SEATBELTS
Zombieland (directed by Ruben Fleischer), including a "seat belt" lesson and the opening 90-second shot in semi-deserted Washington, D.C., which is all CG.
Wire Frame
Plate
Final Comp
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Magic of Zombieland
Rule #4
SEATBELTS
Zombieland (directed by Ruben Fleischer), including a "seat belt" lesson and the opening 90-second shot in semi-deserted Washington, D.C., which is all CG.
SEATBELTS
Zombieland (directed by Ruben Fleischer), including a "seat belt" lesson and the opening 90-second shot in semi-deserted Washington, D.C., which is all CG.
Magic of A-Team
Director Joe Carnahan's re-imagining of the popular 1980s TV series The A-Team sees the renegade soldiers taking on a more modern mission. Overall visual effects supervisor James E. Price looked to both practical and digital means to achieve the characteristically crazy and high action stunts made famous by the series. We drill down on some of the major FX sequences from the film.
Hearing of a plan to steal U.S. currency printing plates before the war is wound up, the A-Team go on a mission to retrieve the plates and a container truck convoy carrying billions of dollars. B.A., Face and Hannibal successfully ambush the truck as it passes along Baghdad streets, then through a tunnel and into the Tigris river, where they are met by Murdoch piloting a V-22 Osprey which subsequently carries the container back to a base. The sequence was shot on dressed Vancouver streets, docks and on bluescreen, with practical effects, including the launching of the truck into the river, handled by Mike Vezina.
Digital Domain contributed about 100 visual effects shots featuring a digital tunnel, Baghdad backgrounds, composites and gunfire. "I thought they did a really nice job of set-dressing the street," noted DD visual effects supervisor Kelly Port, "but we wanted to make sure that there were additional Middle Eastern elements like mosques in there off in the distance that helped make the skyline more realistic. We used Nuke for compositing and took advantage of Nuke's 3D capabilities. We could re-project some photographic backgrounds onto some geometry and then re-photograph it with the foreground camera so that they tied together much better - the perspective is lined up perfectly and tracks perfectly. We use that a lot to line up moving cameras to each other that haven't been shot motion control. For backgrounds, if they're far enough away we just put them on cards, but if they're midground elements we use rough geometry that allows for parallax and perspective shifts."
Digital Domain also completed shots of the truck crashing into the water and the arrival of the Osprey. "We had full water simulations for when the container hits the water," said Port. "The entire environment was re-created in Nuke - the river, the distant shore, the skyline, the city lights, the bank of the river. We kept it a little bit urban, with a concrete embankment." Artists built a CG Osprey in Maya and rendered the tilt rotor aircraft in RenderMan. "One of the things that was a challenge was that the actual tilt rotors move quite slowly. It takes 15 or 20 seconds to go from airplane model to helicopter mode. In the limited time of our action sequence, we had to make that all happen a little sooner."
Another of Digital Domain's challenges involved matching different film formats. "The film was anamorphic and the majority of the movie was shot anamorphically," recalled Port. "This particular sequence was shot spherical so that we would have room to move the image later, at least north and south, to help align the foreground or background better, or re-project onto geometry to help out perspective. The foreground bluescreen was shot on spherical film. The backgrounds for the bluescreen were shot Vista and some of the aerials were shot digitally with F-35 cameras. And then we had other anamorphic shots like when the Osprey later takes the container and drops it at the base. One of the general directives was to really mess it up, so we had a lot of flares and shaky cameras and lens hits, getting some spray onto the lens when appropriate. They wanted to keep it gritty like that - any kind of stuff like that takes it away from the 'studio' look."
Landing with the container, the A-Team find themselves caught in a set-up as the container full of money explodes - a practical effect handled by Mike Vezina's crew. "We took a real container," explained Vezina, "took the metal sides off of it, created a vacuform mould made of lightweight plastic and then we cut all the plastic pieces. There was a cannon that shot all the debris out and then the money comes from two big debris cannons. The actual end result was them being showered in burning money for like 10 minutes!"
Hearing of a plan to steal U.S. currency printing plates before the war is wound up, the A-Team go on a mission to retrieve the plates and a container truck convoy carrying billions of dollars. B.A., Face and Hannibal successfully ambush the truck as it passes along Baghdad streets, then through a tunnel and into the Tigris river, where they are met by Murdoch piloting a V-22 Osprey which subsequently carries the container back to a base. The sequence was shot on dressed Vancouver streets, docks and on bluescreen, with practical effects, including the launching of the truck into the river, handled by Mike Vezina.
Digital Domain contributed about 100 visual effects shots featuring a digital tunnel, Baghdad backgrounds, composites and gunfire. "I thought they did a really nice job of set-dressing the street," noted DD visual effects supervisor Kelly Port, "but we wanted to make sure that there were additional Middle Eastern elements like mosques in there off in the distance that helped make the skyline more realistic. We used Nuke for compositing and took advantage of Nuke's 3D capabilities. We could re-project some photographic backgrounds onto some geometry and then re-photograph it with the foreground camera so that they tied together much better - the perspective is lined up perfectly and tracks perfectly. We use that a lot to line up moving cameras to each other that haven't been shot motion control. For backgrounds, if they're far enough away we just put them on cards, but if they're midground elements we use rough geometry that allows for parallax and perspective shifts."
