By TREVOR HOGGImages courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.Rather than a world constructed around photorealistic pixels, a video game created by Markus Persson has taken the boxier 3D voxel route, which has become its signature aesthetic, and sparked an international phenomenon that finally gets adapted into a feature with the release of A Minecraft Movie. Brought onboard to help filmmaker Jared Hess in creating the environments that the cast of Jason Momoa, Jack Black, Sebastian Hansen, Emma Myers and Danielle Brooks find themselves inhabiting was Disguise under the direction of Production VFX Supervisor Dan Lemmon.[A]s the Senior Unreal Artist within the Virtual Art Department (VAD) on Minecraft, I experienced the full creative workflow. What stood out most was how deeply the VAD was embedded across every stage of production. We werent working in isolation. From the production designer and director to the VFX supervisor and DP, the VAD became a hub for collaboration.Talia Finlayson, Creative Technologist, DisguiseInterior and exterior environments had to be created, such as the shop owned by Steve (Jack Black).Prior to working on A Minecraft Movie, I held more technical roles, like serving as the Virtual Production LED Volume Operator on a project for Apple TV+ and Paramount Pictures, notes Talia Finlayson, Creative Technologist for Disguise. But as the Senior Unreal Artist within the Virtual Art Department (VAD) on Minecraft, I experienced the full creative workflow. What stood out most was how deeply the VAD was embedded across every stage of production. We werent working in isolation. From the production designer and director to the VFX supervisor and DP, the VAD became a hub for collaboration. The project provided new opportunities. Ive always loved the physicality of working with an LED volume, both for the immersion it provides and the way that seeing the environment helps shape an actors performance, notes Laura Bell, Creative Technologist for Disguise. But for A Minecraft Movie, we used Simulcam instead, and it was an incredible experience to live-composite an entire Minecraft world in real-time, especially with nothing on set but blue curtains.Set designs originally created by the art department in Rhinoceros 3D were transformed into fully navigable 3D environments within Unreal Engine. These scenes were far more than visualizations, Finlayson remarks. They were interactive tools used throughout the production pipeline. We would ingest 3D models and concept art, clean and optimize geometry using tools like Blender, Cinema 4D or Maya, then build out the world in Unreal Engine. This included applying materials, lighting and extending environments. These Unreal scenes we created were vital tools across the production and were used for a variety of purposes such as enabling the director to explore shot compositions, block scenes and experiment with camera movement in a virtual space, as well as passing along Unreal Engine scenes to the visual effects vendors so they could align their digital environments and set extensions with the approved production layouts.A virtual exploration of Steves shop in Midport Village.Certain elements have to be kept in mind when constructing virtual environments. When building virtual environments, you need to consider what can actually be built, how actors and cameras will move through the space, and whats safe and practical on set, Bell observes. Outside the areas where strict accuracy is required, you want the environments to blend naturally with the original designs from the art department and support the story, creating a space that feels right for the scene, guides the audiences eye and sets the right tone. Things like composition, lighting and small environmental details can be really fun to work on, but also serve as beautiful additions to help enrich a story.Ive always loved the physicality of working with an LED volume, both for the immersion it provides and the way that seeing the environment helps shape an actors performance. But for A Minecraft Movie, we used Simulcam instead, and it was an incredible experience to live-composite an entire Minecraft world in real-time, especially with nothing on set but blue curtains.Laura Bell, Creative Technologist, DisguiseAmong the buildings that had to be created for Midport Village was Steves (Jack Black) Lava Chicken Shack.Concept art was provided that served as visual touchstones. We received concept art provided by the amazing team of concept artists, Finlayson states. Not only did they send us 2D artwork, but they often shared the 3D models they used to create those visuals. These models were incredibly helpful as starting points when building out the virtual environments in Unreal Engine; they gave us a clear sense of composition and design intent. Storyboards were also a key part of the process and were constantly being updated as the project evolved. Having access to the latest versions allowed us to tailor the virtual environments to match camera angles, story beats and staging. Sometimes we would also help the storyboard artists by sending through images of the Unreal Engine worlds to help them geographically position themselves in the worlds and aid in their storyboarding. At times, the video game assets came in handy. Exteriors often involved large-scale landscapes and stylized architectural elements, which had to feel true to the Minecraft world, Finlayson explains. In some cases, we brought in geometry from the game itself to help quickly block out areas. For example, we did this for the Elytra Flight Chase sequence, which takes place through a large canyon.Flexibility was critical. A key technical challenge we faced was ensuring that the Unreal levels were built in a way that allowed for fast and flexible iteration, Finlayson remarks. Since our environments were constantly being reviewed by the director, production designer, DP and VFX supervisor, we needed to be able to respond quickly to feedback, sometimes live during a review session. To support this, we had to keep our scenes modular and well-organized; that meant breaking environments down into manageable components and maintaining clean naming conventions. By setting up the levels this way, we could make layout changes, swap assets or adjust lighting on the fly without breaking the scene or slowing down the process. Production schedules influence the workflows, pipelines and techniques. No two projects will ever feel exactly the same, Bell notes. For example, Pat Younis [VAD Art Director] adapted his typical VR setup to allow scene reviews using a PS5 controller, which made it much more comfortable and accessible for the director. On a more technical side, because everything was cubes and voxels, my Blender workflow ended up being way heavier on the re-mesh modifier than usual, definitely not something Ill run into again anytime soon!A virtual study and final still of the cast members standing outside of the Lava Chicken Shack.We received concept art provided by the amazing team of concept artists. Not only did they send us 2D artwork, but they often shared the 3D models they used to create those visuals. These models were incredibly helpful as starting points when building out the virtual environments in Unreal Engine; they gave us a clear sense of composition and design intent. Storyboards were also a key part of the process and were constantly being updated as the project evolved. Having access to the latest versions allowed us to tailor the virtual environments to match camera angles, story beats and staging.Talia Finlayson, Creative Technologist, DisguiseThe design and composition of virtual environments tended to remain consistent throughout principal photography. The only major design change I can recall was the removal of a second story from a building in Midport Village to allow the camera crane to get a clear shot of the chicken perched above Steves lava chicken shack, Finlayson remarks. I would agree that Midport Village likely went through the most iterations, Bell responds. The archway, in particular, became a visual anchor across different levels. We often placed it off in the distance to help orient both ourselves and the audience and show how far the characters had traveled. I remember rebuilding the stairs leading up to the rampart five or six times, using different configurations based on the physically constructed stairs. This was because there were storyboarded sequences of the films characters, Henry, Steve and Garrett, being chased by piglins, and the action needed to match what could be achieved practically on set.Virtually conceptualizing the layout of Midport Village.Complex virtual environments were constructed for the final battle and the various forest scenes throughout the movie. What made these particularly challenging was the way physical set pieces were repurposed and repositioned to serve multiple scenes and locations within the story, Finlayson reveals. The same built elements had to appear in different parts of the world, so we had to carefully adjust the virtual environments to accommodate those different positions. Bell is in agreement with her colleague. The forest scenes were some of the more complex environments to manage. It could get tricky, particularly when the filming schedule shifted. There was one day on set where the order of shots changed unexpectedly, and because the physical sets looked so similar, I initially loaded a different perspective than planned. Fortunately, thanks to our workflow, Lindsay George [VP Tech] and I were able to quickly open the recorded sequence in Unreal Engine and swap out the correct virtual environment for the live composite without any disruption to the shoot.An example of the virtual and final version of the Woodland Mansion.Midport Village likely went through the most iterations. The archway, in particular, became a visual anchor across different levels. We often placed it off in the distance to help orient both ourselves and the audience and show how far the characters had traveled.Laura Bell, Creative Technologist, DisguiseExtensive detail was given to the center of the sets where the main action unfolds. For these areas, we received prop layouts from the prop department to ensure accurate placement and alignment with the physical builds, Finlayson explains. These central environments were used heavily for storyboarding, blocking and department reviews, so precision was essential. As we moved further out from the practical set, the environments became more about blocking and spatial context rather than fine detail. We worked closely with Production Designer Grant Major to get approval on these extended environments, making sure they aligned with the overall visual direction. We also used creatures and crowd stand-ins provided by the visual effects team. These gave a great sense of scale and placement during early planning stages and allowed other departments to better understand how these elements would be integrated into the scenes.Cast members Sebastian Hansen, Danielle Brooks and Emma Myers stand in front of the Earth Portal Plateau environment.Doing a virtual scale study of the Mountainside.Practical requirements like camera moves, stunt choreography and crane setups had an impact on the creation of virtual environments. Sometimes we would adjust layouts slightly to open up areas for tracking shots or rework spaces to accommodate key action beats, all while keeping the environment feeling cohesive and true to the Minecraft world, Bell states. Simulcam bridged the physical and virtual worlds on set, overlaying Unreal Engine environments onto live-action scenes in real-time, giving the director, DP and other department heads a fully-realized preview of shots and enabling precise, informed decisions during production. It also recorded critical production data like camera movement paths, which was handed over to the post-production team to give them the exact tracks they needed, streamlining the visual effects pipeline.Piglots cause mayhem during the Wingsuit Chase.Virtual versions of the exterior and interior of the Safe House located in the Enchanted Woods.One of the biggest challenges for me was managing constant iteration while keeping our environments clean, organized and easy to update, Finlayson notes. Because the virtual sets were reviewed regularly by the director and other heads of departments, feedback was often implemented live in the room. This meant the environments had to be flexible. But overall, this was an amazing project to work on, and I am so grateful for the incredible VAD team I was a part of Heide Nichols [VAD Supervisor], Pat Younis, Jake Tuck [Unreal Artist] and Laura. Everyone on this team worked so collaboratively, seamlessly and in such a supportive way that I never felt like I was out of my depth. There was another challenge that is more to do with familiarity. Having a VAD on a film is still a relatively new process in production, Bell states. There were moments where other departments were still learning what we did and how to best work with us. That said, the response was overwhelmingly positive. I remember being on set at the Simulcam station and seeing how excited people were to look at the virtual environments as they walked by, often stopping for a chat and a virtual tour. Instead of seeing just a huge blue curtain, they were stoked to see something Minecraft and could get a better sense of what they were actually shooting.

