Production: Winter Quarter 1/4
- Dec 1, 2025
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 23
Details work from class one to class five (checkpoint class) of the Winter Quarter at SCAD. Blog posts arranged from newest to oldest.
Project Drive:
Project Shot List: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Y1-DKGdcjgM3FcTvOirFuHcpqTPOWDmjmlm5wzcjg6w/edit?usp=sharing
Other Group Member Blogs:
Hannah Kim | |
Benji Hopkins | |
Olivia Wesling | |
Sydney Relkin | |
Charlie Ragland | |
Mia Esparragoza |
1/20/2026
Current flower progress:
1/15/2026
Chosen flower
I'll be using this tutorial as a guide
1/14/26
Now that we are in post production,
1/13/26
Today was out second, and last shoot day for Metamorphosis. We officially have all of the plates for our project and have wrapped production! I am so so happy with the results and so proud of the team. Our actress was absolutely amazing, and I have to give a special thanks to the XR Stage techs as well.
1/12/26
Today was day of our XR stage shoot! After planning for this day for a whole quarter, it has all come down to these next two days of shoots. And this first day went so good!
We were able to stay mostly on schedule from today and have only three shots from scene two that we will be doing tomorrow. I went ahead and updated our schedule for tomorrow to account for this:
I was previously a little worried that we would need an extra day to finish the shoot but after today, I am not worried at all! I'm excited to see how tomorrow goes!
Made some more production design:
1/10/26
One of the last bits of preparation we needed to do before the shoot date, was create some more production design for the project. As mentioned before, our previous production designer is no longer on the project, so our VFX group got our hands dirty and got to work making a fake patch of snow!
we were able to use the material list from our previous production designer and create a longer pathway of snow for our actress to walk on. Overall, I think it turned out pretty cool and I think it will work really well with a CG set extension!
1/9/26
Today, we had one last load test at the stage and with our new actress!
This was a great opportunity to debrief our actress on everything going on with the project. She was also able to get a better idea of how the shoot will go.
We also testing a few things in terms of lighting that turned out really well. First, instead of having the screen be black where the camera doesn't see, we asked the XR stage techs to display our original forest environment so that the lighting and shadows cast on her would be more accurate to what we will be comping in. This didn't make huge difference but it did create some lighting variance and we will be using it on shoot day!
The second thing we tested was the use of pink LED lights on the stage to cast pink light on the actresses back where her wings will be. This will make comp so much easier and will make the wings much more integrated.
We loves how these LEDs looked and plan to get this pink light cast on every shot that the fairy is in! We also plan on using these for any moonlight effects as well!
We did have another change that happened today as well. Our Monday DP, Julien, had a last minute scheduling conflict that is causing him to have to leave the shoot by 1:30. that means that on Monday, we now only have 10:30 to 1:30 to get some shots in. Though this is a bit of a wrench in our plans, I'm still confident we can get all of our shots in. Just in case though, we did reserve the XR stage for Friday, January 16th from 9-12, in case we are not able to get all of our shots in these two days.
I went ahead and updated our schedule with this new time change:
1/7/26
Today, I spent some time planning for our shoot days next Monday and Tuesday. When creating the schedule, I factored in how long each shot took us at the green screen stage, camera lens, lighting set ups, and production design. I then came up with these two schedules:
As states in schedule, I believe we will only need to provide lunch for one of the two days. I did some research on what would be the most cost effective and crowd pleasing and came up with getting a sub platter from Publix (the local grocery store). We will also have snacks on set, and a few water bottles for our team members and our actress.
The last update for today is that the modeler was able to finish the forest trees! This is how they came out and I am so pleased with them!
12/26 - 1/26 Class Break Update
This will be my first blog of this quarter, but there has been a lot of developments to update on since the last blog update. After we had our green screen shoot days, we then had an XR stage load test after the end of the winter quarter. Prior to this load test, the group was having some conversations about a few different problems we were finding.
First, the XR stage seems to have some slight alignment issues. This can be seen in previous SCAD XR stage projects. While it is very slight, it is noticeable to the untrained eye. Second, our environment artist was hitting a wall when it came to making our environment look realistic. Mia has all of the skills to create a realistic wintery forest, but we felt that the platform, Unreal Engine, was the problem. While renders can be made to look very realistic with time, we felt that with the time we had, there was no getting past that video game look.
Therefore, with these two issues at hand, we decided to test out using the XR stage as a blue screen, rather than for its traditional use. For one, there are no blue screens available at SCAD to use, so this gives us the opportunity to try them out. Using the stage as a blue screen also would give us the ability to completely remake the environment in Houdini and traditionally composite the background in. A key advantage to using the stage is also, of course, the camera information that it gives. We will be able to match camera for our moving camera shots with so much accuracy.
Our biggest concern when testing this was to make sure that there would not be a ton of blue spill on the actress and on our production design. After all, the blue would be coming from LED screens rather than a painted wall or a piece of cloth. To test this out, we made sure to bring a pile of white fluff with us.
On set, everyone was looking great! The blue spill was not any more present than green spill was at the green screen stage. We also have the advantage of the fact that our environment has blue hues to it, so cool tones incorporate well. The XR stage techs were also able to turn the screen black on any points that were not seen by the camera. The load test was a huge success in this aspect.
Sydney was then able to take the footage and do some quick keys and a composite:
This test overall was a huge success and this also means that the project is now taking a huge turn. We will now be reshooting everything on the stage in this manner during our January shoot days. I don't think that our green screen shoot was for nothing as though we aren't going to be using the footage, it still helped us to test a few things out and also learn how to do things better. I think the whole project will be better overall because of that shoot.
On a different note, I did receive more news over the winter break that is changing our project a lot. Our actress, Annie, who had previously committed to the project and acted for us at our last shoot, will no longer be able to be part of the project. She was cast in a major production that, for her, took priority over this project. She was professional about the situation and was able to offer up another actress that she recommended for the role.
After reaching out to her and doing some communication, we were able to officially book a new actress for the role! Her name is Julia Twomey and she is a sophomore performing arts student here at SCAD.
As I spoke of before, we had already planned to reshoot the entire film on the XR stage so this was not a huge problem for us, but rather just another thing we had to pivot.
There was one last development over the break worth noting, and that is that due to a miscommunication, scheduling issues, and differences in vision, the film majors that previously signed onto the project as DP, first AD, first AC, and production design will no longer be on this project. To pivot from this, we were able to ask on Ben Jones and Julien Schenker onto the project to take over the role as DP. They are visual effects students who have worked on the stage numerous times before and are therefore able to use the camera rig at the stage. Julien will be helping us out Monday and Ben will be helping us out on Tuesday. I will be taking on the role of first AD and the VFX group as a whole will be helping with production design. We will still have access and be able to use the set piece that our production designer had made last quarter, which will also be very helpful.
