Client: Parle Agro Creative Agency: &Walsh Creative Director: Jessica Walsh Art Director: Lucas Luz Director: Drew Kirsch Production Company: Tomorrow Post-Production: DI Post Executive Producers: John Poliquin, Colin Minihan Producer: Meika Wagner Editors: Ben Winter, Ben Knechtel Colorist: fortyork.tv Post Audio: Timeline Audio VFX Supervisor: Karl Hein Concept Artists: Nick Stechyson, Kate Raymond Character Animation: Wade Cross, Andrew Embury Modelling: Alex Sheludchenko Rigging: Chris LeSage AR Plugin/Connection Toolkit: Brielle Garcia Compositing: Karl Hein
Writer: Mark Polish Director: Mark Polish Producers: Daniel Davila, Janet DuBois, Mark Polish, Karl Hein Starring: Logan Polish, Colin Ford, Cyrus Arnold, Johnny Jay Lee, Megan Lee, Brandon Wilson, D.W. Moffett Awards: Best Director, Best Feature Film, Best Ensemble in a Feature Film
Client: Bath & Body Works Agency: Spacejunk Producers: Christa Cox, Melina Fuentes Creative Director: Mike Beaumont Director: Miranda Dumm DP: Jason Hambach Editor/Colorist: Kurt Keaner VFX/Compositing: Karl Hein Animation: Nick Couts
Client: Instagram Post: DI Post Director: John Poliquin Producer: Colin Minihan Director of Photography: Santiago Cantillo Editors: Ben Winter | Brandon Bernier 3D Animation: Tony Copolillo | Karl Hein Compositing: Tony Copolillo | Karl Hein
Working with director Nick Peterson and Green Glow Films, I helped with the majority of VFX for this music video for McKenna Michels. A tale of deception, betrayal, and witchcraft, it was vital for the set pieces to look and feel like something out of the 18th century. My work mainly consisted of removing any evidence of modernity, including cameras, lights, cables, tanks, ropes, and various other production-related items that topped up in frames. Another big sequence I worked on was simulating the blood splatter and pool. Since the production was shooting in an actual historic location, spraying blood all over the walls and dumping it on the antique floors was definitely out of the question.
VFX BREAKDOWN
CREDITS
Starring: McKenna Michels Directed by: Nick Peterson Production Company: Green Glow Films Executive Producers: John Dismukes, Stephen Wayne Mallett Producer: Hans Boysen Cinematographer/Colorist: Garrett O Brien VFX: Karl Hein, Tony Copolillo
After launching a successful campaign for Smoodh with Varun Dhawan as their spokesperson, Parle Agro wanted to update the spot with a more realistic looking (while still stylized) room for the Coffee Frappe scene that fit better with the other two rooms.
Because the two practical sets used a combination of recognizable food items (chocolate bars and caramel squares) combined with one or two more “fantastical” elements (the Seussian trees), I opted to keep with this theme for the new environment, choosing to showcase coffee beans as well as more fantastical, café-inspired elements.
For more dynamics in the space, I created two fluid simulations (the "lazy river" with floating beans and the coffee pour) to relate back to the one in the Chocolate Milk room. The lazy river was created using a few different mesh deformations as well as some dynamics "fakery" on the floating coffee beans. The coffee pour was created with a combination of a more traditional fluid simulation as well as a very art-directable ripple effect in Houdini.
PREVIOUS ROOM
SYLEFRAMES
FLUID SIM SETUP
CREDITS
Client: Parle Agro | Smoodh Agency: &Walsh Post: DI Post Director: John Poliquin Producer: Colin Minihan 3D Animation: Tony Copolillo | Karl Hein Compositing: Tony Copolillo | Karl Hein
A fast-paced journey through the experience of enjoying a crisp, refreshing Appy Fizz. Working alongside agency partners &Walsh as well as DI Post, this video was meant to showcase the brand's partnership with Priyanka Chopra.
In total, we concepted seven different rooms that would stitch together into one seamless camera move. My role was to the creation and compositing of three of the rooms, as well as creating the fluid simulations used throughout.