By TREVOR HOGGImages courtesy of HBO.Dune: Prophecy pulls back the veil on the origins of the mysterious organization known as Bene Gessent founded by the two Harkonnen sisters with the goal of breeding a male messianic figure known as the Kwisatz Haderach, who has the ability to access genetic memory and bridge the gap between different eras. The HBO sci-fi series is set 10,000 years before the Dune feature films directed by Denis Villeneuve and consists of six episodes created by Diane Ademu-John and Alison Schapker that required approximately 2,500 visual effects shots by Important Looking Pirates, Accenture Song VFX, Image Engine, Raynault VFX, Rodeo FX, The Resistance, Futureworks and Territory Studio to achieve the desire scope and grandeur. Overseeing the digital augmentation was Michael Enriquez and Terron Pratt, both of whom previously worked on epic projects such as Foundation and Lost in Space, respectively.There was a refinement to what we shot [for the Bene Gesserit ritual], and we ended up lifting Sister Lila and replacing the entire world around her and choreographing the ancestors in a more gruesome way. At moments, the ancestors are almost morphing or splitting, with their hands coming out their arms, and double heads. There is this gruesome, monstrous component to the ancestors appearing before Sister Lila. We couldnt do that monstrous form with what was shot. If you look carefully, every time the light would flash, the number and placement of the ancestors changes. The only way we could handle that was going full CG.Michael Enriquez, VFX SupervisorImperium soldier Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel) displays a terrifying ability to burn people alive through pyrokinesis.Contributing to the gruesomeness of the characters being burned alive are the flying embers and sparks being emitted by their skin.In Foundation, we did not necessarily have a box to play in, states VFX Supervisor Michael Enriquez. It was like, Were inventing this new world that no one has seen before. It was exciting but difficult to figure out a theme for that show. With Dune, theres already such a rich visual language established by the features. It was interesting to live within that world but still tell a story that is 10,000 years removed from it. In a way, it tied our hands but also forced us to be more creative. The time gap is not as large as one would think. Because of this technical stagnation where computers and tech, for the most part, have been outlawed, everyone is returning to alternative ways of doing things, Enriquez notes. Technology hasnt advanced. While culture and designs may have evolved the way they function in general, its exactly the same. We tried to give a slightly more antique vibe to certain components, but, in the end, they still use Holtzman Shields, spaceships and folding space tech to get around.One of the biggest challenges for spaceports was to make sure there was enough activity taking place in the background to make the environments look believable and alive.I loved being able to work with Shai-Hulud [the sandworms] and put it in an environment that the audience hasnt seen before. The first time we see Shai-Hulud is a combination Arrakis and the Sisterhood environment because it is a dream sequence. Image Engine did a fantastic job to bring Shai-Hulud to life and also creating dynamic effects simulations with Shai-Hulud breaching the sand and coming up through [it] and demolishing that sandcastle-like Sisterhood complex.Terron Pratt, VFX ProducerThe capability of a Face Dancer to shapeshift is demonstrated in-camera. We tried to give it this intermediate stage so its not just Person A is going to Person B, Enriquez remarks. The character goes from the griffin character to this hairless, translucent figure and then to Sister Theodosia [Jade Anouka]. The shot we had to show it in was quite dark, so not a lot was to be seen, but there was a lot of thought process going into how to not make it like Michael Jacksons Black or White video where we were going from one person to another. We wanted to avoid that morph feeling and have it feel like an actual progression between two different stages. Shapeshifting is painful. We had extensive discussions with the director [Richard Lewis] and showrunner [Alison Schapker] in regards to this effect, explains VFX Producer Terron Pratt. We talked about what was needed for the actors to do on set to convey this pain and transformation. Then, in post, we took over areas to emphasize the pain and movement of the bones and the shifting of the structure underneath. It was technically challenging to get to that intermediate stage and for the audience to still understand what was happening without portraying this as a simple morph.Even with the extensive practical sets, digital augmentation was required to get the necessary scope and scale.Imperium soldier Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel) displays a terrifying ability to burn people alive through pyrokinesis. Desmond Hart burns about six people through the course of the season, Pratt states. There were a few instances where we utilized some prosthetics makeup later on in the series. The first two were all us. Its a slow build as we start to burn the child. As a parent, its a difficult thing to figure out how we do this and present that idea without disturbing the audience in our first episode. We took that over completely in CG. We did a lot of matchmove and started to do that burning, emitting the steam and smoke from that character. That was carried much further as we get into Reverend Mother Kasha Jinjo [Jihae]; she is a bit more exposed. We can see the lava coming through the breaking skin, and particles of ash as well as charring and smoke coming up. Its a visceral moment. We talk extensively about what point is this not believable? Someone is burning from the inside, which is inherently not believable, except for the fact that we set our limit so at the point where she exhales and smoke comes out of her mouth, we said, Shes fully burned from the inside and her lungs are gone. Theoretically, your body can keep on burning; however, we dont show that on the screen anymore.Advance technology takes the form of thinking machines. It was a process because theres no real precedent for the technology in Dune, and so much has been done on sci-fi robotics and tech, Enriquez observes. We had to try to figure out what that feels like. A jumping-off point were the descriptions of the Synx [empire ruled by thinking machines and cyborgs] during the Machine War [Butlerian Jihad]. They were described like crabs. The first thinking machines we see are flashbacks to the Machine War, and got that started while we began building our lizard. We wanted it to feel like a toy because we were trying to say that the Richese family, which has the lizard, is more permissive as far as thinking machine tech. There are parts of the galaxy that dont care too much about the banishment because they feel thinking machines help their lives. There was so much variety in the type of tech that was being shown, we wanted to find a basic throughline that the audience would understand as a thinking machine. We decided that nothing in this world has blue lights except for thinking machines.Dune: Prophecy takes place 10,000 years before Dune and Dune: Part Two.Rodeo FX did quite a big build [for the Imperial Palace], and it was challenging for them because the Imperial Palace has a fantastical look with the water gardens as well as the shape and scale. The spaceport was a challenge in a different way in terms of the number of people and amount of activity that always had to be going on. Accenture Song VFX did a great job on everything from our fly-ins to aerial and ground shots; it was hard to tell where the practical set ended and the CG extension began.Michael Enriquez, VFX SupervisorSandworms make their presence felt in the drama during the breaching of the Shai-Hulud (Fremens reverent term for the sandworms). Shai-Hulud is iconic for the Dune franchise, and being able to launch into that with our first episode meant we could start off strong, hit the audience with something theyre expecting to see, and then we can dig into the other stuff, Pratt notes. I loved being able to work with Shai-Hulud and put it in an environment that the audience hasnt seen before. The first time we see Shai-Hulud is a combination Arrakis and the Sisterhood environment because it is a dream sequence. Image Engine did a fantastic job to bring Shai-Hulud to life and also create dynamic effects simulations with Shai-Hulud breaching the sand, coming up through [it] and demolishing that sandcastle-like Sisterhood complex.Some of the most disturbing imagery has an almost haunting charcoal aesthetic.The Imperial Palace and spaceport on Kaitain were significant asset builds. They were both big environments for us, with the amount of detail that needed to be there, because our cameras were flying all over the place, especially on the Imperial Palace, Enriquez states. We didnt have much of a location for the Imperial Palace except near the entrances where there were a couple of vertical structures. Otherwise, it was a 100% CG. Rodeo FX did quite a big build, and it was challenging for them because the