Digital Domain also completed shots of the truck crashing into the water and the arrival of the Osprey. "We had full water simulations for when the container hits the water," said Port. "The entire environment was re-created in Nuke - the river, the distant shore, the skyline, the city lights, the bank of the river. We kept it a little bit urban, with a concrete embankment." Artists built a CG Osprey in Maya and rendered the tilt rotor aircraft in RenderMan. "One of the things that was a challenge was that the actual tilt rotors move quite slowly. It takes 15 or 20 seconds to go from airplane model to helicopter mode. In the limited time of our action sequence, we had to make that all happen a little sooner."
Another of Digital Domain's challenges involved matching different film formats. "The film was anamorphic and the majority of the movie was shot anamorphically," recalled Port. "This particular sequence was shot spherical so that we would have room to move the image later, at least north and south, to help align the foreground or background better, or re-project onto geometry to help out perspective. The foreground bluescreen was shot on spherical film. The backgrounds for the bluescreen were shot Vista and some of the aerials were shot digitally with F-35 cameras. And then we had other anamorphic shots like when the Osprey later takes the container and drops it at the base. One of the general directives was to really mess it up, so we had a lot of flares and shaky cameras and lens hits, getting some spray onto the lens when appropriate. They wanted to keep it gritty like that - any kind of stuff like that takes it away from the 'studio' look."
Landing with the container, the A-Team find themselves caught in a set-up as the container full of money explodes - a practical effect handled by Mike Vezina's crew. "We took a real container," explained Vezina, "took the metal sides off of it, created a vacuform mould made of lightweight plastic and then we cut all the plastic pieces. There was a cannon that shot all the debris out and then the money comes from two big debris cannons. The actual end result was them being showered in burning money for like 10 minutes!"
Magic of Breaking Bad
For Breaking Bad, the TV series currently airing on AMC, Entity FX was tasked with some crucial VFX shots to help tell the story of high school teacher Walter White as he slowly descends into a suburban drug culture. We talk to VFX supe Mat Beck about the creation of a digital fly which torments Walter in one of the episodes.
The original Plate of the glasses shot with tracking dots --- Depth render pass on CG fly
Ambient occlusion render pass on CG fly --- Diffusion render pass on CG fly
CG fly wireframe --- Final shot
The original Plate of the glasses shot with tracking dots --- Depth render pass on CG fly
Ambient occlusion render pass on CG fly --- Diffusion render pass on CG fly
CG fly wireframe --- Final shot
Monday, July 12, 2010
Magic of Write the Future
In 'Write the Future', a World Cup themed 3-minute long Nike spot, director Alejandro González Iñárritu called a team to produce 236 VFX shots featuring a CG stadium, Massive crowds and other effects, as a bunch of famous football and sporting stars do their thing.
Here's the director Alejandro González Iñárritu commentary :
Here's the director Alejandro González Iñárritu commentary :
Magic of a Secret Training Camp
In 'Secret Training Camp', a commercial for Australian Telco Optus released for the 2010 World Cup.
Story starts with a young boy who witnesses the game hidden by a number of parked cars. Soon he realizes that the Australian players are up against a formidable but unlikely team of wild African animals - a cheetah, elephant, rhino and a crocodile as the goalkeeper.
Director Thierry Poiraud turned to Paris studio BUF to combine real players with real (and sometimes CG) animals for the spot.
At first they wanted the whole thing to be in CG. To them it initially seemed so obvious that the animals had to be done in CG because there was no way that we could get an alligator to dive for the ball. But in the end, most of the animals and of course all the players are live action.
Production shot a cheetah, ostriches and elephants in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa while players were filmed in a studio against black to match the same lighting in Sydney, Australia. BUF then combined the plates and created CG rhinos and an alligator during two months of post-production in Paris.
Another major challenge of the spot was the extreme back lighting emanating from the vehicle headlights combined with a subjective camera viewpoint and hand-held nature of the shoot. Because it was a secret area, the whole thing was lit by car headlights.
And also It's got a very surreal atmosphere to it.
Story starts with a young boy who witnesses the game hidden by a number of parked cars. Soon he realizes that the Australian players are up against a formidable but unlikely team of wild African animals - a cheetah, elephant, rhino and a crocodile as the goalkeeper.
Director Thierry Poiraud turned to Paris studio BUF to combine real players with real (and sometimes CG) animals for the spot.
At first they wanted the whole thing to be in CG. To them it initially seemed so obvious that the animals had to be done in CG because there was no way that we could get an alligator to dive for the ball. But in the end, most of the animals and of course all the players are live action.
Production shot a cheetah, ostriches and elephants in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa while players were filmed in a studio against black to match the same lighting in Sydney, Australia. BUF then combined the plates and created CG rhinos and an alligator during two months of post-production in Paris.
Another major challenge of the spot was the extreme back lighting emanating from the vehicle headlights combined with a subjective camera viewpoint and hand-held nature of the shoot. Because it was a secret area, the whole thing was lit by car headlights.
And also It's got a very surreal atmosphere to it.
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