Jahela! is a VERY effects heavy film. Although we’ve deliberately tried to avoid too many complex visual effects, every shot in the film is a VFX shot and as a result, requires a lot of attention and care. With the environments, they are designed in layers to allow us to create camera moves that will have parallax and depth of field. In some cases, we even camera project the 2d paintings to give them additional layers of 3 dimensional depth. Typically, compositing is one of the last steps to final image of a film. Jahela! is no exception.
Another aspect that makes a large appearance is particles and effects. This includes smoke, explosions and energy beams. Some of these things are hand animated and some are created with particle generation. The Particle Illusion software has been a great jump start to finding and designing some of the more esoteric effects.
One last effect that deserves attention is the eye replacement on the main character. We considered purchasing contact lenses, but the cost was too great for the limited amount of screen time we would have it. Instead, we’re able to track the eye and color-correct to remove the white from it. By allowing the pupils to remain, we retain a lot of the realism and magic that human eyes have, without sacrificing the de-humanizing effect of have completely black eyeballs. Ultimately, the effects seems to work quite well.
JAHELA! 