Imperial Palace has a fantastical look with the water gardens as well as the shape and scale. The spaceport was a challenge in a different way in terms of the number of people and amount of activity that always had to be going on. Accenture Song VFX did a great job on everything from our fly-ins to aerial and ground shots; it was hard to tell where the practical set ended and the CG extension began. At times, we needed to have people walking in clusters or there were too many single people. It was a lot of choreographing of action and general background.Prosthetic makeup could not be entirely relied upon and required some digital assistance.Getting planetary introductions are Lankiveil and Wallach IX. It was nice to get into the sandbox that was all our own, Pratt remarks. We started with a tremendous amount of concept design by Tom Meyer [Production Designer] and his team. There was a distinct look between the two planets, which had to feel desolate and almost uninhabitable. Interestingly, Lankiveil was shot a couple of hours away from our stages in Budapest, and it happened to be lightly snowing. It was genuinely cold, and there was snow on the ground, although we enhanced that with special effects snow falling. Small structures were built into a side of a mountain, and we expanded that and carried that look down to the fishing village, which was actually shot in a quarry that had a mound and some structures built out to provide a shoreline. We expanded that with matte paintings and extensive 3D work with effects water and distant ships out on the horizon. Wallach IX was also shot in a quarry outside of Budapest, which served as the environmental foundation. We had these big multi-tiered rock walls, and the spaceport area was built on one of the lower levels, Pratt states. From there, we decided on the orientation of the complex that was going to be on one of the upper levels and built our surrounding environment to match the quarry. Ultimately, we took over a good percentage of that quarry, but it was good to have established the look in-camera.Smoke was added to emphasize the fact that the character is burning from the inside out.Zimia City on Salusa Secundus is a prominent setting. We tried to figure out how much of Zimia City had to be built out because one of the most challenging things to do artificially is ground-level city work, Pratt observes. There is so much detail and so many things that have go in to making it feel believable. Thankfully, for this season, most of time when we are in Zimia City its flyovers, and we only had one scene that took place at ground level when Valya Harkonnen [Emily Watson] goes to visit her family. Tom gave us a ton of concepts for buildings and the general layout of the city. We ran with it and tried to figure out the exact locations of where things are so the connecting shots of cars driving to and from made sense in terms of geography. We fleshed out the city enough that it gave us everything that was needed for this season. We still didnt go crazy as far as building an entire city where you can go and land on the ground level. Zimia City ended up being much more efficient than I feared it would be.Much of the bloodwork was achieved in post-production.A diffused, misty lighting gives an ethereal quality to the shot.A significant asset build was the Imperial Palace.A flashback to the Machine War otherwise known as the Butlerian Jihad.In a dream sequence, the Shai-Hulud breaches the Sisterhood complex, which is made out of sand.Blue lights were a signature visual cue for the thought machines.Sandworms make their presence felt in Episode 101.Wallach IX is a desolate planet shot in a quarry outside Budapest, with the spaceport located at a lower tier.Approximately 2,500 visual effects shots were created for Dune: Prophecy.Given the ban on technology, the visual language of Dune: Prophecy is not radically different to the feature films.Living up to its name is the Bene Gesserit ritual known as the Agony where Sister Lila [Chloe Lea] consumes the Water of Life, which unlocks her genetic memory and, in the process, she becomes a Reverend Mother. We formulated a plan, which was shot to the best of our abilities, and as the cut was being put together, we realized this wasnt what the show needed, Enriquez reveals. There was a refinement to what we shot, and we ended up lifting Sister Lila and replacing the entire world around her and choreographing the ancestors in a more gruesome way. At moments, the ancestors are almost morphing or splitting, with their hands coming out their arms, and double heads. There is this gruesome, monstrous component to the ancestors appearing before Sister Lila. We couldnt do that monstrous form with what was shot. If you look carefully, every time the light would flash, the number and placement of the ancestors changes. The only way we could handle that was going full CG. Im happy with how it turned out.

By TREVOR HOGGImages courtesy of ZQ Entertainment, The Avenue and PFX. Plates were captured by a six-camera array covering 180 and stitched together to achieve the appropriate background width or correct angle.Taking the concept of a single location on the road is Locked, where a carjacker is held captive inside a high-tech SUV that is remotely controlled by a mysterious sociopath. An English language remake of 4X4, the thriller is directed by David Yarovesky, stars Bill Skarsgrd and Anthony Hopkins, and was shot in Vancouver during November and December 2023. Post-production lasted four months with sole vendor PFX creating 750 visual effects shots with the expertise of 75 artists and guidance of VFX Supervisor Jindich ervenka. Every project is specific and unique, ervenka notes. Here, we had a significant challenge due to the sheer number of shots [750], which needed to be completed within four months, all produced in 4K resolution. Additionally, at that time, we didnt have background plates for every car-driving shot. We distributed the workload among our three branches in Prague, Bratislava and Warsaw to ensure timely completion. Director Yarkovesky had a clear vision. That allowed us to move forward quickly. Of course, the more creative and complex sequences involved collaborative exploration, but thats standard and part of the usual process.The greenscreen was set at two distances with one being closer and lower while the other was an entire wall a few meters away, approximately two meters apart.A shot taken from a witness camera on the greenscreen stage.The biggest challenge [of the three-and-a-half-minute take introducing the carjacker] was the length of the shot and the fact that nothing in the shot was static. Tracking such a shot required significant effort and improvisation. The entire background was a video projection onto simple geometry created from LiDAR scans of the parking lot. It greatly helped that we could use real-set footage, timed exactly as needed, and render it directly from Nuke.Jindich ervenka, Visual Effects SupervisorPrevis and storyboards were provided by the client for the more complex shots. We primarily created postvis for the intense sequence with a car crash, fire and other crazy action, ervenka states. We needed to solve this entire sequence in continuity. Continuity was major issue. Throughout the film, we had to maintain continuity in the water drops on all car windows, paying close attention to how they reacted to changes in lighting during the drive. Another area of research involved bokeh effects, which we experimented with extensively. Lastly, we conducted significant research into burning cars, finding many beautiful references that we aimed to replicate as closely as possible. The majority of the visual effects centered around keying, water drops on windows, and cleaning up the interior of the car. ervenka adds, A few shots included digital doubles. There were set extensions, especially towards the end of the film. Additionally, we worked on fire and rain effects, car replacements in crash sequences, bleeding effects, muzzle flashes, bullet hits, and a bullet-time shot featuring numerous CGI elements. PFX adhered to its traditional workflow and pipeline for shot production. We were the sole vendor, which allowed us complete control over the entire process.The studio-filmed interior of the SUV had no glass in the windows which meant that reflections, raindrops and everything visible on the windows had to be added digitally.A signature moment is the three-and-a-half-minute continuous take that introduces the young carjacker portrayed by Bill Skarsgrd. The biggest challenge was the length of the shot and the fact that nothing in the shot was static, ervenka remarks. Tracking such a shot required significant effort and improvisation. The entire background was a video projection onto simple geometry created from LiDAR scans of the parking lot. It greatly helped that we could use real-set footage, timed exactly as needed, and render it directly from Nuke. Window reflections were particularly challenging, and we ultimately used a combination of 3D renders and compositing cheats. When you have moving car parts, the window reflections give it away, so we had to tackle that carefully. Not surprisingly, this was the most complex shot to execute. The three-and-a-half-minute shot involved 12 artists, nine of whom were compositors. Working on extremely long shots is always challenging, so dividing the task into smaller segments was crucial to avoid fatigue. In total, we split it into 96 smaller tasks.