computer generated imagery.
That's a part of what we do
CGI works in a 3-dimensional space and a lot of visual effects are done 2 dimensional.
Just on the actual image and not building a 3D model and then rendering it out.
Although that is a big part of the visual effects work.
Practical effects and special effects are work that happens in front of the camera, actually on set.
If you think about the old Indiana Jones films or the Lord of the Rings films, they have a lot of practical effects.
And visual effects is a different sort of, uhh, type of work.
Although both are very, very important to filmmaking.
U: Do you specialize in anything? I hear you do a lot of wrinkle removal...
I: I wonder if I can talk about that...
*both laugh*
My specialty is a compositor.
What that means is, I take multiple source images, whether it's the take that got shot on set, still images of sky plates and background plates and whatnot...
and sort of combine them or composit them all together, to form the final image.
A lot of the work I've done on projects has been clean up work.
I: I'm gonna leave it at that.
U: Okay! *both laugh* That's totally fine.
And what's your favourite thing to do with visual effects? I heard a little bit about fire, maybe?
I: Fire is always fun.
I got into visual effects, because it allows you to tell stories that are a little bit more fantastic than traditional, sort of dramatic stuff.
However a lot of the visual effects that I end up doing, are what we call invisible effects.
Stuff that, if we do our jobs right, you never know are visual effects.
U: That's amazing.
Okay, so we'll just jump right into the first video that you'll be reacting to.
So some information about the artist, this is actually a solo artist. This music video was produced in 2016, under YG entertainment.
And then I did some research, and I heard that this was edited and directed by Christian Yu, who works for  a company called Dream Perfect Regime or DPR for short.
I: Okay.
U: Go ahead.
I: So that first opening wave form thing, would've been..I guess you could call it a simulation.
But it would've been a generated image that they then transitioned to the rest of the- the actual footage that they shot.
Sometimes it can be a thing that is very ???hard directable??? and very controlable.
And sometimes, that sort've look would've been pre-set or a manipulation of certain values that generates it, based on what inputs you give it.
But I don't know specifically for that one.
Glitch effect. They're cutting out the artist from the video.
Generating a pattern over him, that is that sort of grid.
I'm not sure if it's a 2D or a 3D effect.
But, my guess would've been 2D. And then they're distorting it based on the music. And using an effect to sort of glitch his image, underneath that as well.
Although that could've also been partially done practically. Where they're sort of projecting an image with a video projector onto him and having that play while they're recording,
is another way they could've done part of that.
When it flickers in the background, they're isolating that part of it, using a process called Rotoscoping.
They'll cut that out and then add another video on top of it and mix it with a couple other sources and then do their glitch process to it, to sort of make it flicker.
I'm not quite sure what they're doing for that water effect, but the simplest way to do it would be to shoot it and then reverse it.
So that instead of dropping water, it comes up into his hand.
Lots of times tricks like that are used to simplify things. Rather than doing like a full on water simulation.
My guess is, for this particular shot, it would've been a reversal.
Just because it would've been a lot easier to achieve.
But it doesn't have to be that way.
Often times if you see a TV screen or a monitor, it'll be an alteration
Uhh, one of those invisble effects that I was talking about. It's hard to capture an image on a monitor, exactly the way it looks in real life.
And so, often times it'll be a monitor replacement.
With something like this, it could go either way.
It kind of looks like they might be just shooting the monitor, but there's no real way of knowing.
More of the rotoing out the eras that they want to glitch, and then adding video on top and glitch effecting them.
Uhh, we did a very similair thing for the CL Lifted video. On some of the shots we were adding glitch effects as transitions and to sort of emphasize things.
A lot of this would've been done practically.
The sort of glow on his eyes here would've been done after the ???? fact???????
They would've probably made a shape for the eyes and then done some glow treatments.
Kind of like how the lightsabers in Star Wars are done.
This would've been a background element.
They've probably shot the whole thing on white and then through a process called "keying", which is what you do for a green screen,
would've allowed them to cut him out from the background and place the graphic element in the back.
???????????That's what a glitch coming off of it.?????
I don't know if they would've written software specifically for this video,
but they would've developed a process so they can feed in an image and it'll distort it.
A similair way depending on what the image is and then get to a repeatable result each time.
This, I'm thinking, they would've shot on set. And used a projector for the background.
Because I think that that would give an easier result, with the reflection on the ceiling and the floor.
And how you can see the change in the image's perspective on the wall here.
And then this is roto-ing out the tattoo and replacing it with another image that has the glitch effect.
More of this generated pattern that they're using throughout the video.
There are some plug-ins that could do this.
But it might be something that they're building specifically for this video.
Hard to say.
U: Yeah, they'd have the footage in their program and then they put the stuff on top?
I: Yeah, essentially depending on the luminance values, where the areas are brightest, or darkest.
Some other perimeters like where edges get found in the image.
And even like, colour values could determinedly sort of ???hides??? of these wave forms.
U: Woooow
This whole shot feels like it's tilted away from the camera. There's ways to control that and change sort of what direction it goes.
Yeah, I definitely think that this is projector setup.
Just because with how much different things they're showing on it,
It'd be a lot easier to set that up on set and record it. Rather than having to sort of create a new look everytime, digitally.
U: Right, so is he actually while it's going on?
I: Yeah,
U: Okay.
I: And they would set up their projector so that it doesn't really fall on him.
It would be like pointed behind him and off to the side.
It's a commonly used technique, I've seen a few videos that do something like this.
This would've been two different takes.
