TRANQUIL
When a U.S. senator mysteriously disappears, a team of intelligence specialists defy government orders to search for him. In a race against time, they must navigate a high-stakes game of surveillance, cover-ups and digital breadcrumbs.
Tranquil is one of the first short films to blend live action footage and gaussian splatting. More info on that below…
GROUNDBREAKING VISUAL EFFECTS
Using Jawset Postshot & Nuke, Visual Effects Supervisor Riley Gray seamlessly blended live action footage with a digital environment.
What is gaussian splatting?
Gaussian Splatting is a breakthrough 3D computer graphics technique that transforms standard 2D images into highly detailed, photorealistic 3D scenes that can be rendered in real-time.
How was this applied on Tranquil?
The film features a camera that allows the operator to see into the past, requiring the footage inside its LCD screen to track perfectly with the surrounding environment. To achieve this without expensive motion-control setups, we first recorded the past-time footage as regular camera plates, allowing the actor to perform choreography in long, uninterrupted takes. The following day, we filmed the camera’s POV, using playback from the previous day to approximate the camera movement.
For the final composite, the environment was digitally recreated using Gaussian Splats, with each scan taking approximately 15 minutes on set. We 3D-tracked the POV plate and used the resulting camera data, combined with the POV plate’s field of view, to recreate the background with accurate motion. The tracked past-time plate was composited into the LCD screen, with subtle distortion and glitch effects added for an analog feel. This innovative workflow saved significant production time and budget while delivering the seamless visual effects and storytelling we envisioned.
