Practical effect

The goal of this shot originally was to seamlessly integrate elements with 2d track into a plate. But I wanted to push my limits and integrate an explosion. With the guidance of Ken Fisk, I was able to recreate an explosion out of a different plate.

The plate

Being an aerial plate, I was able to 2d track with little preprocessing the explosion, the transamerican building and the explosion.

After that, I integrated, added shadows, and color-corrected the Transamerica building, Golden Gate, and the towns towards the end at the back of the mountain.

With that done, it sparked an idea to make it like the beginning of a movie of a heist.

This is the explosion element. It is an ink plume inside a water tank. I couldn't find an explosion plate I liked the animation of, and once I saw this, it sparked the idea, I could make this into an explosion.

My challenge was to recreate the explosion effect. I desaturated the effect to have more control over the colors using it as a mask, I grabbed the highlights and tinted the plate orange, and bloom and glow it to make it feel like an explosion.

Thank you for your time