Power Unleashed

The Skinny

Director, Sid Maderazo, conceived the corporate reel with the insight ‘power is nothing without control’. The concept is a love story set in a futuristic, dark and desolate city. It pays homage to video games, sci-fi movies and animation.

The storyline consists of five parts:

1) Rooftop: This is the introduction of the hero, standing on the ledge of a building, whispering “power is nothing without control” in Latin.

2) Flashback: The director shows the hero as a young boy. As he discovers his powers, he tries to create something beautiful to impress a little girl, but loses control of his power and scares the little girl. He screams in frustration as the little girl runs away.

3) Ground Zero: The battle between the hero and the villains. He powers his way down the street until he encounters a big robotic beast. He unleashes his power.

4) Pieta: The hero walks into a big, abandoned cathedral. A woman is trapped by long tentacles wrapped around her limbs. The hero uses his power to free the woman. As he catches her fall, she whispers: “power is nothing without control” in Latin.

5) Finale: As an act of revenge, the hero jumps off the building and destroys his enemies. He survives the aftermath and walks away.

The Production

‘Power Unleashed’ took a total of three shooting days. The first day’s location for the Ground Zero scene was in Binondo, Manila, while the location for the rest of the scenes that required blue/green screen (the kids, rooftop, etc.), was in-studio.

According to Maderazo, the director, production went smoothly during the shoot. The weather at that time was sunny with occasional monsoon rains, which was why the location for the kids (open field) had to be done inside a studio. The production had to deal with rain while the exterior shoots were being shot. One of the main concerns was the continuity of the sunlight.

Arri 435 was used as the main camera, while Arri 3 was the second unit camera. A Panasonic DVC PROHDP2 camera was also used in some shots.

The Post

The post production and visual effects process took five months. The majority of the digital sets and character animation were done in Maya and the particle/dynamic effects were done in 3DSMAX. Most of the shots were composited in After Effects and Digital Fusion. da Vinci Resolve was used for color grading, and the Avid and Quantel eQ for the high-resolution, non-linear editing and finishing.

Roadrunner worked in a Bright Drive data-centric environment. The set-up was an advantage to the creative team since post and VFX teams got to work concurrently; thus, allowed the team’s workflow to adjust according to the project’s tight timetable. The colorist, Musseli Cruz, worked on his creative grades with the director while editors Mik Pestano and Gerard Pacis worked on the Avid and Quantel eQ editing and finishing tasks respectively. Meanwhile, the VFX team, led by David Yu, worked on the one hundred fifteen 3D animation and visual effects shots, while the audio supervisor, Ronald De Asis designed the audio effects and foley.

According to Roadrunner, the most memorable scene is the one where the hero gets confronted by the bugs after a brief chase. It was the most challenging because it had all of the creative team (VFX, color, edit, and audio) involved to make that shot work. Since the original plate was a hand-held dolly chroma shoot, generating the digital set/matte paintings populated with computer-generated ‘bugs’ and compositing live-shoot pyrotechnics was a challenge, which pushed everyone’s resourcefulness and creativity. This particular shot was also pivotal in the narrative of the short film because the hero unleashes the full extent of his power.

The major VFX challenge that had to be overcome was the timetable. Roadrunner’s creative team understood the director’s vision; and thrived on the challenge of working with restraints, using their creativity to overcome the limitations on time. “We made technical trade-offs early in the process which helped everyone in the team figure out the priorities earlier rather than later,” revealed a spokesperson from Roadrunner.