PAM THONGJEN

Persepolis (0:05 - 0:11)
This is a shot from my friend Jessica Kiaei's thesis film titled "Persepolis." She asked me to assist her with the lighting in this shot and provided the references for me. Given how prominent the volumetric lights were in the references, I started lighting this shot with a Skydome HDRI and setting up the volumetric lights before adding the warmer and cooler rim and fill lights where needed. This was one of the first shots I lit for someone else, but I found it very fun and would love to assist someone with lighting again!
 

Leblanc (0:12 - 0:15)
This project was for me to learn and try out Lumen lighting in Unreal Engine 5. As I am currently obsessed with "Persona 5," I decided to use one of the scenes from the game and light it as practice, using this sketch by Airi Pan as inspiration. The mood and vibe in the reference is a warm and comfy late afternoon. To mimic that, I first set up the Environment Light Mixer, changed the Directional Light angle (or the sun) to a late afternoon as the base, and added Area and Point lights to accent certain areas like the counter's edge. On top of the lighting and scene setup, the chairs, lamp shades, yellow phone, and ceiling fan were missing from the model rip of this scene, so I modeled and textured those back into the scene using Maya and Substance Painter as well. I had a lot of fun with this project and will definitely be using Unreal Engine again.
 

SNOBBISM (0:16 - 0:28)
A recreation of a scene from the Vocaloid song MV "SNOBBISM." I wanted to recreate this scene in particular because of the LED lights on the wall, which got me to try out Mesh lights for the first time. As the reference is minimal in detail, I got creative and played around with the textures and lighting, which was a lot of fun!
 

HARUNI (0:29 - 0:32)
Another recreation of a scene from a Vocaloid song MV, this time of "HARUNI." Most of the scenes I've done in the past have been more on the simple side, as my main goal for them was to get to lighting. With that, I challenged myself by recreating a more complex scene while learning modeling in Blender. The tree branches were daunting initially, but I'm proud of how they turned out!
 

Gas Station (0:33 - 0:35)
With most of my lighting practices having used 2D artworks of interiors as a reference, I was advised by my mentor, Amanda Sparso, to change things up by referencing a live-action exterior shot that I got from Kenshi Yonezu's MV "LADY." I created everything from scratch besides the gas pumps, the storefront's LED sign, the miscellaneous bottles, and the Vespa. My friends and I also did some detective work and found the location where this shot was taken so that I could get the texture of the signs as close to the real thing as possible.
 

Outsider Thesis Film (0:36 - 0:50)
The remainder of my reel pieces are all from my thesis film, "Outsider"! Please visit my thesis page for a more in-depth breakdown of them!