[W]e conducted significant research into burning cars, finding many beautiful references that we aimed to replicate as closely as possible. A few shots included digital doubles. There were set extensions, especially towards the end of the film. Additionally, we worked on fire and rain effects, car replacements in crash sequences, bleeding effects, muzzle flashes, bullet hits, and a bullet-time shot featuring numerous CGI elements.Jindich ervenka, Visual Effects Supervisor Over a period of four months, PFX distributed 750 shots among facilities in Prague, Bratislava and Warsaw.Background plates were shot by Onset VFX Supervisor Robert Habros. His crew did excellent work capturing the background plates, ervenka notes. For most car rides, we had footage from six cameras covering 180, allowing us to stitch these together to achieve the appropriate background width or use the correct angle. Additionally, we had footage of an extended drive through the actual city location where the story takes place, so everything was edited by a visual effects editor. We simply synchronized this with the remaining camera recordings and integrated them into the shots. The greenscreen was set at two distances. ervenka explains, There was a closer, lower one and an entire wall a few meters away, approximately two meters apart. Although I wasnt personally on set, this setup helped create parallax since we couldnt rely on the cars interior. For the three-and-a-half-minute shot, we had separate tracking for the background and interior, where all interior walls were tracked as moving objects. Aligning these into a single reliable parallax track was impossible. A shot taken from the three-and-a-half-minute continuous take that introduces the young carjacker portrayed by Bill Skarsgrd.[W]e use an internal application allowing real-time viewing of shots and versions in the context of the films edit or defined workflows, enabling simultaneous comments on any production stage or context. Imagine having daily reviews where everything created up to that point is assessed, with artists continually adding new versions. In these daily sessions, everything was always thoroughly reviewed, and nothing was left for the next day.Jindich ervenka, Visual Effects Supervisor Locked takes place in single location, which is a high-tech SUV.There is an art to painting out unwanted reflections and incorporating desirable ones. The trick was that the studio-filmed interior had no glass in the windows at all, ervenka states. Reflections, raindrops and everything visible on the windows had to be added digitally. Shots from real exteriors and cars provided excellent references. Fire simulations were time-consuming. We simulated them in high resolution, and due to continuity requirements, we simulated from the initial ignition to full combustion, with the longest shot nearly 600 frames long. This was divided into six separate simulations, totaling about 30TB of data. Digital doubles were minimal. Throughout the film, there were only two digital doubles used in violent scenes. We didnt have to create any crowds or face replacements. A CG replica was made of the SUV. We had a LiDAR scan of the actual car, which served as the basis for the detailed CG version, including the interior. Only a few shots ultimately required this, primarily during a scene where another SUV car was initially filmed. We replaced it, and in two cases, we replaced only parts of the car and wheels to maintain real contact with the ground. There was a bit of masking involved, but otherwise, it went smoothly. The interior was mainly used for window reflections in wide shots from inside the car.There was not much need for digital doubles or crowds.We primarily created postvis for the intense sequence with a car crash, fire and other crazy action. We needed to solve this entire sequence in continuity. Throughout the film, we had to maintain continuity in the water drops on all car windows, paying close attention to how they reacted to changes in lighting during the drive.Jindich ervenka, Visual Effects SupervisorThe greatest creative and technical challenge was reviewing shots in continuity within a short production timeline and coordinating across our various offices, ervenka observes. Each shot depended on others, requiring numerous iterations to synchronize everything. For projects like this, we use an internal application allowing real-time viewing of shots and versions in the context of the films edit or defined workflows, enabling simultaneous comments on any production stage or context. Imagine having daily reviews where everything created up to that point is assessed, with artists continually adding new versions. In these daily sessions, everything was always thoroughly reviewed, and nothing was left for the next day. We avoided waiting for exports or caching. Everything needed to run smoothly and in real-time. Complicating matters was that ervenka joined the project only after editing had concluded. I had to quickly coordinate with teams distributed across Central Europe, grasp the intricacies of individual scenes and resolve continuity, which required extensive and precise communication. Thanks to our custom collaboration tools, we managed to streamline this demanding coordination successfully, and we delivered on time. But it definitely wasnt easy! Bill Skarsgrd pretends to try to break a glass window that does not exist.Watch PFXs brief VFX breakdown of the opening scene of Locked. The scene sets the tone for the film with a gripping three-and-a-half-minute single shot brought to life on a greenscreen stage where six crew members moved car parts in perfect sync. Click here: https://www.facebook.com/PFXcompany/videos/locked-vfx-breakdown/4887459704811837/

By TREVOR HOGGImages courtesy of Ingenuity Studios and HuluWhen a prodigiously-gifted, scientifically-minded 11-year-old boy flees his native Barbados, a global adventure ensues that sees him rise above societal prejudices and chart his future in the Hulu miniseries Washington Black. Created by Selwyn Seyfu Hinds (Executive Producer and Showrunner), the eight episodes adapt the novel by Esi Edugyan, which starts off on a Barbados sugar plantation in the 1830s and subsequently sojourns to Virginia, the Canadian Arctic, Nova Scotia, London and Morocco. Looking after digital recreation of the period along with some fantastical moments were VFX Supervisor Eddie Williams and VFX Producer Tyler Foell, who sought the expertise of Ingenuity Studios to produce 378 shots with 126 of them containing CG elements. Among the environmental work was a harbor and a flyover of London as well as a magical butterfly, and opening and closing sequences featuring the pages of a CG book transitioning to live action.We looked at a lot of those photos [of merchant vessels from that period] and tried to figure out, What can we do to get variety in boats so there are schooners, merchant vessels and others that would have been popular in this era? Then, we had our CG team make multiple parts of the ships, and from there we were able to essentially make our own kit-bashing. It was like, Well use this hull and these masts from that other ship. We started mixing and combining. If I remember correctly, we had roughly 2 fully-built CG model ships.Tyler Shanklin, VFX Producer, Ingenuity StudiosThe CG team at Ingenuity Studios made multiple parts of the ships in order to achieve diversity through kit-bashing.Combining the grim reality of the adult world with the fanciful wonders of a childs imagination is the visual aesthetic of Washington Black. What we got from the production was that the footage had a lot of this style mapped out, which had a Steampunk element to it, states Tyler Shanklin, VFX Producer at Ingenuity Studios. They wanted a world that felt lived in; thats the important thing. They didnt want everything clean, but to be more realistic. Roughly composited shots were favored over storyboards and previs. The good news is, for a lot of the more intricate or big things that needed to change, essentially shots that dont look anywhere near how they were captured, we were given rough comps showing us the direction they wanted to take it. It was on our plate to then make it look cohesive. We also had weekly meetings where we everybody would hop on Zoom and go almost shot by shot to say, Heres where were at. Heres where were taking it. That allowed us to get feedback along the way from Eddie and Tyler, just to make sure that we dont spend days rendering something that went in a completely wrong direction than what they were looking for.Practical lights assisted in enabling the bioluminescence situated beneath the water to interact with the boat.Reference images were provided of the practical set pieces including vehicles. We needed to extend some of those vehicles because only part of them were constructed, Shanklin remarks. Luckily, our Visual Effects Supervisor, Krisztian Csanki, happens to enjoy Steampunk, so he completely understood what this world needed to look like when it came to contraptions and vehicles. The