One of them where they're projecting and one of them, where it looks like he's on a white background. And they're isolating him, to composit them together, one on top of the other.
I: Glitch effect for the logo again.
U: Right, so to quickly review that video, were there any  specific transitions that you thought were tropey?
Or was there a specific effect that you liked the best?
I: I think that the sorta glitch, halo I guess, where it kind of waves off and you have the sort of wire frame coming off of the image, was a cool effect.
Some of the effects felt like they were there to make an interesting image, rather than like, a story purpose.
Which is fine, but not so much my taste.
But yeah, it was a neat video!
U: Okay! So yeah this is yet another solo artist, her name is Hyuna.
And this music video came out in 2017 and it's produced by CUBE entertainment
I got a bunch of names, like gaffer and assistent director and focus puller. But I'm not sure what those jobs are.
I: A lot of those are part of the production team. They'll be people working on set.
The gaffer is generally in charge of the electrical team, how the lights get set up. And he's sort of the second in command to the director of photography.
U: Okay. Jimmy jib?
I: That's probably a jib operator.
U: What's a jib?
I: Uhm, so a jib is a piece of camera equipment.
You can think of it like a crane. It has a camera weight at one end and the camera at the other and you can-
U: Ohhhhh
U: Yeah.
I: Yeah and you can get sort of sweeping shots over a big area.
U: Okay. And then someone was credited for "art". I'm guessing, is that the visual effects?
I: That, I'm guessing, is the art direction.
And so, like, what you're seeing of the set, kind of. How the set looks and the props in the background and whatnot.
U: Okay, so the director is Heewon Shin and I'm just gonna say the art director is Jiwon Young.
And yeah, then there is a bunch of other names buuut I'll probably butcher the pronounciation
Alright! Go ahead.
I: So I'm guessing that this would've been in front of a green screen.
And then a couple of different space images. That are then sort of spread out, as the virtual camera that they're using pulls further back.
They're kind of blended together and combined.
And then the stars in the foreground *points* right here, would've been an element that was created for this shot.
And so the square behind her would've been either blue screen or green screen.
Green screen is more common with digital shooting equipment, but depending on what's in the frame, both can be used.
And since his pants are a little bit blue and there's blue elements in the far back, my guess is it would've been green screen.
Digital cameras have more information dedicated to the colour green usually. And so, you can get a cleaner result with it.
But functionally, they end up being the same.
This would've been a transition film burn effect to emulate sort of the 35mm, 16mm film burning through the actual celluloid.
So this would've been another glitch effect or sometimes it's called pixel sorting.
And depending on the value of the pixel, it stretches. And then they're also overlaying another shot, to transition to the next one.
Most of this would've been done practically. The couple of frames where another shot is being overlayed, might have been a digital thing.
And the thing that makes me believe that it is, is that it isn't reflected in the bottom. It's continuing.
U: Ohhh! Wow.
I: And I think that this would've been combining two takes and then the computer sort of overlaying them.
It looks pretty solid.
It feels like it's projected back there.
This......
Could've been done a couple of different ways
My guess is they're shooting her on a blank background, whether it's green or white or blue.
And then having a second video shot, that is spinning. And having the sort of, pixel sorting applied to it.
And then combining them- the background video could've been shot with either a wide-angle lense, to create that sort of distortion.
Or there could be some manipulation to it, after the ??? fact???? that is sort of wrapping it around.
And it could be a combination of both.
The earth, I believe, would've been added in digitally. And they would've tracked the scene and built an earth element that is then spinning.
Some of the nebulas in the background, I think would be an overlay that they're doing in the edit.
Could also be a projection, but my gut feeling is that it's not. Doesn't look like it's sort of fitting the contours of the background.
It feels like it's combined, later on.
Yeah ??????????power gnome (I'm sure he doesn't actually say it but istg it really does sound like it. Yanny and Laurel who??????
These would've been...It looks like there's taking the same take of the middle artist and taking her out through rotoscopeing.
And then pushing it on that footage and spreading her out throughout the image.
This would've been keying it on green or blue screen and replacing the background.
Sometimes you can tell with the way the edges are, with the way the hair is, less fine detail,
than if it was shot there in front.
Depending on how much time and budget was available for that particular shot.
They would've tracked her irises.
And overlayed a second video.
And then cut it out so it was the circle shape and limited to her iris.
These neon sign elements, I'm guessing, would've either been a graphical sort of logo that they created or another plate that got shot and then combined.
And then it looks like they're sort of putting the whole thing through sort of a VHS, sort of degredation kind of  filter.
And so, this would've been shot on green screen again.
And with a generated or created background.
They might be doing something where it's taking a bunch of different images and compositing them to be a single sort of, enviroment.
Or they might be doing a full like landscape computer generated thing.
Cool.
U: Yeah, there you go! So a lot of those times there's a lot of different, it looked liked filters...
I: Yeahhh...
U: How many do you think were actual lights vs. after?
I: A lot of the multi-coloured set-ups, I think would've been various lights that they had on set.
Anytime you see they image kind of like tearing apart and re-building itself, that would've been a filter.
A lot of the space stuff would've been an effect that they're doing.
There were a lot of transitions, that could've either been done in the editing process, or it could've been broken out as specific visual effect shots.
Where, if it was done during the editing process, there's sort of a library that you can go through and use.
And then if it was done as an effect shot, you get a little bit more control and focus on what you want it to do.
And so anytime you have the image sort of breaking apart and re-building to another image, that would've been a filter or an effect.
U: Okay, cool.
