Reimagining Food Content
Produced in collaboration with Alison Brislin, this project set out to push the boundaries of traditional food videos. The goal was to create a surreal, "Finding Dory" themed world where Frank (the octopus) crooked the recepie.
Because of the heavy integration between live-action and animation, I stepped into the role of VFX Director on set. This project required meticulous planning and technical precision:
On-Set Direction: I directed the use of green-screen practical effects, using green gloves and "green sticks" to manipulate real objects like sugar, flour, and salt. This ensured that the physical interaction between the "tentacles" and the ingredients looked authentic.
Technical Problem Solving: Using advanced plugins and custom animation paths, I simulated organic movement to make the tentacles appear to grow and grip objects naturally.
Complex Compositing: The most significant challenge was matching the frame-by-frame movement of the animated tentacles to the real-world physics of falling salt and flour.
I was involved from the very beginning with this project which was quite nice to be able to develop a video from a very broad concept.
Alison Brislin told me she wanted to make something where real elements interacted with animated ones similar to Pete's dragon. After a couple meetings we had a solid outline of what the video would be and were able to call a storyboard artist to board the whole thing.
Once the storyboards were done, Ali got Kyle Simonick to do the Illustrations which were completely awesome.
After the shoot I had help from Kyla Trull to do some of the compositing and clean up as well as help from Timothy Johansen to do some compositing and animation.
Producer/Lead Creative : Ali Brislin
Lead VFX & Animation: Jose Cortez
Compositor & VFX: Kyla Trull
Junior Animator: Timothy Johansen
Illustrator: Kyle Simonick
