footagecrate – Video Production News

Joseph Lawson has been in the field of Visual Effects for over 20 years, with credits on iconic movies and shows like The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Star Trek: Enterprise, and many films from The Asylum (the Sharknado series). The father-son team at Lawson Digital Arts bring us their latest work with On Fire (dir. Peter Facinelli & Nick Lyon), a thriller inspired by true events about a family escaping from a raging forest fire. With the movie in theaters nationwide, we sat down with Joseph to talk about visual effects.

P: Congrats on On Fire‘s reception! We’re looking forward to seeing it on the big screen.
J: Thanks so much! We’re proud to be part of On Fire using ProductionCrate elements as part of our VFX toolkit!

P: The VFX team for On Fire was relatively small for a feature-length, natural disaster movie; What kind of challenges did this present? Were there any benefits?
J: My son and I are probably the only father-son VFX team I know of in the world. We have a lot of experience tag-teaming and working with each others strengths to make shows like On Fire come together. We’re also hyper organized which helps us do a lot more than average. Tons of lower budget film experiences has taught us how to leverage budgets to make things look like more than the budget by the time folks experience them. As a director myself it’s possible to know what helps organically tell the film-maker’s story in a way that integrates visually without being too much VFX flashy. Ideally most folks won’t always realize we’re there at all. The biggest challenge was going from what was a project with 150 planned to 389 delivered shots. A lot of fire effects planned for on set came to us out of genuine safety concerns. Fortunately we have a robust internal pipeline and organizational setup using ShotGrid that enables us to do a project of this scope. The producers also gave us a generous amount of time to do the work. The benefit of our two-person team (with some tracking/matte help from Joseph’s friend Elijah Morrow) is we have the visual shorthand and shared respect to trust each other with any task.

P: What made you want to pursue visual effects? What was your gateway to working professionally?
J: When I was 12 living in Okinawa I was a huge Star Trek fan. Some friends and I did Super 8mm short films so I knew I wanted to be a director. Doing our special effects got me hooked on that. Silent Running, Space:1999 and Star Wars, of course, confirmed my life goals. After a career in broadcasting radio and television including commercials with effects and being a weather announcer, I started a graphics business that did animation in Montana using LightWave 3D. I married my darling Kelly then got a job on Roughneck’s: The Starship Troopers Chronicles at the legendary Foundation Imaging (Babylon 5, Hypernauts). This brought us to Valencia, California where we raised our son and daughter while I worked for various studios over almost two decades. That included everything from The Global Asylum as VFX supervisor for seven years (and directing five of their movies) to Rhythm & Hues plus Digital Domain and so many great places and projects. With over 200 IMDB listings and growing it’s hard to give them all individual proper credit due.

P: What do you consider the biggest sea change in the time that you’ve worked as a VFX Artist/Supervisor?
J: There have been so many changes but one huge one is the availability of tools to a wide range of artist. The hardware has gotten faster and cheaper, the software more capable and the availability of tools like ProductionCrate that provide elements and more to we creators quickly via internet makes it possible for us to create from anywhere there’s adequate speedy connection like our place here on the North Coast of Oregon. And it’s all only getting better for those with tools, talent and desire to create.

P: What made Blender & After Effects the ideal tools for creating the VFX in On Fire?
J: Blender has become a perfect tool for freelance and boutique shops looking for a wide range of ever growing/improving capabilities. We still leverage other software like LightWave when needed. After Effects has always worked well for us and since we have so much experience; So many presets and plug-ins, it’s hard to change. With AE’s color capabilities coming of age during On Fire we were able to integrate elements better than ever before.

P: Were there any lessons learned while working on a project like On Fire? Were there any unexpected hurdles?
J: Every show has its unique challenges, and for On Fire it was having to integrate so much fire into practical footage that was initially planned for live on set. We couldn’t do that because the forest floor was tinder-dry, forcing us to do even the smaller fire work in post. That was also the biggest unexpected hurdle along with a lot of invisible effects like clocks, monitor screens, crew paint outs. It was a long post period for a reason!

P: Which shot/sequence are you most excited for people to see?
J: The family fire chase sequence is pretty scary cool narrative and works. A lot of my sons 100 percent CG shots are fantastic throughout the movie. I’m so proud of the artist he’s grown to be since starting almost a decade ago at age 14. That’s all him! He has an astounding future!

