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Metamorphosis - Production

  • Writer: Olivia Wesling
    Olivia Wesling
  • Jan 12
  • 4 min read

Updated: Jan 25

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Hello everyone! It has been a bit, but we are now in production for our senior visual effects project, Metamorphosis.

January 25th, 2026

These past few days, I decided to start putting together a lookbook for what the color should look like for this film, this gives me an idea of what I need to do when I receive the footage.


I started pulling references from films, looking at the coloring of them. I was going for a mystical dark forest, or even a refrence of moonlight in different films.

Colorist Lookbook
Colorist Lookbook

My idea is that the forest will have a purple tint while the fairy is exploring, giving a magical, mythical look to the scene. While the scenes with the fairy running away from the scary monsters, the scene will turn more blue-green, creating an eerie look. In the end, with the vibrant spring, I want it to be very saturated, also giving a light yellow tint over the shot. This way, the scene will feel warm and inviting.


With Sydney's comp over Mia's eviroment I was actually able to make some lighting tests with shot 2A. Here is how they turned out:

I hope to create more lighting tests as we continue to build our world.

January 20th, 2026




Hello everybody! I finished an edit of the film, just using what we shot on the Stage. I went ahead and added some more sound effects as well.


With this new footage we shot on the XR Stage, the takes were longer and paced out way better. The audience now feels like they are experiencing this world with her instead of it feeling rushed. Slowing down the scenes allows the audience to see the world we have created, and they will get to see the work of very talented visual effects students. Once I have more of the environment and FX, I will place those instead of the blue screen shots, and the film will really start coming to life. Still, some scenes are too quick in my opinion, but I am hoping that as those VFX shots start being completed, it will create a better pace.



I decided to record a bit of me editing. Of course, I didn't decide this until I was editing the sound. Nevertheless, here is a quick look into me editing the sound :)


January 13th, 2026

Second day of the shoot was a lot longer of a day. Staring at 9 am and ending around 5.

Again, everything went so smoothly. We shot scenes 1 and 3, and for most shots, it took at least two takes to get the shot we wanted. I think the most takes we did was 4 or 5 takes. But all day we were ahead of schedule and actually was able to make it out around 4:30.


Shooting on the LED stage was such an amazing opportunity. We were able to get nice clean shots with a blue background and have it evenly lit for our visual effects work. The Stage just has such nice equipment that was easy to work with and gave us the ability to have a clean workflow for our now post-production work. The gentlemen working the LED stage were also super kind and generous to us. They would help us with anything we needed which we all greatly appreciated.


We were also able to use one of the production design trees that they had there on the stage which helped us in our scenes.


My next steps after shooting will be sorting the footage, color correcting so it can be comped in ACES, and making an edit of what we shot on the stage.

January 12th, 2026

Today was the first day of the shoot. Unfortunately, due to some scheduling conflicts and discussions, the film crew we had for previous green screen filming were not available to help us with our shoot. So, our visual effects crew stepped up.


First up, we needed another set piece. With our amazing co-directors, Hannah and Gracie, they secured the supplies needed to make a snowy platform. Luckily, our last production designer was nice enough to give us a list of what supplies were needed for our set. We had a little craft night putting together this snowy set



Then on actual shoot day, Monday the 12th. Everything went pretty smooth; we actually were in front of schedule or on schedule. Our DP for that day Julian, was only able to help us out till 1:30 but yet we were able to get all the shots we needed for that day.

For the shoot I was the one taking all the notes, timing, etc. to help with editing and visual effects work later. So, I was similar to a script supervisor?



January 10th, 2026


I know in my pre-production blog I was helping out with setting up lighting within unreal. We have now switched our entire plan to be within Houdini instead. I also became editor/colorist of the film and am still a compositor.


We started off our January strong with having a load test Friday, the 9th. Here we spent a few hours planning out one of the more complicated camera moves and how it was going to work out on the day. We also took note of some LED color changing lights that we could use as light integration for our fairy's wings. This load test was vital to make sure we were set up to have a great shoot.

Load test BTS - Jan 9th
Load test BTS - Jan 9th

I took some of the quick shots that we took and put them into DaVinci to convert the raw footage into ACES. This way when we are compositing the color is correct enough to correctly composite.


I wasn't able to get the footage of the long shot, due to downloading issues. Once I have the correct footage I will upload for better viewing :)


LINK TO TEAM MEMBERS BLOGS


Mia - Environment Artist - Blog 3 — Mia Esparragoza

Benji - Costume Artist/Look Dev. - Week 1 Fairies

Charlie - Lighting Artist - Fairies Blog | Charlesportfolio


 
 
 

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