Moving is a supernatural drama created by Park In-je for Disney+, a project for which Magic Media was honored to lend its specialist VFX services. In the series, a group of teenagers and their parents discover they possess superpowers and the dangers involved in having such potent abilities.
Magic Media was brought on board to deliver highly detailed TV visual effects for Moving. This comprehensive effort from Magic Media necessitated our full VFX department’s involvement in delivering stellar VFX services. We couldn’t be more satisfied with this opportunity to collaborate with such talented and distinct creators.
High Quality VFX Services for Moving
The lion’s share of our VFX services for Moving saw us replace two large live-action buildings with fully CGI structures of our creation. Though on the surface, this might sound simple, it was a complex technical process that involved our full team and numerous advanced VFX techniques. To begin with, we created two lifelike buildings based on the provided references. We used our extensive 3D modeling and texturing skillsets to create these buildings in the most realistic manner possible.
Beyond creating the buildings, an essential part of our VFX services for Moving was integrating them into the already-filmed live-action footage. We needed to match the exact conditions of the live-action buildings that we had previously removed to ensure our 3D buildings looked as realistic as possible. To accomplish this, we added custom shading and lighting to make them look natural in the scene for both day and night scenes. We used match-moving techniques to replicate the real camera’s movements and insert those into a virtual camera.
Additionally, as part of the TV visual effects we created, we used matte painting to touch up parts of the background layers of the scene. This allowed us to refine our integration of the 3D buildings to make them appear as realistic and seamless as possible.
Team Composition and Project Process
As previously mentioned, every discipline of the Magic Media VFX & Cinematics team was represented while crafting TV visual effects for Moving. For this full team effort, our team was fleshed out with producers and supervisors, the latter of whom were instrumental in approving work and providing feedback. We rounded out our team with various specialists, including modelers, texture artists, lighting artists, rotoscope and match move specialists and many more expert roles to cover all our bases to offer complete VFX services.
From the beginning of this project, we knew it would be more of an exercise in our technical expertise than a creative endeavor. Our client had a clear understanding of what kind of buildings they required, and we were more than happy to oblige in providing them exactly what they needed. As the shots were already established with the live-action footage, Magic Media’s role was to replicate these buildings as faithfully as possible in all aspects, including lighting conditions. We did, however, experience plentiful creative freedom with certain aspects of our VFX services, most notably our matte painting services, which our client trusted us to complete to a high standard. Though our timeline for this project was tight, we managed to complete our work to a high standard not just in time, but in advance of our final deadline.
Client Communication and Collaboration
As with all our projects, we established a communication pipeline with our client early in the process. We operated with an open communication ethos, where our client could at any time get in contact with us to learn more about our work, provide feedback, or raise questions. We used Slack for instant messaging so that we could communicate back and forth with our client without delay. Our producers were primarily involved in communicating with our client, but our supervisors provided answers to some of their more technically oriented questions about the project.
In addition, we provided an open infrastructure using Shotgrid where our client could freely review our work and production plans. Additionally, our client provided us with secure file transfer program (SFTP) software so we could safely send our work to them. This was mutually beneficial for us, as the client had full transparency of our work and could freely communicate anything they needed, while this benefitted us by having an open source of free-flowing feedback and queries that needed addressing.
Take a look at our portfolio to learn more about our extensive body of work and expert TV & Film VFX services. Contact us today, and we would be happy to collaborate on your television, film, and gaming projects to provide stellar VFX, cinematics, models, animations, and much more.