P: Did working on shots set mostly at night present any unique obstacles?
J: It actually made our job easier, especially because Chris Wilks and his stunt/effects team (along with the amazing lighting crew) set up some fantastic light sources to dramatically tell the director Nick Lyon’s and writer Ron Peer’s story. We added the fires where needed and motivated by them. The main challenge it caused was tracking and lots of roto. TONS of roto. The lady on fire sequence was one of the toughest for both yet most of it integrates well. Scary stuff.

P: What are your favorite VFX shots/sequences that you didn’t work on?
J: My favorite sequence Joseph worked on were some CG point-of-view shots during a family driving sequence. The burning buildings and trees are all CG with a mix of fire and spark elements including ProductionCrate selling it.

P: Who are the masters you looked-up to and learned from?
J: Of course, we all stand on the shoulders of giants and my inspirations are decidedly old school names. So many hardworking TV and movie artists but especially Ray Harryhausen, Douglas Trumbull, Brian Johnson, Greg Jein, and John Dykstra’s whole ILM team from Star Wars. Then computer pioneer and later friends Ron Thornton, Adam Mojo Leibowitz, Mark Kochinski, Glenn Campbell and SO many other great coworkers who always inspired me with how much better they were and gracious to all me to learn from. Too many great folks to list here. I continue to be humbled and learn from them all even now.

P: Most movie audiences only see the end product and not what it used to look like; what are some common VFX responsibilities that most viewers wouldn’t even think about that need to be done?
J: Pre-visualization, shot choreography and design, database set-up and organization and shot progress/delivery tracking, plate downloads, preview and final uploads, thumbnail captures, timeline scrubbing, bidding, prep, tracking, roto, invisible/clean up effects, deciding on elements, prepping things like frame rates, outputs and color space in compositing, plug-in management, constantly learning new software updates and plug-ins, working with clients, zoom calls, invoices, taxes, our own IT work, storage and disk space management, keeping up on hardware and software… and much more like having a family life!

P: Do you have any wisdom for aspiring visual effects artists?
J: Learn your craft. Love your chosen field. Follow your passion with all your heart. Appreciate what time and resources you have to do the best you can for any given project then forgive yourself enough so as to learn what to do better next time. Build friendships. Be reliable. Under-promise, over deliver, be fair and be pleasant enough that people WANT to work with you again. Have fun! Otherwise why are we in this at all?

P: How/where/when can people support On Fire?
J: On Fire is in theatres nationwide! We’re proud to have helped the fantastic teams of artists and actors who gave their art, talents and passion honoring first responders and acknowledging the toll of real world tragedy with this heartfelt emotional family story.

ProductionCrate Monthly Update: August 2023

Nikolas Mokalis — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 22:30:16 +0000

NEW CONTENT:
4K Dirty Ground Explosions
4K Ground Dust Shockwaves
4K Rolling Shockwave VFX
Royalty Free Drama Music
Mo-Graph Sound Effects
3D Military Character Packs

SOFTWARE UPDATES:
ProducitonCrate AR App

VIDEOS:
Ragdoll Tutorial in Unreal Engine
Blender Animation Beginner Tutorial
Depth Map Compositing in After Effects
Modular Military Character Packs
Modular Character Tutorial

VFX CONTEST:
Theme: Combo Fight
Prize: TASCAM Portacapture X6

ProductionCrate Monthly Update: July 2023

Nikolas Mokalis — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 00:41:15 +0000

NEW CONTENT:
4K Splash VFX
4K Meteor VFX
Suspense Music Idents
Royalty Free Lo-Fi Music Tracks
3D Military Truck Model
FREE Cyberpunk Hand 3D Model
Skeleton Warrior Pack (Unreal Engine)
Worker Robot (Blender)

VIDEOS:
Unreal Engine Cinematics Tutorial
Robotic Arm 3D Tutorial
Green Screen Compositing in After Effects Tutorial
Beginner 3D Tracking in After Effects Tutorial

VFX CONTEST:
Theme: Found Footage Superpowers
Prize: Portkeys PT5 II

ProductionCrate Monthly Update: June 2023

Nikolas Mokalis — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 21:22:51 +0000

NEW CONTENT:
4K Police Car VFX
4K Ground Sparks
Green Alien 3D Model
Mo-Graph Sounds
Feel Good Music

SOFTWARE UPDATES:
ProducitonCrate AR App
RBC Blender Add-On

VIDEOS:
Rigging Characters in Blender
Texturing Skin in Adobe Substance Painter

VFX CONTEST:
Theme: Combo Fight
Prize: CAME-TV Focusable Light, Power Station, and V-Mount Battery

Over 10 Free Destruction Effects from FootageCrate.com

Chris Kelly — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 20:44:38 +0000

FootageCrate is now offering 14 New Destruction VFX, providing over 60 free and 300 for Pro Users.
Sign up to a Free or Pro Account here, and start downloading!

