Breakdown: VFX Compositing Reel
Compositing for Double Negative.
DNeg – Star Trek: Picard – Season 1
Timestamp: 0:08
Shot: Spaceship docks over future Earth
Role: Compositor
Full CG shot. Performed in-comp relighting of the ship and Earth to enhance depth and atmosphere. Added ship engine glow and treatment, cinematic lens effects, and a high-resolution starfield to enrich detail and visual realism.
DNeg – Star Trek: Picard – Season 1
Timestamp: 0:12
Shot: Bird of Prey exits warp and attacks
Role: Compositor
Full CG shot. Executed in-comp relighting of the Bird of Prey, planet, and planetary shield. Crafted the warp exit effect, enhanced blaster fire and shield impact, and integrated cinematic lens flare treatments to amplify energy and visual drama.
DNeg – Star Trek: Picard – Season 1
Timestamp: 0:18
Shot: Daytime aerial of Starfleet HQ with Golden Gate Bridge in foreground
Role: Compositor
Integrated CG Golden Gate Bridge, futuristic cityscape, and small crafts into a live-action plate. Performed relighting of the city to unify elements. Added accurate shadow casting from flying vehicles onto buildings, terrain, and shoreline. Created subtle wave interaction along the shoreline-structure intersection, with continuity carried into the sister shot.
DNeg – Blade Runner 2049 (Academy Award Winner – Best Visual Effects)
Timestamp: 0:25
Shot: Futuristic vehicle (Spinner) struck by crashing shoreline waves
Role: Compositor
Integrated CG Spinner into a live-action plate augmented with CG crashing waves, foam, and spray. Performed in-comp relighting, color grading, and detailed plate cleanup. Maintained a high standard of realism, texture fidelity, and seamless integration in support of the film’s Oscar-winning VFX.
DNeg – Blade Runner 2049 (Academy Award Winner – Best Visual Effects)
Timestamp: 0:27
Shot: Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) struggles for air inside the Spinner
Role: Compositor
Replaced plate and rear windows of the Spinner to integrate CG water effects, including tracked library elements for falling water, drips, and rain. Extensive plate reconstruction supported the integration, with detailed work on subtle FX drips and moisture treatments—enhancing the scene’s tension while maintaining the film’s Oscar-winning visual standards.
DNeg – Blade Runner 2049 (Academy Award Winner – Best Visual Effects)
Timestamp: 0:30
Shot: Officer K (Ryan Gosling) turns inside ocean-submerged Spinner
Role: Compositor
Replaced CG back wall and ceiling of the Spinner, aligning with the established vehicle continuity. Performed extensive background plate cleanup and integrated a custom Nuke camera move to match editorial reference. Matte extraction and detailed edge work ensured seamless compositing under challenging lighting and water-distorted conditions.
MARVEL – Runaways Season 2
Timestamp: 0:30
Shot: Interior Staircase – Old Lace Collapses
Role: Compositor
Integrated CG dinosaur and blanket elements as Old Lace collapses on the stairs. Added pillow impact interaction, composited fake and CG shadows for grounding, and performed heavy roto and plate cleanup to support realistic contact and occlusion.
MARVEL – Runaways Season 2
Timestamp: 0:41
Shot: Forest Exterior – Old Lace is Sent Away
Role: Compositor
Executed extensive in-comp relighting of the CG dinosaur to blend with dappled forest lighting. Completed motion-blurred roto for multiple tree layers at varying depths to ensure proper integration and depth cues. Added fake and CG shadows, and enhanced interaction with foreground trees—including secondary motion and deformation—when the tail makes contact. This shot required complex layering and detailed timing to ground the CG within a dynamic, natural environment.
DNeg — The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Emmy Winner – Outstanding Visual Effects)
Timestamp: 0:30
Shot: Gelfling flight through luminous blue cavern
Role: Compositor
Integrated blue screen Gelfling puppet into a fully CG environment with bioluminescent walls, animated water, and digital wings. Relit puppet and wings to match CG enviromental lighting. Developed a subtle slipstream mist effect, used deep compositing to embed layered cavern fog, mist, and volumetrics. Combined FX elements—rolling clouds, fireflies, waterfall mist—to create an immersive, atmospheric shot.
DNeg — Star Trek Beyond
Timestamp: 0:33
Shot: Ship chase over futuristic mega-city
Role: Compositor
Composited full CG chase through layered cityscape with atmospheric FX and water-treated camera views. Collaborated with lighting to enhance visual clarity—added rim lights and bloom to separate ships from background. Tuned environmental fog and glow to guide viewer focus through dense complexity.
