'I Tell of Dreams'

Based on the short story, "Robot Dreams," this film is centered around Rudy, a humanoid robot attempting to explain "dreams" he's having.

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Task

I was brought on to this production to produce two transitions that couldn't be done in Unreal.  These transitions switch between different locations as Rudy describes his "dreams."

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Transition 1

The inspiration for this came from an effect from "The Flash" series on the CW.  When Cisco "Vibes" someone there are quick flickers between reality and his vision.

(Image courtesy of the CW)

We started with the two sequences we were transitioning in between and then slowly modified either image in different ways to flash in between.

These are the different results we had while tweaking the images.

Each of the versions were hooked up to a switch node that was keyframed to get complete control over which version was shown when.

 Each picture represents one frame in the transition.  You can see how we eased out of one location and into the next throughout the duration of the sequence.

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Transition 2

Bradley gave me some direction for the second transition to go off of.  He wanted a bright light to appear that "snaps" Rudy into the second location.

A series of glows and grades were layered together to create the final effect.  Some rotos were added to give more specific direction to the light coming from behind Rudy to make it look like it's coming from the lights behind him in the lab.

The Gizmo "Expoglow" was used in addition to everything else for added aesthetic.

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Final Thoughts

"I Tell of Dreams" was a great learning opportunity for me to learn a little about how Unreal works and how an Unreal to Nuke pipeline might look.  Bradley and the rest of the crew were great to work with, all wanting to contribute while sharing the same focused final image.

Below is a process video put together by Bradley that breaks down the impressive collaboration that made this film work.

Video Courtesy of Bradley Pujala