Fear the Walking Dead, introduced in 2015 as a spin-off to the popular AMC original The Walking Dead, is to return to TVs on April 17, 2022. Chun-Yao Chang in the post-production team at AlkemyX, dedicated his proficient to bringing these exciting scenes to the enthusiastic fans of the Walking Dead Universe.
Chun-Yao is a talented VFX compositor and Digital Matte Painter in Film industry. Besides his work of Fear the Walking Dead, he has worked with many well-known shows, including The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and The Gilded Age, etc. for mainstream platforms such as HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Starz.
Chun-Yao’s mission is to create believable visual effects that lure the audience into the series.
“One of the most challenging projects I worked on is the matte painting and VFX compositing of the Nuke explosion shot in Fear the Walking Dead,” Chun-Yao said. “I started with reference research to learn about the damage and collapse of the construction after experiencing the heat and explosion. Then, I worked on my environment concept and DMP, brought in the mushroom cloud, destroyed trucked CG renders, and did the compositing to finish it up.”Chun-Yao has created several versions for the scene, adding more damage and removing the leaves from the highway. The visual effects of this particular episode were utilized in many related shots. The shot took a scary yet exciting adventure with the show’s characters. For Chun-Yao, the DMP environment has always been fun.
Besides the massive wide-angle scenes, there are some shots the artist needs to work on minor changes such as changes to the sky tone or background, adding gunshot muzzle flash or bloody wounds… all intending to bring the shots alive visually.
Audiences see more action in post-production than what is actually happening. Chun-Yao takes a blue screen driving compositing for example that actors acting inside a stationary vehicle in the production studio. With the keying technology, artists are able to replace the blue screen with a street scene that’s moving backward to give the illusion that the vehicle was traveling on the street.
“Working in the post-production is like bringing together the concept and shot footage and composite it to the final work on the big screen or TV platform. I am aware that everything is closely connected to time and budget, so the priority would always be to deliver what our client asked for on time”. Chun-Yao explained.
VFX compositors, Matte Painter like Chun-Yao, are the artisans behind the scenes. Their duty is to visualize the film from the raw footage to the final work. Having sharp eyes enable them to take care of both the shots continuity and every small detail of a single frame. VFX artists have and will continue to contribute their profession in the post-production to make the magic happen that surprised the audiences.