other side was the client was adamant that there were going to be some differences. This is not based in true history. History has taken a turn, so there would be certain anachronistic qualities. We were looking up, What materials were clothing made from back then? What was the style of clothing? The difference between the 1810s versus the 1830s; how did fashion change in that time? What did steamboats look like? This was at the beginning of the steamboat movement in realistic history. From there, we started piecing things together, working closely with Eddie Williams and Tyler Foell, who would show things to the Showrunner and the other producers, and the networking would provide feedback for us. From there, we would continue to evolve until we got what you see and what everybody enjoyed.Whimsy creeps into the creature effects. What was interesting with the butterfly is we started out looking at extremely slow-motion footage of how they flap their wings so we could recreate that and play it back at normal speed, Shanklin explains. We had to find this perfect balance between making it look whimsical and magical because this is the moment in the show where Titch [Tom Ellis] is showing Young Washington Black [Eddie Karanja] that he does have a scientific and artistic mind. It was important for that to have elements of whimsy, fun and magic because it is a pivotal part of the story where this boy is shown that hes more than what the rest of the world sees him. The CG butterfly was meant to enhance, not distract from the emotional and narrative significance of the moment. We want everybody to say, Wow, that looks great. But at the same time, we take a stand of if youre noticing the visual effects because theyre so amazing then you need to dial it back. We shouldnt be distracting from the show or story. What we ended up doing was to capture this magical place in the in-between of ultra realism and whimsy. When you watch footage of butterflies flapping their wings in real time, it looks very quick. You dont notice that theres this waving motion in their wings. We did the animation correctly, played it back normally, and then slowed it down just a hair so that your eye is able to pick up that waving motion of the wings when it goes to fly off; that is where we happen to land in that slightly magical place.Some interior environments were added later in post-production.Desaturation figures into the color palette for the gritty realistic scenes while vibrant and brighter tones are present in the fanciful scenes. That is actually a conversation Krisztian Csanki and I had with the post team, specifically about the Halifax harbor era, Shanklin notes. Because of modern day, the buildings are absolutely beautiful and extremely saturated. But we realized that the paints back then wouldnt have been able to get the same brightness because they were using mostly botanical dyes to create these colors. In addition, they werent out there with the hose every Saturday cleaning the dirt off of the building. We asked ourselves, What would this look like if it were truly created with botanical colors, and what would they look like with dirt and dust caked on them? This is the era of stagecoaches, horses and dirt roads. A lot of experimentation went into where we could get those buildings. In any of the buildings that were updated, changed or created with CG, we would provide maps for the post team so the colorist could go in and dial some of those buildings to match the color grading they were doing over the top of our shots.There were times where the skies had to be replaced to get the desired color for the water.Water simulations and interactions were tricky. We worked with a lot of water and ships, Shanklin explains. Dialing that in was probably the part that took the longest because there was a lot of feedback about physics issues of having the boat interact with the water or having the water interact with the ships correctly, plus dialing it back. Early on, the feedback we received was that the crests of water breaking out from the front of the boats and leaving that V shape were too strong. We needed to slow down the speed of the boats and maybe change the direction the water naturally flows. It was a lot of playing around, seeing what happens, and getting multiple versions over to the show to see which ones they appreciated and liked the most. Plenty of photographs exist of merchant vessels from that period of time. We looked at a lot of those photos and tried to figure out, What can we do to get variety in boats so there are schooners, merchant vessels and others that would have been popular in this era? Then, we had our CG team make multiple parts of the ships, and from there we were able to essentially make our own kit-bashing. It was like, Well use this hull and these masts from that other ship. We started mixing and combining. If I remember correctly, we had roughly 12 fully-built CG model ships.Reference images were provided of the practical set pieces, including vehicles.A theatrical scene takes place underwater. There were some shots where you could see what looked like a ground; either that or a very detailed tank, Shanklin recalls. We actually had to remove that to make it look like Washington Black [Ernest Kingsley Junior] was deeper in the ocean surrounded by nothing. This was one of those things where the client was more talking to us about the emotion they wanted to evoke. The complete loneliness and isolation Wash would have been feeling in this moment. For some of those shots, we did at a reef wall, while others we removed everything around him to make it feel isolated. Those were shot practically. A simple composite was provided by Eddie Williams. Eddie did some great work to show us where he wanted the refracted light breaking through the water, the direction it should be going, and the size Wash should be in the frame. We did multiple versions to dial in the murkiness. However, even though the camera is further away in some of these shots, you still need to be able to see and understand clearly that it is Wash in the water. There was a lot of back and forth trying to find that sweet spot of accuracy plus visuals for the sake of storytelling.Computer graphics illustrate the brilliant scientific mind of Washington Black.There is a theatrical quality to the underwater sequence, which conveys the loneliness and isolation that Washington Black is feeling.The compositing team at Ingenuity Studios added dirt to the buildings and windows to make the environments appear more believable.We asked ourselves, What would this [building] look like if it were truly created with botanical colors, and what would they look like with dirt and dust caked on them? This is the era of stagecoaches, horses and dirt roads. A lot of experimentation went into where we could get those buildings. In any of the buildings that were updated, changed or created with CG, we would provide maps for the post team so the colorist could go in and dial some of those buildings to match the color grading they were doing over the top of our shots.Tyler Shanklin, VFX Producer, Ingenuity StudiosLondon is shown during a flyover. We found a layout of the city of London, so in terms of how the streets wind and where the buildings are located, there has not been a lot of change, Shanklin notes. Our CG team would go in and model the buildings; our texture team would create the bricks and wood; and, generally, the DMP team would go in and dirty things up. It was about splitting up the labor so we could get things done as quickly as possible. Smoke was a prominent atmospheric in London. We started out being extremely realistic, thinking, Okay, this is the era of coal, so thick black smoke was billowing from every chimney, recalls Shanklin. However, thats one area where theyre like, Tone it down. Make it look more like steam. Make less of it so we can see more of the city. Historical accuracy gave way to narrative clarity. We were told specifically to add Big Ben under construction with all the scaffolding even though that did not happen until 1843. That was because there are three possible landmarks that would make London identifiable, with Big Ben being the most recognizable.Washington Black is not based in true history, so there are certain anachronistic qualities to the imagery.The CG book, which serves as bookends for the series, was a last-minute addition. Luckily, in-house we had a number of leather and page textures, Shanklin remarks. For the book opening, how many individual images and pages do you want to see? Once they got the number to us, we did a loose Playblast showing that number of pages with images on them. We sent that to the client who approved it, and went from there. We didnt have time to think about how the pages should move. It was more about rigging them so they had natural paper weight and bends and moved slightly. While we were having the CG team create the book and rig it for animation, our DMP team went in and created versions of what the pages and cover looked like. While these things were being created, we were getting look approvals from the client, so when it got to the actual textures of the book after it was modeled and rigged, we already knew what look the client wanted. That helped us move faster.