DNeg — Star Trek Beyond
Timestamp: 0:38
Shot: Close-up of Bones during ship chase
Role: Compositor
Integrated plate of crew member with HUD overlays and windshield FX. Enhanced ship surface with metallic reflections, refractions, and dirt. Used multi pass rendered layers to relit and defocus CG background to reduce visual noise and direct viewer focus to performance.
DNeg — The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Emmy Winner – Outstanding Visual Effects)
Timestamp: 0:40
Shot: Scroll Keepers Carriage
Role: Compositor
Integrated CG Digital Matte Painting, 3D buildings, and crowd plates with CG carriage elements surrounding the puppet Scroll Keeper. Used ST mapping to enhance texture detail on carriage “arms.” Managed complex over-under compositing with heavy roto throughout the shot.
DNeg —The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Emmy Winner – Outstanding Visual Effects)
Timestamp: 1:08
Shot: Close-Up – Gelfling Flight Through Red-Orange Cavern
Role: Compositor
Developed and composited CG wings and cavern elements for a fast-paced flight sequence. Designed a custom 2D/3D hybrid slipstream effect—built modularly in Nuke for easy propagation across shots—to convey speed and airflow over the Gelflings’ shoulders. Integrated Nuke-generated volumetrics including rolling ground fog, cloud layers, and fireflies to enhance atmosphere and depth. Augmented lighting and motion paths to reinforce a dynamic sense of velocity through the glowing cavern space.
DNeg — The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Emmy Winner – Outstanding Visual Effects)
Timestamp: 1:10
Shot: Long Shot – Gelfling Flight Through Red-Orange Cavern
Role: Compositor
Stabilized the original puppet plate motion, then layered in a new motion path to align with an updated camera move through the CG cavern. Relit the environment to guide viewer focus and establish a clear visual path through the space. Used atmospheric elements—rolling fog, drifting clouds, and fireflies—not just for mood, but as layered depth cues to enhance scale and orientation. Integrated CG wings and cavern geometry while maintaining clarity during high-speed movement.
MARVEL – Runaways Season 2
Timestamp: 1:14
Shot: Interior Lab – Old Lace Enters
Role: Compositor
Integrated CG dinosaur through meticulous relighting and color adjustments to match shifting practical light sources. Reconstructed sections of the plate to unify multiple lighting passes into a single, cohesive flashing-light sequence. Animated lighting across the plate to match the revised setup, cleaned up brushed metal surfaces, and added accurate shadows and reflections—especially across reflective cabinet panels—for full environmental grounding.
Netflix – Locke & Key Season 1
Timestamp: 1:17
Shot: Tyler Locke Holds Igniting, Flaming Book
Role: Compositor
Collaborated closely with the FX artist to define the fire’s timing, scale, and behavior—ensuring the flare-up felt both grounded and dramatic. Integrated CG fire and smoke elements with special attention to defocus and heat distortion. Created a reusable ember setup in Nuke to add atmospheric detail and share across the sequence, supporting consistency and visual continuity between artists.
Kevin (Probably) Saves the World – Season 1
Timestamp: 1:10
Shot: Kevin Finn Looks Up at the Water Ceiling
Role: Compositor
Integrated layered CG water, projected caustics, and CG elevator walls with the live-action plate to create a surreal, immersive water-ceiling effect. Paid special attention to the water dripping from the walls—carefully selecting, scaling, and warping multiple layers of stock footage to match perspective and surface interaction without introducing visual distortion. Added interactive lighting and depth cues to unify the elements and enhance the scene’s otherworldly tone.
Kevin (Probably) Saves the World – Season 1
Timestamp: 1:22
Shot: Kevin’s POV – Looking Through Water-Covered Ceiling
Role: Compositor
Created a slow, undulating caustic distortion over the live-action plate to simulate looking through a water-covered ceiling—maintaining visual clarity while adding a dreamlike ripple effect. Added comp-generated caustic lighting and subtle vignette treatments to reinforce the illusion of Kevin being submerged. Additional very subtle light interaction on his reaching hand helped sell the story of a water-filled elevator space, enhancing the surreal tension of the moment without overpowering the performance.
DNeg — Blade Runner 2049 (Academy Award Winner— Visual Effects)
Timestamp: 1:25
Shot: Luv Walks away from Officer K and Dives into the Ocean Surf.
Role: Compositor
Composited a moody, low lighting sequence per VFX Supervisor John Nelson’s direction, requiring precise control over black and near black levels to preserve depth and details. Integrated CG waves, foam, spray and the distant Spinner into the live action plate, using split screen techniques to combined live action with full CG simulations. Added water interaction, reflections and subtle lighting from the Spinner to support the atmosphere and visual continuity within the film’s stylized look.