Sofian making his mark with video starring Reynolds

Hint of Hollywood: Ryan Reynolds appears in a short video produced by Sofian (right). — Mohamad Sofian/Instagram

PETALING JAYA: A short video produced by Malaysian visual effects content creator Mohamad Sofian Abdullah and starring actor Ryan Reynolds has received a mention by the Hollywood star on Twitter.

“I think this sets an unfair standard for 4-minute junket interviews,” wrote Reynolds on Monday, retweeting Sofian’s original video.

The 54-second video starring Reynolds is a special content Sofian made after a Zoom meeting with the star during the promotion of his Netflix movie The Adam Project.

“It was an exciting moment, but also nerve-wracking,” Sofian said of his chance to direct Reynolds, adding that it was challenging as he couldn’t review the footage immediately.

“Going in, I thought it doesn’t matter what happens at the meeting.

“It’s up to me to come up with a solution if there’s a problem,” said the Kelantan-born, who moved to Kuala Lumpur four years ago.

According to Sofian, who turns 26 in November, he submitted the storyline a month before the actual date of the Zoom meeting.

Once he received the 16-second video footage featuring Reynolds, Sofian filmed his part against a green screen.

After editing and adding 80% worth of computer-generated imagery (CGI), which took about a month to complete, the video shows Sofian interacting with Reynolds.

“I work full time as a video content producer. So, I could only work on this video during my free time with my team of four,” he said.

He has done similar videos with American actors John Cena and Will Smith.

What’s remarkable is that Sofian learned to create special effects on his own, having shown interest in this field at the age of 14.

“I didn’t go to school to learn the basics. I learned all from tutorials on YouTube, which sometimes go up to three hours. This requires patience and focus because if you miss a step, then you won’t get the results you want,” he said.

Sofian said having fresh ideas is important to be a content creator.

“I always want to be able to produce content that’s even better than the last one,” he added.

He said he would take conventional classes in the future but right now, he’s busy building his own brand besides working full-time and looking to start his own studio soon.

Next up for Sofian is a full-fledged movie.

“I want to create a movie that’s of international standard. It doesn’t have to cost millions of ringgit but at least when people watch it, they feel like the CGI is realistic,” said Sofian, who has over 800,000 followers on Instagram and 500,000 subscribers on YouTube.

“We have the idea already but for now, we are still lacking the time, budget and manpower.

“So, we’re taking it slow and hoping that someone would give us that opportunity to realise our dream, and collaborate with us,” he said.