Finish’s latest work is a graphically violent cartoon and live action collaboration by Colonel Blimp director David Wilson and renowned animator Christy Karacas.

Out of the Black, a half graphically animated, half-live action ‘psychodelic’ promo for multi-Brit Award nominees Royal Blood, is definitely not for the faint hearted.

It centres upon a fantastical world of graphic cartoon violence, as a service-station heist takes a bizarre turn.

An Easter bunny disguised alien leads a posse of holiday costumed creatures consisting of a snowman, a pumpkin, an ice cream cone and a walking heart into a blood-pumping, body slamming, head exploding showdown with the cops.

Royal Blood – Out of The Black ?⛄️?❤️? from David Wilson on Vimeo.

Finish Flame Artists Judy Roberts and Andy Copping with colourist Julien Biard helped integrate the animated scenes with the live-action in what proved to be a highly complex post job which made heavy use of remote grading workflows.

Biard comments: “David is based in LA and he couldn’t be in the grading suite with me so we used a remote grading system, where I’m grading in London and David is at another facility in LA.”

“It’s great because both suites are linked up by an almost instantaneous feed so he could see every adjustment of the grade in real time, despite the 5,000 miles separating us!”

David Wilson added: “Finish worked tirelessly to elevate the piece. Like with the majority of post production this is done in ways that are often very difficult to spot, but that’s only because they did an incredible job.”

Roberts comments: “A smashed up helicopter, cars and a dead body, were all added to the clean plate using hand textured CGI renders, and various supplied photographic elements.

“The lighting proved to be the most challenging to achieve as the sources of light are coming from very particular angles here.

“So when painting the light had to be perfectly in place to look realistic, which is something that wasn’t easy to get from the stills.

“Another key job for us was to engineer movement in the car crash at the beginning.

“On the shoot the actor was running and jumping onto a stationary car for evident safety reasons.

Our job was to build the car crash out of various plates to make it seem like the car was moving at speed.”

And of course as if it was not gory enough already there were also a few shots, which needed extra blood passes, composited by Andy Copping in Flame.

Says Copping: ‘The big one was of the rabbit slumped at the petrol pump. We enhanced all of the blood around him to match it up with the brilliant last bit of animation.”

“The film is incredibly unique in its style and it’s been a real labour of love for the Director David. It’s really personal to him, as he animates himself.”

Credits:

Agency Colonel Blimp
Director David Wilson & Christy Karacas
Production CompanyColonel Blimp
Producer
 Corin Taylor
Post Producer
 Cheryl Payne
Colour Grading 
Julien Biard
Lead Flame
 Judy Roberts
Flame
 Steve Murgatroyd
, Andy Copping
Nuke 
Kayley Fernandes
DOP 
Michael Berlucchi
Editing
 Max @Stitch
Audio
 750MPH

David Wood

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