Directed by MA Student Li Heng Hsu, Sync is a film about about Kui ‘a mind syncing girl who lost the memories of her youth’. I was appointed as the vfx supervisor and the sole compositor to work on this 30 minute sci-fi short in an extremely short timeframe. As the visual effects supervisor, I had to work next to the director to make sure all of the vfx I would be creating works and keeps to the quickest process possible. As this film required a lot of heads up displays interaction I created a guide with contrasting colours to show me how out of focus the displays would be when using different lens and focal lengths. This was a huge help in post as I could instantly match the z depth without any tedious manual work. The displays themselves were created whilst filming took place, each week I had a new element or design to show the director and receive critical feedback. The design itself isn’t a conventional sci-fi hud similar to Iron Man but more emulating an iOS system with a cleaner more user friendly design, every graphic is designed by myself including every small letter on the holographic keyboard. Once we entered production I had the task of animating each HUD to the shots needs, thankfully I spent time with our main actress, Ealia Meletsy, to help her navigate this invisible space infront of her and made sure her eyes were tracking correctly as if this interface was a physical entity. Most of the animations like button clicks, typing effects, windows opening/closing and many more were designed specifically to complement each other and make the interface feel more real.
