Creating a cinematic nightmare
How a combination of visual and practical effects helped director Freddy Chávez Olmos make his latest terrifying short
“I WANTED THE FILM TO FEEL MORE ORGANIC” Freddy Chávez Olmos, director
Duérmete Niño, the latest horror short from director Freddy Chávez Olmos, has its terrifying origins rooted in a real life experience. “I had a very weird recurring nightmare when my first daughter was born,” Olmos explains. “At one particular moment, in my dream, the baby I was carrying in my arms wasn’t her. It was a horrific creature with multiple baby heads and limbs. It was a bizarre image that freaked me out, but I used it as inspiration.”
It took four years to develop the original concept, with all the pieces coming together after the project received a push from the prestigious Canadian Harold Greenberg Fund. This allowed Olmos to bring in producer Victoria Burkhart, known for her work on films such as Chappie and Elysium.
The film features a combination of makeup and visual effects, lending it an air of authenticity and old-school aesthetic. “I have always been an evangelist when it comes to combining practical, makeup and digital effects in horror films,” adds Olmos. “I didn’t want to have a full CG creature right from the concept stages. I wanted the film to feel more organic.”
To help realise his vision Olmos kept all the lighting imperfections and jerky movements that can only be achieved with a camera in the film. The use of an animatronic creature, designed by Amazing Ape Productions, in the film’s terrifying final moments helped to bolster the old-school aesthetic. “It came with some limitations of course, that’s when the digital enhancements came into play,” says Olmos.
Mexico City-based studio Ollin VFX were brought onboard to create CG enhancements for the creature’s arms and facial expressions. The team at Ollin also added details like blinking eyes, facial deformations and a tongue to the demonic creature. “Once the shot was filmed, Freddy sent us our scene – shot with a reference puppet crafted by Amazing Ape Productions,” explains Alejandro Diego, executive producer and co-founder of Ollin VFX. “We animated the babies, created the demon’s head and its tongue, and integrated the three of them into the horrific final scene. Working with Chávez Olmos was very straightforward because he comes
from the visual effects industry – we speak the same language.”
The short’s fear-inducing title sequence saw Vancouver-based Kalos Studios work on layout and dynamics, as well as 3D scanning the crucifix prop used on set. Image Engine helped supervise the on-set capturing of VFX data, HDRS and lens charts. “This was particularly important as the title shot became fully CG and this data came in handy for reference,” adds Olmos.
Chun Seong Ng, head of 3D at Barnstorm VFX, elaborates on how the dynamic sequence was achieved: “We worked with Freddy to create a dynamic camera move extension based on the static plate to enhance the visual impact on the audience. In order to pull that off, we used Mari to import the camera from Maya and project the original EXR plate to recreate the background in CG. Once Freddy approved the timing, we rendered the shot with Redshift and passed it onto the compositing team.”
Various invisible effects throughout the film were created by Pixel Perfect in Mexico, “these consisted of removing unwanted objects from the shots and fixing some of the practical issues we had on set,” explains Olmos. For example, in the numerous shots involving real babies the crew had difficulty getting them to sleep, so their eyes and mouths were fixed during post-production.
Eden Muñoz, compositing artist and cofounder of Pixel Perfect, adds: “We worked on 29 shots mainly consisting of invisible visual effects like removing unwanted objects from the scenes, especially artefacts that might show up as anachronisms, like thermostats and light switches.”
A total of five studios collaborated to bring Duérmete Niño to life in a stylishly shot, tense film that builds to a chilling conclusion straight out of Olmos’ nightmare.