In our LAB+ series of articles we are giving production companies, post houses, music houses, CG & VFX artists, an opportunity to demonstrate transparency in their technical set of skills bringing to light their most interesting projects and collaborations.

SHP+ 的LAB+系列還在進行中。在這一系列的文章中，我們為制作公司、后期制作公司、音樂公司、CG&VFX 藝術家等，提供了一個展示他們技術能力極其透明的機會，以介紹他們最有趣的項目和合作。

SHP+ continues with sponsored series of articles by JUICE, a renowned polish Visual Effects & Sound studio that very soon will open its new office doors in Shanghai. Previously in "JUICY WORKSHOPS" we have written about several super challenging projects: the exciting commercial done for Chinese Cnice, Transphere - the first ever Japanese short film created with IMAX technology, Unconquered - animated long format war film, etc… This time we are going to dive into most compelling project JUICE has ever done. The LIBERATOR is the first-ever TV series to be produced using the Trioscope Enhanced Hybrid Animation (EHA) that offers a new kind of visual language.

SHP+繼續JUICE贊助的系列文章。JUICE是一家著名的波蘭視覺效果和聲音工作室，即將在上海開設新的辦公室。之前“JUICY WORKSHOPS”系列文章仔細講述了幾個超級挑戰項目的后期制作過程， 包括納愛斯國內廣告影片、日本第一部IMAX技術短片Transphere、以戰爭為主題的Unconqured動畫長片等項目。這一次我們要深入JUICE最引人注目的項目。《解放者》是首次使用 Trioscope 增強混合動畫（EHA）制作的電視劇集，這項新技術，也誕生了新的視覺語言。

THE LIBERATOR 解放者

Produced by JUICE and Trioscope Studios, The LIBERATOR tells the true story of the bloodiest and most dramatic march to victory of the Second World War: the battlefield odyssey of maverick U.S. Army officer Felix Sparks and the 157th Infantry Regiment from Oklahoma. They fought for over five hundred days until the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp.

《解放者》由JUICE與Trioscope工作室聯手制作，這部影片講述了二戰時期最血腥，最戲劇性的勝利征途: 傳奇美國陸軍軍官菲利克斯·斯帕克斯和他來自俄克拉荷馬州的第157步兵團，在戰場上浴血奮戰長達500多天，直到解放了達豪集中營，堪稱是史詩般的作戰經歷。

“I have been working together with Grzegorz – the director for years, to articulate the unique look and feel of the series. At first it was just the two of us but later, with the entire Juice team, we were able to create a proof of concept. The technology allows us to preserve the authenticity of the emotions by the real actors, and let CG take care of every detail–even the smallest—on the screen. We created a new original visual language” 

—— Micha? Misiński (Juice), art director and 2nd unit director of the series.

“為了充分表達這部劇的獨特風格和感覺，我和導演Grzegorz已經共事了很多年，一開始只有我們兩個人，但后來，得益于Juice團隊全員的加入，我們才能夠具象化我們的概念與想法。這項技術讓我們可以即保留演員的真情實感，又能利用CG去處理屏幕上大大小小的每一個細節。我們創造出了一種全新的原創視覺語言”  —— Micha? Misiński (Juice), 《解放者》藝術總監和副導演

HOW TO CREATE CGI HYBRID ANYMATION FOR NETFLIX 如何為NETFLIX創作CGI混合動畫

Challenge#1: If you’ve ever shot live action scenes with real actors and then rotoscoped them into an animated environment, one of the things that you lose almost immediately are the emotions. Roto-ing simply flattens the nuanced facial expressions that could make or break a line. Often, you’d have to add those later in post.

挑戰一：如果你有過類似的拍攝經驗：用真正的演員拍攝真人動作場景，然后把他們轉描到動畫場景中，你肯定注意到了轉描后，演員的情緒突然都被淡化了。因為轉描會使面部的微表情變得平緩，而這些微表情正是體現演技重要的方式。所以通常都得在后期把這些細節加回去。

Challenge#2: A question we asked ourselves constantly was: where is the fine line between the look and feel we are after, and realistic details? For example, with creating actual existing cities or vehicles, which look like that and nothing else. So, finding that fine line of artistic interpretation and real existing details was the most challenging aspect.

挑戰二：我們經常問自己的一個問題是: 我們如何去平衡，去取舍風格和感覺與體現真實感的細節？比如創作真實存在的城市或車輛，原汁原味，會不會缺少藝術性？因此，找到藝術詮釋和真實感的微妙平衡是最具挑戰性的方面。

Challenge#3: Another challenge was combining all CG elements with live footage. Unlike any other production we did before, the style was directing both. So, finding a perfect balance between achieving visual\artistic style and having fast turnaround (render times and changes) was the priority from day one.  

