VFX Commence for The Elephant Princess: Series 2
Friday 7th May 2010
by Steve Tedman, Senior Compositor.
With H2O Series 3 completed I now turn my attention towards Series 2 of The Elephant Princess, another in a long line of well crafted and successful offerings from Australia’s premier children’s television producers, Jonathan M. Shiff Productions.
Our association with JMSP has gone from strength to strength over the years and whilst H2O has played a starring role, The Elephant Princess has offered up its own set of challenges.
Hot on the heels of H2O’s success with the 2008 AFI Award for VFX and the 2009 Logie for Most Outstanding Children’s Drama, The Elephant Princess Series 1 has won the 2009 AFI Award for Best Childrens Television Drama and has recently been nominated in the same 2010 Logie category. Importantly these categories are judged solely by industry representatives and a win commands a significant status in the Australian television industry.
This second season of The Elephant Princess promises to be darker and more relationship driven than the first, and with that the VFX will have to reflect this maturity. Rig removal plays a large part and from what I have seen so far, will offer us a few challenges. One vital VFX component involves one character’s ability to jump, or place shift, from place to place or even world to world. Initial tests look very positive. Along with some clever on-set or in-camera tricks, the VFX will again play a major role in this quality children’s drama.
With 26 half hour episodes of this series, several upcoming features/telemovies and the promise of various other long form projects, The Post Lounge and I look set for a very busy 2010.
