VFX Prep Work
The groundwork that makes every shot downstream cheaper.
Prep is the unglamorous pass that decides how the rest of the pipeline goes. Before anyone composites a CG element, replaces a sky, or keys a green screen, someone has to build the clean plates, strip the tracking markers, stabilise the wobble, solve the camera, and hand over mattes that hold up.
Studios outsource prep because it is high-volume, deadline-bound, and its quality quietly sets the ceiling on everything after it. VFX Magic takes prep packages as overflow for facilities and as end-to-end groundwork for productions without an in-house team.
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What’s included
- check_smallClean plate generation for the full shot range
- check_smallTracking marker and witness point removal
- check_smallStabilisation, deflicker and gate weave fixes
- check_small3D camera solves and matchmove data
- check_smallLens distortion undistort / redistort passes
- check_smallRoto and matte hand-off in the format your pipeline expects
- check_smallOrganised, correctly named deliverables ready to drop into a comp
How the work is done
- 01
Spec alignment
Naming conventions, colour space, frame ranges and handles are agreed before a frame is touched, so nothing needs re-delivering on a technicality.
- 02
Ingest and check
Plates checked for dropped frames, gate weave, flicker and distortion before any work starts.
- 03
Track and solve
3D camera solve in PF Track or planar track in Mocha Pro, depending on what the shot needs downstream.
- 04
Clean and stabilise
Marker removal, clean-plate builds and stabilisation passes in After Effects and SilhouetteFX.
- 05
Package and hand off
Delivered as ProRes, EXR, DPX or DNxHR, at source resolution and frame rate, named to your convention, with the camera and matte data alongside.
Why prep quality compounds
A camera solve that is almost right does not announce itself in prep. It announces itself three weeks later when a compositor cannot get a CG element to sit, and nobody can tell whether the problem is the solve, the matte, or the integration. The same is true of clean plates built only across the frames someone happened to check. Prep here is delivered across the full frame range with handles, to your naming convention, so the failure never gets discovered downstream at ten times the cost.
VFX Prep Work — questions
01What does VFX prep work include?
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What does VFX prep work include?
Prep covers everything that has to happen to a plate before creative compositing can start: clean plate generation, tracking marker and rig removal, stabilisation and deflicker, lens undistortion, 3D camera solving and matchmove, and roto or matte hand-off. It is the groundwork pass, and its quality sets the ceiling on every shot built on top of it.
02Do you take prep and roto overflow from VFX facilities?
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Do you take prep and roto overflow from VFX facilities?
Yes — prep and roto overflow is a core part of what VFX Magic does. Work is delivered to your naming convention, colour space and format spec, with camera and matte data packaged alongside so it drops straight into your pipeline. The Lahore base (UTC+5) means a package sent at the end of a US or UK day is being worked on overnight.
03Can you match our studio pipeline and naming conventions?
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Can you match our studio pipeline and naming conventions?
Yes. Naming conventions, colour space, frame ranges and handle counts are agreed before any frame is touched, specifically so nothing has to be re-delivered on a technicality. Deliverables come as ProRes, EXR, DPX or DNxHR at source resolution and frame rate.
04What is a clean plate and why do you need one?
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What is a clean plate and why do you need one?
A clean plate is a version of the shot with a given element removed — an actor, a rig, a sign, a marker — reconstructed so the background is complete and continuous. Compositors use them as the source to patch from. Clean plates built only across a few sampled frames are the most common cause of patches that drift or flicker later, so they are generated across the full frame range with handles here.
Also called
Clients come to VFX Magic looking for this work under a lot of different names — plate prep, plate preparation, clean plate generation, VFX prep artist, prep and roto outsourcing, shot prep for compositing, stabilisation and deflicker prep, camera tracking / matchmove prep. If you are describing a problem rather than a technique, that is fine too: describe the shot and you will get an honest answer about whether it can be fixed.
Often needed with this
Send the shot.
Share reference footage or a shot description, the shot count and duration, your delivery spec and your deadline. Quotes typically come back within 24 hours. M. Jawad Zafar reviews every brief personally — no upfront fees, no obligation.