Magic Shield

Created using: After FX, Maya

This shot began as a simple idea and ran away with our imaginations.


It began as a simple shot involving us and a simple explosion, but we thought it needed something else.

I then added meteors that would cause the explosion, but what caused the meteors? We needed a villain to cast them. My brother, Xavier, graciously jumped at the chance to be our villain.

Then we needed a way to show that he was casting them somehow, so I created the "magic effect" using Maya particles and fluid effects. We thought it looked cool so we then added the same for ourselves and armed ourselves with wands.

We needed to cast something, so that led to creating a shield in After FX using various elements and animating them with Time Displacement.

We then composited everything together onto separate environment elements, including the land and foliage that Xavier and I shot at Mission Trials in San Diego, CA. Here is the final result.