For this challenging job, we replaced heads with four-leaf clovers, to tell the story about a few different people and the lucky situations they are in. Each shot consisted of removing the actor’s heads, and then carefully hand-matching the clover stalks, as well as the inside of the collar. Each environment meant a new lighting setup, to match light directions from the practical sources of light, in order to blend in the CG clovers. For the tennis shot, we created a photoreal CG tennisball to get the perfect view of a really lucky hit.

For the pool shot, running CG water was added and blended with the practical water, and the clover surface was rendered with various water passes and composited in Flame. Naturally, the womb-shot was completely digitally made, for this shot, and the clover itself we produced concept art approved by director Joachim Trier, to make sure we had the right design to fit the vision of the director. Our 3D pipeline allows for smooth collaboration between animator, rigger and lighting artists, allowing the whole team to work simultaneously on all aspects of the various shots, which gives us a quick turn-around as we improve each shot. A challenging and fun job resulting in a beautiful film.

Here’s a breakdown of the pool shot which was one of the trickier shots:

Concept art provided to the director during the development phase of the project.