By TREVOR HOGGImages courtesy of DNA Films, A24 and Cinesite.What starts off as a routine military operation goes horribly wrong, and such an experience left a lasting impression on former American Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza, who recounts how his platoon came under fire during the Iraq War in 2006 while monitoring U.S. troop movements through hostile territory. The real-life incident serves as the basis for Warfare, which Mendoza co-directed with Alex Garland and shot over a period of 28 days at Bovingdon Airfield in Hertfordshire, U.K. Assisting with the environmental transformation consisting of approximately 200 shots was the visual effects team led by Simon Stanley-Camp and sole vendor Cinesite.Im delighted and disappointed [that Warfare has been praised for its realistic portrayal of soldiers in action] because no one knows there are visual effects, and there has been nothing said about the visual effects yet. In this climate, Warfare should be seen by a lot of people.Simon Stanley-Camp, Visual Effects SupervisorProviding audience members with a sense of direction is the drone footage, which involved placing large bluescreen carpet down an airport runway.Without the shadow of a doubt, this was the most collaborative movie Ive ever worked on in 25 years, notes Visual Effects Supervisor Stanley-Camp. Every department was so helpful, from production design to special effects, which we worked with hand-in-hand. There were probably three different layers or levels of smoke. Theres smoke, dust and debris when the grenade goes off [in the room]. All of those special effects elements were captured mostly in-camera. Weve occasionally added a little bit of smoke within the masonry. The big IED [Improvised Explosive Device] explosion was smoky, but over the course of the 50 shots where theyre scrambling around in the smoke, we added 30% more smoke. It starts thick and soupy. You could have two guys standing next to each other and they wouldnt know it. There was this idea of layering more smoke to hide the surrounding action. We had lots of rotoscoping and layering in there.Practical explosions were used as the base, then expanded upon digitally.The Show of Force [where U.S. fighter jets fly overhead] occurs quickly. You cut back inside to be with the soldiers in the house. You dont linger outside and see the dust settling, blowing away and clearing. The first Show of Force we sped up to almost double the speed it was filmed. Its the one time we used the crane. On the whole, the action is always with the soldiers. Its handheld. Its Steadicam. You are a soldier.Simon Stanley-Camp, Visual Effects SupervisorPrincipal photography took place outdoors. Its funny because Bovingdon Airfield is a studio with five or six soundstages, but we didnt use any of them other than for some effects elements, Stanley-Camp reveals. We were shooting in the car park next to the airfield. There was one building, which is the old control tower from the Second World War, that we repurposed for a market area. Just before I was involved, there was talk about building one house. Then, it went up to four and finally to eight houses that were flattage and worked from specific angles. If you go slightly off center, you can see the sides of the set or down the gaps between the set. We had two 20-foot by 120-foot bluescreens and another two on Manitous that could be floated around and walked in.Greenscreen assisted with digital set extensions.Ramadi, Iraq is a real place, so maps and Google Docs were referenced for the layout of the streets. We lifted buildings from that reference, and Ray would say, No. That road wasnt there. We put in water towers off in the distance, which Ray remembered being there and where they were then. Palm trees and bushes were dressed into the set, which was LiDAR scanned and photomontaged before and after the battle. There is quite a lot of greens, and I shot ferns as elements blowing around with the smoke, and being blown with air movers as 2D elements to pepper back in along with laundry, Stanley-Camp states. I mention laundry because we were looking for things to add movement that didnt look out of place. There are air conditioning units and fans moving. We had some CG palm trees with three levels of pre-programmed motion to dial in, like high, medium and low, for ambient movement, but nothing too drastic. Then on the flybys of the Show of Force, we ran another simulation on that to create the air resistance of the planes flying through.When the main IED goes off, we shot that with the cast, and it plays out as they come through the gate. Its predominately compressed air, some pyrotechnics, cork, dust and debris, safe stuff that you could fire and light. There are a lot of lighting effects built into that explosion. When the smoke goes off, flashbulbs go off, which provide the necessary brightness and impact. Then, we shot it for real with seven cameras and three buried. We did it twice. The whole crew was there watching it. It was like a big party when they set that off.Simon Stanley-Camp, Visual Effects SupervisorThe fighter jet in the Show of Force sequences was entirely CG.Over a period of 95 minutes, the action unfolds in real-time. One of the first questions I asked Alex was, What is the sky? You imagine that its blue the whole time, Stanley-Camp remarks. [Even though shooting took place during the British summer], were sitting in their winter, so the soldiers are always in full fatigues, and the insurgents are running around with jumpers, coats and sweatshirts. We got a couple of magical days of beautiful skies with lots of texture and clouds. It looked great, and Alex said, This is the look. Anytime there was a spare camera and it was a good sky, we shot it. We didnt have to do so many replacements, probably about five. We had a couple of sunny days where we had to bring in shadow casters for consistency so the sun wasnt going in and out. What did require extensive work were the masonry, bullet hits and explosions. There were a ton of special effects work there. A lot of what we were doing was a heal and reveal painting them out and letting them pop back in, then moving them because with all of the wind, the practical ones are never going to go off in the right place. Maybe because they were too close or too far away. We would reposition and augment them with our own version of CG bullet holes and hits.The dust simulations featured in the Show of Force sequences were created using Houdini.Numerous explosions were captured in-camera. When the main IED goes off, we shot that with the cast, and it plays out as they come through the gate, Stanley-Camp remarks. Its predominately compressed air, some pyrotechnics, cork, dust and debris, safe stuff that you could fire and light. There are a lot of lighting effects built into that explosion. When the smoke goes off, flashbulbs go off, which provide the necessary brightness and impact. Then, we shot it for real with seven cameras and three buried. We did it twice. The whole crew was there watching it. It was like a big party when they set that off. We filled that up with a set extension for the top shot, and as the phosphorous started to die out and fall away, we took over with CG bright phosphorous that lands and rolls around. Then, additional smoke to carry it onto camera. The special effects guys had a spare explosion ready to go, so I shot that as well for an element we didnt use in the end, other than for reference on how combustible it was, how much dust and billowing smoke it let off.Muzzle flashes were specific to the rifles, rather than relying on a generic one.Assisting the platoon are screeching U.S. fighter jets that stir up massive amounts of dust as they fly overhead. The Show of Force happens three times, Stanley-Camp notes. Thats purely effects-generated. Its a Houdini simulation. We had a little bit of help from fans blowing trees and laundry on set. Any ambient real stuff I could get to move, I did. Readability was important. The Show of Force occurs quickly. You cut back inside to be with the soldiers in the house. You dont linger outside and see the dust settling, blowing away and clearing. The first Show of Force we sped up to almost double the speed it was filmed. Its the one time we used the crane. On the whole, the action is always with the soldiers. Its handheld. Its Steadicam. You are a soldier.When theyre being dragged up the drive into the house, the legs are meant to be broken in weird and awkward angles. We did a lot with repositioning angles. If you look at the before and after, you go, Oh, my god, theyre at horrible angles. However, if you look at it straight on and are not comparing it against a normal leg, its less noticeable. We did quite a lot of bending, warping and breaking of legs!Simon Stanley-Camp, Visual Effects SupervisorAn effort was made to always have practical elements in-camera.The fighter jet was entirely CG. You could get in it, Stanley-Camp reveals. Its a full textured build. The canopy is reflecting anything that would be in shot from the HDRI. What was real were the Bradley Fighting Vehicles. We had two Bradleys and two drivers. The Bradleys were redressed with armor plating fitted on the sides to make them bulkier than when they came to us raw. The gun turret was modified and the barrel added. It didnt fire, so thats all us. The major misconception of the Bradleys is that it fires a big pyrotechnic shell. But the shell doesnt explode on contact. It punches holes through things. When it fires, what we see coming out the end is dust, debris, a little puff and a tiny bit of gunk. Ive seen bigger tanks where the whole tank shakes when they fire. There is none of that. The Bradleys are quick and nimble reconnaissance vehicles.Unfolding in real-time, Warfare was shot over a period of 28 days at Bovingdon Airfield in Hertfordshire, U.K.Muzzle flashes are plentiful. We had about six different types of rifles, so we broke those down and shot extensively, Stanley-Camp states. We did a days effects shoot against black that included every rifle shot from every angle. More interesting from a technical perspective, we looked at different frame rates to shoot any of the live-action gun work to capture