These assets are perfect for your project. Ceiling collapses, barriers exploding and debris bursts scattering the air are all available in this free pack. Pro Users can access hundreds of more assets in 4K resolution.

All of these effects come with an alpha channel, for quick drag-and-drop compositing.

Whether you’re dodging bullets, fleeing earthquakes or fighting super-villains, these assets will help get the job done.

Free Users can download 5 daily assets from ProductionCrate.com’s free library. Pro Users can access 50 daily downloads and choose from any of our growing collections. Get started today, and make it awesome.

ProductionCrate Monthly Update: May 2023

Nikolas Mokalis — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 00:08:46 +0000

NEW CONTENT:
4K Destruciton VFX (14 Free)
3D Crashed Car Models (UE Optimized)
Unreal Engine Ninja Weapons (UE Optimized)
Dolphin Model (FBX Swim Animation Invluded)
Disco Music
Musical Idents

SOFTWARE UPDATES:
ProducitonCrate AR App

VIDEOS:
Compositing in After Effects Beginners
ZBrush for Beginners

VFX CONTEST:
Theme: VFX Battle Chain
Prize: NEEWER SL90 RGB Video Light

Download The VFX Starter Pack – 1

Chris Kelly — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 01:24:44 +0000

FootageCrate is offering an amazing free bundle of video effects.

Step 1: Register and Sign in to a free account

Step 2: Click Here to Download

Step 3: Unzip the downloaded folders!

Step 4: Share with anyone who wants to get started with VFX

VFX can be a daunting field to get into, but FootageCrate makes it easy. Even if you have no prior experience, you can learn the basics in minutes.
Compositing in VFX involves combining multiple images, frames or renders. This process can range from complex compositions with hundreds of various elements and render passes, to simple overlays of one rendered element on top of your video. Below we have an example of 3 separately layers composited together. We have the background, the subject and the VFX element.

To help you get started, FootageCrate is offering the VFX Starter Pack 1, a collection of 50 pre-made visual effects. This pack is nearly 3GB worth of video effects content. These elements are high-quality and created by professional CGI artists. Packs 2 and 3 are planned for 2023.

This downloadable collection of 50 Free VFX features assets from the following libraries

Explosion VFX
Magic VFX
Fire and Spark VFX
Motion Graphics
Transition Effects
SciFi VFX
Muzzle Flash VFX

And several more. These are all available from FootageCrate’s free library, and even include several 4K assets ordinarily limited to user’s with a Pro Subscription.

The effects come with RGB+A, or Red, Green Blue, and Alpha channels. All effects containing transparency are ProRes 4444 Files. A few of the files are H.264. Framerates vary from 30fps to 60fps. The Alpha channel controls the transparency in an image or video. These effects come with a transparent background, allowing you to easily drag and drop them onto your footage.

If you’re looking for free VFX software, ProductionCrate recommends Hitfilm Free or DaVinci Resolve. The 50 Free Effects Pack is compatible with iMovie, After Effects, Premiere, Filmora, Final Cut, DaVinci, Hitfilm and all major editing software.

If you’re looking for even more VFX content, find thousands of Free Video Effects here. You can download all of these with a Free VFX Account, limited to five downloads a day. If you want even more content, access 50 daily downloads from the entire ProductionCrate library with a Pro Account.

Want more free content? Any item not marked with a star from these production libraries is free to download.

RenderCrate has Hundreds of Free 3D Models

SoundsCrate has thousands of music and sound effects Free to Download

If you have any questions, email the ProductionCrate team at Support@ProductionCrate.com.

The Ocean Cinematic Creator Kit

David Blaker — Sat, 27 Jun 2020 16:37:35 +0000

Ocean scenes for films, games and illustration are a challenging task. You may think you’ll only need a blue background, but there are many subtle features that make an ocean realistic.