挑戰三：另一個挑戰是將所有CG元素與實景拍攝鏡頭結合起來。與我們之前做過的其他作品不同的是，這部電影的風格是同時導演這兩個方面。因此，從拍攝的第一天開始，我們的重心之一便是要在視覺藝術風格和盡快制作完成(渲染時間和變化)之間找到一個完美的平衡。

SOLUTIONS 解決方案

Trioscope Enhanced Hybrid Animation is a proprietary animated drama engine that fuses live-action with animation for a groundbreaking moving graphic novel experience. The workflow combines 3 elements:

Trioscope增強混合動畫(EHA)是為將動畫與真人表演相結合而誕生的，它好比一個高效運轉的引擎，為劇集體驗帶來了前所未有的動漫感染力和逼真度。它的工作流程結合了3個元素：

ON SET – stylized makeup, wardrobe, props & main set elements

在拍攝現場 — 風格化的妝發，著裝，道具與主要的拍攝元素

IN CG – creating all the stylized environments

使用CG — 創作出所有風格化的場景和環境

In CG/COMPOSITING - stylizing the footage by cartoonizing and adding croschathes

使用CG及影像合成 — 通過卡通化和添加陰影線來編輯畫面

With Trioscope EHA the actors were made up in greater contrast. In the raw footage they already looked a lot like animated characters and when we brought them into the environment, the transition was so smooth we barely needed to add in any expressions. This helped preserve the original acting with greater fidelity. The advantage of having real actors on set rather than creating them in CG, means that their motion and emotions feel infinitely more natural and nuanced.

使用Trioscope 的EHA，演員的妝面反差更明顯。在原始鏡頭中，他們已經看起來很像動畫人物了，當我們把他們帶到環境中，過渡也非常絲滑，我們幾乎不需要添加任何表情。這有助于更忠實地保留好原本的表演。使用真實的演員在現場拍攝，而不是用CG創造人物的優勢便是他們的動作和情感的流露，都無比地自然，充滿細節。

Probably a great use of the technology is the ability to make changes to the story line often during shooting. When creating the scenography in CG, budget that is typically allocated to the organization and logistics of each location could go to the actual shoot. The production took place in ?ód?, Poland. The city, whose thriving textile dye industry was gutted during the war, provides a compelling backdrop for the exterior action. Once again, the use of the Trioscope technique allows us to add any kind of detail to create immersive scenes without having to dress up entire streets.

這一技術的一個重要用途或許是在拍攝過程中改變故事情節的能力。在CG中創建場景時，通常分配給每個地點組織和后勤的預算可以用于實際拍攝。本次的拍攝地在波蘭羅茲。這座城市繁榮的紡織染料工業在戰爭中被摧毀，它為外景動作的拍攝提供了一個引人入勝的背景。同時，使用Trioscope技術，我們就可以按需添加各種細節來創造沉浸式的場景，而不需要去裝扮整條街道。

PROOF OF CONCEPT

Thanks to this solution the LIBERATOR could take place in as many as 50 different locations in one episode for example. The director could easily add all those story-supporting scenes that would make a live production exponentially more expensive. What’s more, designing a set with literally a bunch of blue boxes allowed us to shoot as many takes as needed without the fear of destroying an expensive prop, or blowing up a painstakingly created set design which would have been very costly.

得益于這個解決方案，《解放者》甚至可以在一集劇情中輾轉50個不同的地點。導演可以很輕松地添加任何劇情所需的場景，而不用像實景拍攝那樣去擔心成本成倍增加。更重要的是，用一堆藍盒子設計一套場景，可以讓我們想拍多少鏡頭就拍多少，而不用擔心破壞昂貴的道具，或者炸毀某個非常昂貴且精心制作的布景。

CONCLUSION 案例總結

The key to the success was a tight cooperation between Supervisor, Lead Artists, Art Director and Director. The learning curve was fairly steep with every sequence getting exponentially better than the previous one and eventually each chapter had outdone the one that ensued, thus raising the bar ever higher. To be fair, we must admit that the final look exceeded our best laid plans and demonstrated the value of instilling trust between all the working components in this production and treating it not so much as a factory project but as an artistic adventure.

其實，成功的關鍵在于主管、首席藝術家、藝術總監和導演之間的緊密合作。我們的學習曲線是相當陡峭的，每拍一步都比上一步好得多，每一小節都比上一小節更出色，如此進行，標準也是水漲船高。實話實說，最終的成果遠超我們一開始最好的預期，這也體現了建立信任的價值，該項目的所有小隊，部門之間都建立了信任，大家對于項目的態度也因此改變，認為這是一次藝術的冒險，而不是一次流水線，程式化的制片。

RELATED ARTICLES:

LAB+｜JUICY WORKSHOP 3: CHINESE CNICE 聚思工作坊3：中國納愛斯

LAB+｜JUICY WORKSHOP 4：TRANSPHERE 聚思工作坊4：TRANSPHERE

LAB+｜JUICY WORKSHOP 5: UNCONQUERED 聚思工作坊5: UNCONQUERED

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