“Working From Home in 2020” CGI + Photography Composite Creation Process

“Working From Home in 2020” is a funny take on the Covid-19 virus which changed the way we communicate.

We joined forces with Jaka Tavs (CGI artist) and started working on the background for the main character.

The protagonost in the story is a beer lover and CGI comes to help here as there is no need to actually shoot all the beer cans. All are CGI and randomly placed and dropped into ambient simulating gravity.

With more ambient iterations we decided it would be visually richer if lighting was set to dusk. Mixing tungsten (yellow) and blue light (coming from TV) creates beautiful dynamics as do light and shade in the final image.

Once ambient is finalized adding a 3D CGI dummy to simulate lighting is essential to be prepared for the photoshoot of the character in studio.

CGI details are stunning to the point one can’t really distinguish photography to reality. This is the reason I love using this technique. Shooting the scene on a soundstage would be significantly more complex and time consuming. CGI offers playing with environments, lighting, perspectives, colours, materials and much more. It saves money and lets you be more creative and versatile.

Protagonist was shot in a studio once CGI was finalized. Crucial elements for success are matching correct lens with CGI, lighting colour temperatures, perspective and distance of subject relative to camera.

Lighting the character in studio is a slow process. Every light and shade needs to be reviewed and matched to CGI’s 3D dummy and background plate. Blue light from the TV & computer on image below as example.

To match table shadow on the character shading the lower part of blue light was needed.

Yellow light to mimic the lamp to the left added and shaded.

After final pictures were selected retouching and compositing of photography to CGI started. Final image below.

CGI / CD : Jaka Tavs

Photography / CD : Matevz Kostanjsek