as much of the muzzle flashes as possible. Alex said he had to replace a lot of them during Civil War because they had all sorts of rolling shutter problems. We experimented with different frame rates and ended up shooting at 30 frames per second to capture the most of the muzzle flash, and that gave us the least rolling shutter effect. Muzzle flashes are a bright light source. Once the grenade has gone off and the rooms are filled with smoke, the muzzle flash illuminates in a different way; it lights the room and smoke. How much atmospherics were in the room depended on how bright the muzzle flash registered.The flattage sets were sturdy enough to allow shooting to take place on the rooftops.Not as much digital augmentation was required for wounds than initially thought. The house is probably three feet off the ground, and we were also able to dig some holes, Stanley-Camp reveals. There were trapdoors in the floor with leg-sized holes that you could slip your knee into, refit the tiles around the leg, and then [use] the prosthetic leg. Usually, from the knee down was replaced. Because of open wounds, arterial veins are exposed, I thought there should be a bit of pumping blood, so we put a little blood movement on the legs and shins. Otherwise, not too much. It stood up. When theyre being dragged up the drive into the house, the legs are meant to be broken in weird and awkward angles. We did a lot with repositioning angles. If you look at the before and after, you go, Oh, my god, theyre at horrible angles. However, if you look at it straight on and are not comparing it against a normal leg, its less noticeable. We did quite a lot of bending, warping and breaking of legs!The Bradley Fighting Vehicles were practical, then digitally enhanced.Drone footage provides audience members with a sense of direction. Initially, the map was barely going to be seen, Stanley-Camp remarks. It was a live play on set, on monitor, and that was it. I did those upfront, played them on the day, and the performance works. Those have stayed in. But the exposition grew, and we did another seven or eight map iterations telling the story where the soldiers and tanks are. One of those shots is four minutes long. I was going to do it as CG or motion capture, and Alex was like, I hate motion capture. Even with these tiny ants moving around, youll know. I looked for studios high enough to get wide enough. 60 feet is about as high as I could get. Then I said, Why dont we shoot it from a drone? This was toward the end of post. We went back to Bovingdon Airfield for two days and had brilliant weather. We shot that on the runway because of the size of the place. It was biggest carpet of bluescreen you can imagine. I had soldiers and insurgents walking the full length of that. Then I took those bluescreen elements and inserted them into the maps.Requiring extensive CG work were the masonry, bullet hits and explosions.The IED device explosion consisted of compressed air, pyrotechnics, cork, dust and debris, which was then heightened digitally to make it feel more lethal.Skies were altered to get the desired mood for shots.Cinesite served as the sole vendor on Warfare and was responsible for approximately 200 visual effects shots.The Show of Force shots were always going to be challenging. There is a lot of reference online, and everybody thinks they know what it should look like, Stanley-Camp remarks. Those shots work in context. Im pleased with them. Warfare has been praised for its realistic portrayal of soldiers in action. Im delighted and disappointed because no one knows there are visual effects, and there has been nothing said about the visual effects yet. In this climate, Warfare should be seen by a lot of people. It takes a snapshot of a moment. Like Ray has been saying, This is one of the thousand of operations that happen on a weekly basis that went wrong.

By TREVOR HOGGImages courtesy of Netflix, K&S Films & Boat.The K&S Films and Netflix adaption of the iconic Argentinian graphic novel The Eternaut, which consists of six episodes created, directed and written by Bruno Stagnaro, provided a global showcase for Latin America visual effects company Boat. The major tasks for Boat were 120 days of on-set supervision and utilizing 70 artists in Buenos Aires and Montevideo to create 360 shots and 40 assets that turn Buenos Aires into a wintry, apocalyptic environment during an alien invasion. The production company had storyboards and concept art, but the director also worked with the art department to develop an in-house team to make previs and postvis of each sequence, states Guille Lawlor, VFX Supervisor at Boat. That was a good base to start from as we were not working from scratch.Reflections in the masks had to be painted out and reinserted to avoid taking away from the facial performance.One of the things that Boat is known for in Latin America is crowd simulation expertise. For this project, the challenging thing was trying to connect and render our Houdini crowd tool in Unreal Engine. The running characters are digital, but we also added a lot of dead extras on the ground; that was an Easter egg for us because we scanned ourselves!Guille Lawlor, VFX Supervisor, BoatBecause of the scope of the project, significant alterations were made to the pipeline. All of the CG and set extensions were done in Unreal Engine, which made things a lot easier, Lawlor remarks. There were no big issues with the render farm because Unreal Engine specializes in giving you fast renders. We have since adopted the Unreal Engine technology in other shows. The real-time renders have changed everything for us. USD was another significant component. The backbone of the 3D pipeline was USD, which makes it easy to share assets and scenes between different software. All of the set extensions were made in Unreal Engine, but all of the simulations and effects were done in Houdini. We used USD to share and connect every step of our work, Lawlor says.A major logistical and technical challenge was turning Buenos Aires into a wintry city through practical and digital effects, given that it never snows there.A massive effort was made to have a practical foundation, which meant constructing 15 main sets, bringing in 500 tons of artificial snow and having a 2,000-square-meter warehouse covered in greenscreen that allowed for digital extensions. It was good to have the artificial snow because you get real reactions from the actors, Lawlor notes. Principal photography went on for eight or nine months, starting in the winter and ending in the summer. The thing is, in Buenos Aires, it never snows. We had to deal with 360 shots, and in every one we had to do snow simulations. We ended up having four independent visual effects team that had a supervisor, coordinator, Unreal Engine leader and 10 compositors. One specific team worked on matchmoving and another only on visual effects simulations, which were fed to the other compositing teams. I was the overall supervisor, and it was a big challenge coordinating all of the teams together.The wheels of vehicles were digitally replaced to get the proper interaction with the artificial snow.All of the CG and set extensions were done in Unreal Engine, which made things a lot easier. There were no big issues with the render farm because Unreal Engine specializes in giving you fast renders. We have since adopted the Unreal Engine technology in other shows. The real-time renders have changed everything for us.Guille Lawlor, VFX Supervisor, BoatSnow continuity was a major issue. The snow and storm are like characters in the story, Lawlor states. In each episode, we have a different mood for the snow and storm. The snow starts falling quietly, then the storm gets higher and higher. At some point, the storm ends and the residents can go outside and breathe fresh air. Reality, at times, served as an inspiration. We had a couple of artists living in Nordic countries who shot their own reference. Snow had to interact with gunfire. The effects team delivered almost 100 shots of bullet hits in the snow, and we did everything in Houdini.A city block and three houses were constructed at a studio backlot.Much of the footage was captured in the studio backlot. That backlot represented a specific street and corner of the city, Lawlor explains. We scanned the real locations and matched everything together because the director wanted anyone from Buenos Aires watching the show to go, Hey, thats my place! I know this corner. We used a lot of Google Maps and local reference. Theres also a ton of advertising in the city, and the production decided to keep everything like it is in the real world. Iconic shots were recreated from the graphic novel. Lawlor explains, There is a lot of recreation of the graphic novel in the show. When the main character goes outside for the first time and the shot of the two characters going to the harbor looking for a specific yacht only to find that water doesnt exist anymore; that sequence changed our relationship with the production because once the director saw it, he said, I trust them. Afterwards, we started receiving an insane number of shots, and thats why we had to quickly scale up our team.That backlot represented a specific street and corner of the city. We scanned the real locations and matched everything together because the director wanted anyone from Buenos Aires watching the show to go, Hey, thats my place! I know this corner. We used a lot of Google Maps and local reference. Theres also a ton of advertising in the city, and the production decided to keep everything like it is in the real world.Guille Lawlor, VFX Supervisor, BoatAn iconic moment from the graphic novel was recreated by turning a harbor with boats into a frozen wasteland.Vehicles were shot at the studio. We did a matchmove for each car and simulated the wheels and their interaction with the snow because the actual set floor was salt, which doesnt react in the same way, Lawlor reveals. We had to clean up the tire tracks from previous shots and from the production guys on set. At the end, we developed a Houdini tool to do our own wheels and footprints, which was easier than having to work by hand. Reflections were equally important to get right. For