ProductionCrate’s mission is to empower our community with unlimited creative freedom, with over 10,000 professional VFX, sound effects, and 3D models.

The diverse range of content covers every creative requirement you’ll encounter. You’ll be able to get your visuals, models and sound design elements from the same source, all under the same price.

Ocean Visual Effects

Compositing underwater ocean scenes similar to Aquaman, Jaws and Finding Nemo has become effortless with our range of VFX assets.

Ocean Surface VFX Assets

A variety of pre keyed and loopable ocean matte painting assets, perfect for diving underwater. Built for instant compositing with minimal color correction with a transparency matte included. Use these to create shots that are impossible with a camera.

Bubble and Dirt VFX Assets

Bring dynamic particle effects to your ocean VFX for immediate realism. These practical pre keyed videos are professionally designed to bring your underwater projects to life. You can even use the static bubbles to create your own particle system for more control.

Shark VFX Assets

Photorealistic shark effects that are both fun and easy to composite into your video editing project. All of our assets provide pre-keyed and green screen download options. A variety of angles allows you to craft your scene precisely.

Ocean Sound Effects

Enhance the immersion of your ocean scenes with ambient sound effects.

Bubble Sound Effects

Match the bubble assets with some sound effects, available in MP3 and WAV formats for maximum studio quality. There are several options to choose from, so you can avoid repetition. These small details add huge value to your art.

Splash Sound Effects

Our large collection of foley sound effects allows you to match any special effects you add to your video, all from the same website. Whether it’s the sound of the ocean waves, or someone diving into the water, our sound effect library has got you covered.

Ambient Sound Effects

These powerful ocean ambient sound effects are perfect for underwater scenes in both film and games. There’s no more effective way to add an extra layer of immersion to your project than to download these sound effects.

Ocean 3D Models

Bring physically-accurate photorealistic 3D models to your ocean environment for ultimate creative control.

Specialist 3D Models

Gain full control of your ocean scenes by utilising our photorealistic models. Whether you need a naval battle using our submarine, a shark attack using our fully rigged asset, or a sunken ship with a treasure chest of gold, everything is at your disposal to build your environment.

Island Landscape 3D Models

We’ve developed custom-built terrain models for your tropical volcano island shots. High-quality normal maps amplify the level of detail in these to an incredible level. The flat edges allow you to seamlessly combine this with any planar surface to help you instantly build your tropical paradise.

Sand and Rock 3D Models

Our optimised photoscanned 3D rocks are professionally designed for easy and instant integration into your project. These perfectly constructed assets have been built to help save you time in your workflow, and focus on the aspects of your 3D scene that truly matter.

And much more!

Bring physically-accurate photorealistic 3D models to your ocean environment for ultimate creative control.

Island Matte Painting Assets

Expand your scene infinitely with our exclusive range of ocean and island matte painting assets. These carefully designed graphics are built with compositing in mind to make your job effortless. With transparency built-in, you simply need to drag and drop these into your scene to deliver the scale of a cinematic blockbuster.

3D Sand Materials

If you happen to be landlocked, you may find yourself struggling to find a beach to shoot your shot in. The solution? Download from the selection of photorealistic sand materials for your 3D renders, VFX and games. The high-resolution 4K textures are also available for free in low resolution, and is compatible with most rendering engines.

Scripts and Plugins

Our powerful library of scripts and plugins to give you an exclusive advantage in After Effects. Our light wrap generator is an instant 1 click solution to take your composting to the next level without any skill required. Our Chromatic Abberator script will give your underwater scenes a realistic lens distortion. Check out the rest here.

This diverse range of digital content allows anybody, whether you’re a studio professional or a solo indie developer with little experience, to be able to create the impossible. Your very own ocean scenes are now only a few clicks away. So sign up, and start downloading!

How to create Alien Invasion VFX – Tutorial

David Blaker — Mon, 11 May 2020 14:13:06 +0000

To prove the power of ProductionCrate assets, we put them to the test by creating a large-scale city destruction VFX shot.

ProductionCrate is a library of over 10,000+ professional video effects, stock footage, sound effects and 3D models. You’ll be happy to hear that a lot of these assets are free to download, while Pro users can access the entire library, including 4K assets.

We’re constantly updating our library with new and exciting creative content, such as our most recent bundle of 4K dust and smoke accents.

