Wiener Sängerknaben – Christmas Special

The work on the effect shots can be divided into four main areas:

The first task was the elaborate reconstruction of various old, existing buildings, such as churches or farmhouses, including research and complete texturing – partly in high detail for close-up shots and low-poly versions for medium or distant shots. We were able to visit and photograph some of the buildings directly on site, others we had to build from reference material from the Internet and completely regenerate/paint textures. Finally, these models had to be set into a landscape and of course transformed into an animation.

We built and textured a total of twenty-one authentic buildings and 3D models.

The second task was the post-production of various real stage recordings of the choir boys. Oversized screens or other virtual elements had to be inserted into the stage, lights had to be replaced, and visible structures had to be removed. Tracking and rotoscoping tasks were not uncommon.

Another exciting challenge was to work on various different effect shots, which had such different tasks like keying, tracking, matte painting, 3D animation, particle effects etc.

Among them, for example, was a real shot of a mountain village in summery Tuscany, which we transformed with the help of matte paintings and effects as a time-lapse shot first into an autumn picture and finally into an evening winter landscape.

Several summer shots, including a one-shot camera ride, had to be transformed into winter landscapes in elaborate work. In addition to effects such as virtual candlelight or snowfall, many matte paintings were used. Sometimes also complete background replacements had to be made.

Finally, there was the rendering of the various shots – this was associated with sometimes very high render times – so high that sometimes external rendering had to be done.

Our Tasks: