Unveiling the Crafting Process Behind Everything Everywhere All At Once
In a stunning victory at the recent Academy Awards, Everything Everywhere All At Once took home seven prestigious awards, including Best Picture, Directing, Film Editing, Actress in a Lead Role (Michelle Yeoh), and Actor in a Supporting Role (Ke Huy Quan). One of the unsung heroes behind this cinematic masterpiece is the visual effects (VFX) team, who relied on the power of Mocha Pro and Continuum plugins to bring the film's innovative, reality-bending effects to life.
Mocha Pro, a versatile plugin, played a pivotal role in the film's VFX production. Its primary function was in planar motion tracking and rotoscoping, which were crucial for the movie's complex visuals. The Power Mesh feature was employed to distort faces and bodies, notably in the "bagel scenes," allowing for precise and flexible manipulation of live-action elements within the compositing workflow. The advanced tracking capabilities of Mocha Pro streamlined rotoscoping and painting tasks, making them less tedious compared to manual methods.
Continuum, integrated within Adobe After Effects, also contributed significantly to the film's unique visual distortion aesthetics. The Prism effects within Continuum were used to create the distinct appearances of characters and scenes, helping to achieve the complex multi-dimensional look that is a hallmark of the film's style.
The combination of Mocha Pro's tracking and rotoscoping strengths with Continuum's visual distortion tools enabled the VFX team to efficiently produce the innovative effects integral to Everything Everywhere All At Once's storytelling and visual appeal. The team, consisting of five main artists, all of whom were VFX artists/directors, tackled over 80% of the visual effects shots from beginning to end inside Adobe After Effects.
For Paul Rogers, the editor of Everything Everywhere All At Once, the role of a film editor is a "kind of barometer of truth," and he emphasized empathy in the filmmaking process. He became fast friends with the Daniels, the directors of the film, during the production, and their friendship is one of the many heartwarming stories to emerge from this feel-good movie.
For those interested in recreating the broken mirror look used in the film, Nick Harauz, Continuum's director of product marketing, has demonstrated a workflow using Adobe After Effects. A free trial of Mocha Pro and Continuum is also available for those wanting to get creative with the same tools the visual effects team used for Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Everything Everywhere All At Once serves as an inspiration to filmmakers due to its otherworldly creativity and DIY approach, which included some help from Mocha Pro and Continuum plugins. If you haven't seen it yet, the author highly recommends it as a must-watch movie experience.
- The versatile Mocha Pro plugin significantly contributed to the film's visual effects production, playing a pivotal role in planar motion tracking, rotoscoping, and distorting faces and bodies.
- Continuum, integrated within Adobe After Effects, helped create the unique visual distortion aesthetics of Everything Everywhere All At Once, with Prism effects contributing to the complex multi-dimensional look that is a hallmark of the film's style.
