Rotoscoping & Cleanup

Here is how this works in practice. Rotoscoping and cleanup for productions finishing in Ireland routes through the big VFX-subcontract bench at Framestore Dublin (the UK Framestore Dublin branch with the Game of Thrones. Doctor Who, and Harry Potter VFX lineage). Egg Post Dublin VFX. Mac Guff Dublin, The Mill Dublin, Boulder Media Dublin VFX, Brown Bag Films Dublin VFX, Yellowmoon Belfast (the GoT-era VFX support partner), and Carnegie Studios Belfast.

Here is the short of it. The bench has handled the big rotoscoping and plate-cleanup load on GoT (rig removal across eight seasons of Northern Ireland photography, period-detail cleanup, crowd doubling, smoke and FX integration prep), Vikings (six seasons in County Wicklow and County Dublin. This includes battle-scene clean plates, weapon and prop rig removal, period-detail cleanup), Star Wars Force Awakens and Last Jedi (Skellig Michael plate cleanup. Including monk-cell rig removal), Foundation Apple TV+, Banshees of Inisherin (Achill Island and Inishmore plate cleanup), Belfast (Branagh 2021.

Belfast streetscape period-detail cleanup), and the Cartoon Saloon Kilkenny cinema-animation pipeline (Wolfwalkers, Breadwinner, Song of the Sea, Secret of Kells — clean-frame preparation for 2D animation composite).

Here is the breakdown. Roto and cleanup pipelines run BorisFX Silhouette (the cinema-rotoscoping standard with paint, tracking, and dispersion all in one tool). BorisFX Mocha Pro (the cinema-tracking standard with planar tracking and integrated roto. Specific for shots with consistent surfaces and tracking marker removal). Foundry Nuke RotoPaint (the high-end node-based roto-and-paint integrated workflow), and Adobe After Effects with the Mocha AE plugin (for the broadcast and commercial-cleanup tier).

Here is what that looks like on the ground. Sessions handle ARRIRAW, RED R3D, Sony Venice X-OCN, and Blackmagic RAW originals at 4K, 6K, and 8K resolution with ACES-linear color running preserving full dynamic range and color fidelity through to final composite. Rig removal, marker removal, wire and rope removal, set-piece cleanup, period-detail (current signage, telephone wires. Parked cars. Current roof tiles) cleanup. Beauty work (skin smoothing, eyeline correction, prosthetic-edge cleanup), and crowd-replication preparation all flow through the same pipeline. Deliverables are EXR sequences for the downstream composite, integrated into the wider Framestore Dublin.

Here is how the picture comes together. Egg Post Dublin, and Yellowmoon Belfast pipeline for delivery to Cineworld Ireland theatrical DCP. Coimisiún na Meán + RTÉ + BBC NI broadcast, and Netflix Ireland + HBO Max + Disney+ + Apple TV+ + Amazon Prime + Sky Ireland streaming-sites masters.