Copyright © Neill Blomkamp
TETRA VAAL | 2003 | 1:20 Director/Editor/DP/FX: Neill Blomkamp
Tetra Vaal is a spec commercial/corporate video created to put forth the idea of a robotic system of control that can function on its own, and make simple decisions. Shot in Johannesburg, South Africa, the eerie piece is designed to suggest the near future. Footage shot in Johannesburg using a Canon GL1 and edited using Adobe Premiere. All visual effects were created using LightWave 3D and Photoshop and composited in Combustion.
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The spec film that showed off Blomkamp's combined talents was 2003's Tetra Vaal. "I came up with this weird, documentarian, messed-up piece that took place in South Africa,"
he says of the Robocop-like short. Shooting in poverty-stricken Soweto in Johannesburg and Khayelitsha in Cape Town, Blomkamp created his character in CG and used motion
capture and Rotoscope animation to insert the gun-toting robot into the realistic setting. Tetra Vaal startled and disturbed audiences at RESFEST that year, but Blomkamp denies
any political intent. "Up until that point my visual effects [were about] making manmade objects that either existed in a place where they were not filmed or [were] breaking apart in
a place where you couldn't break apart a real one. And so it was the first time I had done a character."
- Category
- CG Short