STYLEFRAMES
ROOM TRANSITION R&D
FLUID SIMULATION R&D
CREDITS
Client: Parle Agro Agency: &Walsh Post: DI Post Director: John Poliquin Producer: Colin Minihan 3D Animation: Tony Copolillo | Karl Hein Compositing: Tony Copolillo | Karl Hein
Vandyl, a new e-sports venture, is looking "to disrupt what it means to be a gamer, artist, creator, and human by facilitating the best talent in gaming, while producing groundbreaking original content." With a new Halo Championship Series team signed, they approached me to help them craft an announcement trailer that would set the tone for the rest of the season and help bring Vandyl's brand language into 3D animation.
Working with their designer, we developed a story revolving around "The Vandyl," a wandering cloaked being, with no defined figure or identity, moving through a world scattered with the remains of historic battles. Working first in Cinema4D for the initial character design, then moving over to Marvelous Designer for the cloth simulations, The Vandyl was designed to be a powerful but fluid silhouette, with his cloak obscuring any defining features except for the orange glow emanating from his boots.
The rest of the video was created in Unreal Engine 5 to make use of their Nanite system for handling complex geometry as well as their Lumen system for handling global illumination.
CREDITS
Founder/CEO: Justin Havey Art Director: Audrey Stemen 3D Animator: Karl Hein Editor: Xavier McAllister
Published by karlhein00@gmail.com inAnimation, VFX
I had the opportunity to help Escape Velocity Content with their short Star Wars film, Birth of a Monster. I handled several VFX shots throughout the video—several paint-outs, including character manipulations, developing the look of the monocular POV as well as the droid POVs, facial animation, and adding various smoke/spark effects.
This was an amazing project to work on—not just because it was a Star Wars short (duh)—but also because several of the shots pushed my skillsets and forced me to develop new techniques. (But mostly Star Wars).
Point-to-Point wanted to showcase their new PLPM Construction Adhesive by putting it in real-world (and slightly exaggerated) situations. The client's concept was to have this all take place on an active construction site. But with the timeline and weather being an issue, we decided on a VFX approach, compositing in all of the necessary elements in post—including full backgrounds, weather effects, extras, and graphics.
Practical rain rig
Director: Karl Hein Producer: Christa Cox Technical Director: Brian Finney Line Producer: Tami Jones DP: Ray Rushing AC: Cory Nabor Gaffer: Danny Wollenberg Key Grip: Dean Hayashi Wardrobe: Christine Lee PA: Paul Smith Editor: Kurt Keaner VFX Artists: Brian Finney, Karl Hein, Liz Martin Color: Kurt Keaner Sound Design: Kody Orris
Safelite wanted to showcase their industry-leading Automated Driving recalibration technology, and looked to Spacejunk to create a video that delivered their message while also pushing their creative boundaries. The final concept direction involved a complex 360° “bullet-time” shoot with talent and putting them in full CG environments in post-production.
Every stage of the process had to be planned out and visualized before it went into production. That included a heavy R&D period where we created full CG tests of the spot, developed the CG environments, and educated ourselves on the intricacies of a bullet-time shoot. We captured all of the footage in a 2-day shoot. We then took all of the shots into post, where each frame was cut out and stabilized before finally going into final compositing and color correction.
We used 120 DSLR cameras in a 180° arc, all firing at the same time to capture the "moment frozen in time."
Director: Karl Hein Producer: Richard Charney Production Asst.: Nick Lantz Production Asst.: Sam Thompson DP: Brent Jackson 1st AC: Mitch Martinez 2nd ACs: Rob Lakis, Umair Jangda Key Grips: Dean Hayashi, David Jefferies Best Boy Grip: Jason Thompson Gaffer: Jason Perkins Best Boy Electric: Jerod Nawrocki Wardrobe Stylist: Christine Lee H/MU: Jennifer Walker Prod. Designer: Alexis Schuknecht Technical Director: Brian Finney Rotoscoping: Trace VFX 3D Artists: Karl Hein, Jeremy Patterson, John Peterson
