This relatively short film tells the story of "Buck" the dog. After being stolen from his comfortable home in California, he is sold and ends up being transported to Alaska to become a sled dog.<br />Here, he slowly sheds the comforts of civilized life and becomes more dependant on his primal instincts in order to survive. Like the music in this video?<br />Get it on Google Play:► <a href="https://bit.ly/2F10vbs" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://bit.ly/2F10vbs</a> ◄<br />Get it on itunes: ► <a href="https://apple.co/2ENGfu9" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://apple.co/2ENGfu9</a> ◄<br />Listen on Spotify: ► <a href="https://spoti.fi/3boTfCl" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://spoti.fi/3boTfCl</a> ◄<br />Buy it on Amazon: ► <a href="https://amzn.to/2QVJZfk" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://amzn.to/2QVJZfk</a> ◄<br /> <br />Previs.<br />Early on the team knew that in order to make this film, Buck and the other dogs would have to be 100% CG. They also knew that with all the CG environments needed, it made sense to create the world that the movie would be shot in, before principal photography.<br />This led to staging every scene to get real-time visualizations of how their set would be. this enabled them to identify what needed to be virtual and what could be done physically.<br /><br />Getting Physical<br />In previs, the team found out they would need various different rivers, one for panning gold, another for swimming and canoeing, and another for other interactions with Buck. Rather than scout out different locations that wouldn't be quite right, the special effects team decided to build their own 300ft river. <br /><br />Let it Snow<br />Although the majority of the story takes place in the Yukon, it was mostly filmed in California, and one thing the Yukon has that California doesn't, is snow. The special effects team had to use a variety of different methods to "create" snow depending on the set location and what scene was being filmed. For the sledding scenes, super slippery snow was needed so they used a similar substance to the absorbent white polymer you find in diapers.<br /><br />The Thunderdome<br />MPC was chosen to lead the VFX in this film, thanks to their previous work with CG dogs.<br />Early on, MPC realized that the most complicated part of adding CG dogs would be matching the lighting of the dogs to that of principal photography.<br />When filming an exterior scene on an indoor set, lighting is key. if you just light for a generic day, the lighting will lack depth and contrast. If you light for a specific situation and time of day it adds complexity but it is also harder to match CG elements in post.<br />In order to make this easier, the type of sky to be used had to be chosen before principle photography. MPC compiled 500 different skydomes for the director to choose from.<br />On the set, they rigged up 300 Arri SkyPanels (LED Softlight panels) and a layer of muslin underneath. They use a Plug-in that had been written for the unity game engine that takes the hemispheric skydome imagery and communicates with a DMX switcher. this allowed them to control the 300 light panels a<br />...<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLVTl9nTOBU" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLVTl9nTOBU</a>