My name’s Chris Fast and I’m a Guelph based editor and VFX generalist focusing on smaller, independent projects. The main software I use is Blender for 3D and compositing, and DaVinci Resolve for editing, colour, and DaVinci Fusion for other compositing. I work in an HDR linear workflow, saving acescg EXR rendered image sequences and combining them with camera footage to Davinci Wide Gamut in DaVinci Resolve.
The Drop follows two professional streetwear line waiters for hire diving into the city’s buzzing culture of luxury goods and exclusive releases. A major story arc revolved around the characters going viral on social media. For this I needed to recreate an animate multiple Instagram and Tiktok user interfaces, as well as track and composite many screen replacements.
Premiering at the Paradise Theatre in Toronto, The Drop won Best Toronto Web Series at the 2023 Toronto Webfest and received five Canadian Screen Award nominations.
Trauma Bonding
Netflix Pilot
Following the success of The Drop, writer and director Dani Pagliarello created Trauma Bonding, a pilot episode for a Netflix series. The plot revolves around psychiatrist Dr. Darryl Day, who treats patients in her car, and her mutinous HAL-like AI driving assistant, MILES. I was tasked with designing a minimalist and futuristic interface for MILES as well as animating his voice and various graphical expressions he made.
Planet Bean
Animated Loop
Local Guelph coffee shop Planet Bean asked me to make a short animation which would play on their TV menu every couple of minutes. I delivered a fun cartoon using elements of outer space and a little version of the coffee shop on a rocky celestial body.
Step Dog
The Effens Music Video
Toronto band The Effens contacted me about helping make animations for a video they were making. They wanted me to portray their band performing inside their pregnant friend’s womb using some low poly characters inspired by a post I made on Instagram. I delivered a plethora of animated shots and a different editor combined them with the camera footage.
EASY LENS FLARES
Plug-in For Blender Compositor
In my years of working with Blender I’ve noticed that there’s no easy solution to add lens flares into your renders, so I decided to make one! Easy Lens Flares uses a simple compositing technique and takes it to the extreme to create every visual element of a lens flare. Inspired by real cinema lenses for an authentic look, it’s already been downloaded by over 3,300 users.
Teaching
Aside from my freelance work I’ve also run Blender workshops at Ed Video in Guelph.
On top of that I have a modestly successful very part-time YouTube channel where I post 3D ideas I come up with. You can check it out here.
I have a few smaller projects on my Instagram too.
