The music video for the song Bebe Bonita by Chino & Nacho Feat. Jay Sean was released last month. It features a sci-fi storyline with a number of visual effects, all of which were done by yours truly. Whether or not you’re a Spanish speaker or like this genre of music, you can’t argue with over 6 million views!
There were a couple of full-cg space shots which were done with a combination of Lightwave 3D and After Effects, but the majority of the work involved creating Terminator-style effects for the title character – a mysterious girl from another world, played by Annie Helvey.
In many shots her eyes required special 3D-animated treatment. They had a glow and a mechanical texture which moved to give iris the appearance of scanning the environment.
For point-of-view shots, heavily-processed live-action ARRI ALEXA footage was supplemented with CG interface elements and images, showing a view of augmented reality.
In addition to these obvious visual effects there were also several invisible ones. For example, the cross-promoted Ford Fiesta, heavily featured throughout the video, needed detailed logo replacements in every single shot to make the brand more clearly visible. Making this look real in dynamic shots with lots of movement, lighting changes and parallax presented a real challenge.
Perhaps the most complex visual effect was the girl’s meteor-like landing at the beginning of the video. To film the necessary plate which would later be populated with massive particle effects, I actually had to run into frame and set off a series of flashes for interactive lighting, before the actress took the mark and began her performance.
It was an intense amount of work on a very short deadline, but I thoroughly enjoyed this project.
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I worked on an independent feature film in October, providing services as jib/Steadicam operator and helping out as grip. But after the first couple of days of shooting, the production experienced major logistical issues and had to relocate out of state.