These have been built in with alpha-mattes using a Quicktime PNG codec so that you simply need to drag and drop this into your project. This, with the different file formats available for you to download, means our VFX assets are compatible with After Effects, Hitfilm, Premiere Pro and more.

Another brand new asset that we used in the shot is our 3D alien spaceship model. This is provided in OBJ format, the most widely supported file type, compatible with Blender, 3ds Max, Cinema4D, Element3D and more.

GraphicsCrate provided a huge level of control for the look of the environment. While video assets are good for explosions and lasers, static graphics can give us the power to add cracks, scorch marks and rubble to our scene.

Here’s the full list of assets we used in this video:

FootageCrate

SoundsCrate

RenderCrate

Spaceship and Drone 3D Models

GraphicsCrate

You can learn exactly how we built this shot by watching our latest tutorial, which covers several valuable compositing techniques that will improve your skills. Enjoy!

If you’re interested in some fantastic new sound effects for your cinematic trailers, take a look at them here.

Meteor VFX Breakdown – Quick Tutorial

David Blaker — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 11:09:36 +0000

No disaster movie is complete without an apocalyptic meteor effect. This Davesplanation breaks down the steps we went through to create our very own asteroid impact using VFX!

This was built using a variety of software and ProductionCrate assets, including:

3D Photoscanned Meteor Model – A high-quality photorealistic asteroid that had been digitally scanned from the real world. You can learn more about these assets in this excellent breakdown video.

Dust and Smoke VFX assets – These were essential in completing the look of the effect, creating a realistic volumetric appearance to the meteor’s impact. Tinting them to match the ground, as well as stacking them several times is all that is required to professionally polish your compositing.

Explosion and Fire Sound Effects – ProductionCrate’s huge selection of sound effects means you will be able to pair the correct audio to your visuals. We layered together several of these to create a dynamic and exciting audio track.

Feel free to check out our 2-minute information-packed video to learn some of the techniques we used.

If you’re interested in learning about how you can create some incredible magic VFX, check out the assets we have recently made for you here.

Download 4K Particle Shockwave Motion Graphics

David Blaker — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 14:58:36 +0000

Download the 4K particle shockwave VFX assets here.

We’ve expanded our collection of particle shockwave effects, all ready to download and import to your video.

These stylish assets feature sudden radial bursts of wispy smoke, being a perfect addition to your visual effects and motion graphics.

To maximise the detail, the particle shockwaves are available in up to 4K resolution. This allows you to scale and position these effects anywhere in your composition while maintaining high quality.

https://www.productioncrate.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/4KShockwaveEffectsPreview.m4v

These are best composited using a screen or additive blending mode. In some of our file formats, the particle shockwaves have the alpha channel built-in. speeding up your compositing workflow.

We provide these in 4 file formats:

Zipped PNG sequence
Zipped ProRes
MOV (PNG)
MP4

This will allow you to import these particle shockwave effects into almost any video editing software, including After Effects, Hitfilm, Nuke, Vegas Pro and more.

Not only can these be great for motion graphics, but also for visual effects, such as in meteor impacts, sci-fi weapon muzzle flashes, or explosions!

Download these particle shockwave VFX assets today, and access the thousands of other assets available from ProductionCrate’s digital asset library.

If you’re interested in our similar content, check out our magic power accent VFX.

Download HD Looping Ocean Effects for your Videos

David Blaker — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 11:39:01 +0000

Download Ocean VFX Matte-painting assets here

We’re proud to see our matte-painting library help artists create stunning landscapes for their movies to take place in.

Most of our set-extension resources come from GraphicsCrate, a collection of over 1000 professionally built images that can be stacked together to build whatever comes to the imagination. Combining these matte-painting assets with FootageCrate effects creates a unique combination that brings your scene to life, especially with the introduction of our newest ocean assets!

These are a powerful tool that can make adding the sea to your VFX shot a simple one-click process, helping streamline your compositing workflow and save you time.

To ensure that these ocean effects are flexible, there are several variations to choose from. From here, you find the asset which best fits your setting, whether that is a sunset or a clear day.

One exceptional highlight is that these HD ocean effects are loopable. This means that no matter how long your shot lasts, the waves will continue to move in a natural seamless motion without any visible stutters. Just take a look at it in action and see if you can figure out where the cut is!

We’re excited to see what you manage to create with these ocean effects. If you want to see what else you can create with GraphicsCrate, check out our latest Nebula collection.