How to create effects like Game of Thrones

Red Giant is once again taking on what is arguably one of the greatest TV series ever made with the latest edition of its popular YouTube tutorial series, Cheap Tricks, diving into the mind-blowing visual effects of Game of Thrones. In part one of the series, Action Movie Dad Dan “Hashi” Hashimoto demonstrates how to create magic fire effects like the many seen throughout HBO’s adaptation of “A Song of Ice and Fire,” particularly those created by the Red Priestess, Melisandre. Watch now and stay tuned for more Cheap Tricks Game of Thrones tutorials.

“One of the things I hope you learn from these examples was how quick and intuitive Supercomp can feel when applying to a shot using raw materials like this and outputting a final shot like that,” Hashi says in the YouTube video, as he walks viewers through the Red Giant tools used to create magical fire effects. “Honestly one of the best parts of integrating Supercomp into your workflow is that you can shop through final looks really quickly. You can browse through different presets and get some really wonderful results using super simple ingredients as it were, to go into your shot. You don't have to add a series of six adjustment layers to see what a fire and it's a compound blur and its distortion map would look like; they’re all applied right here, all together in one workspace.”

While Game of Thrones has come to its fiery conclusion, the show’s VFX still stand as some of the best stuff ever created for the small screen. Subscribe to the Red Giant YouTube channel now to see it all come together, as Hashi demonstrates how to recreate many of the effects seen on the show using the Red Giant VFX Suite and a ton of great tools and techniques. 

In this tutorial about how to create effects like Game of Thrones, Hashi uses the following tools from Red Giant suites including VFX Suite, Trapcode Suite and Magic Bullet Suite:

• VFX Supercomp: Supercomp is a compositing environment that makes it easy to create complex, seamless composites. In Supercomp, light and atmospheric effects interact with all layers and elements of a scene in a far more natural way, and with far less pre-composing in After Effects than ever before. 
• VFX Knoll Light Factory: Create camera-inspired, photo-realistic lens flares with Knoll Light Factory, designed by John Knoll, Chief Creative Officer at Industrial Light and Magic.
• VFX Reflection: Reflection is a plugin for After Effects that makes it easy to add a reflection to your layers, with controls for softness, distance fade, length and more.
• Trapcode Particular: Create organic 3D particle effects, complex motion graphics elements and more in After Effects. Now with Fluid Dynamics.
• Magic Bullet Mojo II: Mojo gives footage a cinematic color grade in seconds. Accentuate and protect skin tones, cool off your backgrounds and more.
• Magic Bullet Renoiser: Add cinematic texture and film grain with Magic Bullet Renoiser. Restore texture and noise to overly processed digital video, and protect the footage from color banding and blocky compression artifacts.