all of the shots captured at the studio, we had to replace the reflection of the ceiling and add extra ones in our CG environments to give them more realism. The tough thing was replacing the reflections on the mask; and in three or four shots that took the mask off, as it was a closeup and you want to look into the eyes of the actor. It was a huge thing dealing with reflections, especially in the faces of the actors.One of the tools being utilized was virtual production, which included work by the K&S Inhouse team.Digital doubles were not utilized for the main actors, but crowds were added in the background during the shootout to get the desired scope. One of the things that Boat is known for in Latin America is crowd simulation expertise, Lawlor states. For this project, the challenging thing was trying to connect and render our Houdini crowd tool in Unreal Engine. The running characters are digital, but we also added a lot of dead extras on the ground; that was an Easter egg for us because we scanned ourselves! Having Boat colleague Bruno Fauceglia on set streamlined the process. I dont know how the other vendors did the work, because one of the most important things is all the information that we have from set, notes Onset VFX Supervisor Fauceglia. Most of my on-set relationships were with the art department and DP. You have parts of the scene in virtual production, in the studio with bluescreen and on location. Most of what you see in the final picture is the combination of that.A train is surrounded by a digital environment.Another vendor captured the LiDAR and photogrammetry, which was then processed by the virtual art department. I did photogrammetry myself when we had to improvise the data set for a location, object or character in order to have that information in post, Fauceglia remarks. The most important thing is to have the layouts of the scenes and to communicate that information to post-production. You have a lot of data to collect from the position of the camera in order to be able to create various scenarios. Also, you have to communicate the vision of the director six months later in the post-production. For the production company, my job was to make sure everything was done properly and that we had the resources in the future to make it happen. We were at four studios at the same time, so we could build up a scenario in one, shoot in another, then a few weeks later go back to the previous studio and continue shooting. We had a studio with the virtual production on a small stage, another studio had a bigger stage, a little studio had some set decorations, and studio outside the city where we built one block of a neighborhood and three houses.A combination of bluescreen and greenscreen assisted in getting the required scope for environments.500 tons of artificial snow were shipped in and digitally augmented.A partial train-track set was built on the virtual production stage.There is a lot of recreation of the graphic novel in the show. When the main character goes outside for the first time and the shot of the two characters going to the harbor looking for a specific yacht only to find that water doesnt exist anymore; that sequence changed our relationship with the production because once the director saw it, he said, I trust them.Guille Lawlor, VFX Supervisor, BoatAlong with the harbor scene, the shootout at the shopping mall was complex to execute. We had 60 to 70 shots, and that action sequence had to have perfect continuity, which meant having to fix all of the location issues, Lawlor states. The production company only got permission to shoot in one specific place of the location. Then we had to offset that set and cover the whole parking lot with different angles and have everything make sense. People who know that shopping mall understand the continuity, it was a huge layout problem. We spent a lot time trying to figure out how to build the sequence. Shots were digitally altered to make it appear as if they were captured in different areas of the parking lot. That scene was challenging because you go from this storm, which helped to disguise the background, to this clean, pristine set that is obviously fake because it was a sunny day in the summer. Fauceglia remarks, It had that innate look of something that is not real, which we had to alter. Another difficulty was to have the right look for the snow. We were working on set until the last day, understanding how this snow will look in the future. The first month of the process was spent trying to achieve the right look, which we could then replicate for the rest of the show.Assessing the footage captured at the virtual production stage.Filming could only take place in one particular area of the parking lot, complicating the shopping mall shootout.Aliens were not the only threat; so were other humans, as demonstrated by the shopping mall shootout.Watch Boats dramatic VFX reel for The Eternaut, showcasing the companys amazing environment work and dedication to matching the beat of the action and heightened realism of every scene. Click here: https://vimeo.com/1082343152?p=1tBoat was one of 10 studios working on The Eternaut. Other vendors around the world contributing VFX, collaborating and sharing assets include K&S Inhouse, CONTROL Studio, Redefine, Malditomaus, Bitt, PlanetX, Scanline, Unbound and Important Looking Pirates. Watch four brief VFX breakdown videos from CONTROL that show the impressive work done in different stages and most of the assets vendors received for The Eternaut. Click here: https://controlstudio.tv/portfolio/el-eternauta/

By CHRIS McGOWANImages courtesy of DNEG and HBO.The greening of a city usually makes a town a nicer place to live in, but it isnt human-friendly when it happens to a post-apocalyptic Seattle overrun with voracious zombie-like creatures, as is the case in Season 2 of the hit HBO series The Last of Us. Much of that transformation was the task of DNEG, which had to reconstruct contemporary Seattle and then add 25 years of decay. Stephen James, VFX Supervisor at DNEG, comments, Building a city, weathering and destroying it, and adding 20 years of overgrowth, is already a very layered and complex challenge. But this season we had to add another layer of complexity water. We had to tell the story through the environment of how a coastal and very rainy city like Seattle may weather over time. Other VFX studios working on the show included Wt FX, Rise FX, Distillery VFX, Important Looking Pirates, Storm Studios and Clear Angle Studios. Alex Wang was the Production VFX Supervisor, and Fiona Campbell Westgate served as Production VFX Producer.A number of different techniques were utilized to build Seattle, from set extension and augmentation to digital matte painting and full CG environments.In order to get data of the waterside of the buildings where our team couldnt access, we had permission to fly a drone in the early morning before sunrise for both photogrammetry and photography. Our drone pilot had to dodge seagulls defending their nests while capturing each structure, which meant several trips to ensure the safety of the drone and the seagulls!Stephen James, VFX Supervisor, DNEGThe Last of Us is based on the Naughty Dog video game, created by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, in which a global fungal infection turns its hosts into deadly mutants that transform or kill most of humanity. We had more than 20 unique locations and environments over the course of the season, from Ellie and Dinas initial approach to Seattle in Episode 3, to epic views of the city from the theater rooftop in Episode 4, and a number of wide city and waterfront shots in Episode 7, explains Melaina Mace, DFX Supervisor at DNEG. We utilized a number of different techniques to build Seattle, from set extension and augmentation to digital matte painting and full CG environments. Nearly all of these sequences required vegetation and overgrowth, weathering and destruction, and, because a lot of our work was set in a flooded Seattle, many sequences also required rain or FX water simulations.Building on the work done on Boston in Season 1, the filmmakers wanted the vegetation in Seattle to be more lush and green, reflecting the weather patterns and climate, telling the story about how a rainy, coastal city like Seattle might weather over time.Mace continues, For wider street and city views, we built a number of key Seattle buildings and built up a library of generic buildings to fill out our city in our wider rooftop and waterfront shots. Our Environment team worked in tandem with our FX team to build a massive, flooded section of the city along the waterfront for Episode 7, which needed to work from multiple different angles across multiple sequences. Nature reclaimed the city with CG moss, ivy and overgrowth. Building on the work done on Boston in Season 1, the filmmakers wanted the vegetation in Seattle to be a bit more lush and green and reflect the weather patterns and climate of the city. Mace explains, We had a library of Megascans ground plants and SpeedTree trees and plants from Season 1 that we were able to build upon as a starting point. We updated our library to include more ferns and coniferous trees to match the vegetation of the Pacific Northwest. Nearly every shot had some element of vegetation, from extending off ground plants in the set dressing and extending ivy up a full building facade, to building an entire ecosystem for a full CG environment. Mace notes, All vegetation scatters and ivy designs were created by our Environment team, led by Environment Supervisor Romain Simonnet. All ivy generation, ground plant and tree scattering was done in Houdini, where the team could also add wind simulations to match the movement of vegetation in the plate photography for seamless integration.To capture the scope of destruction, a partial set was constructed against bluescreen on a studio backlot, then digitally enhanced and completed in CG.To capture the iconic sites of Seattle, our team spent five days in Seattle, both scouting and reference-gathering across the city, James remarks. A big focus on getting as much photography and data as possible for the Aquarium and Great Wheel, given the level of detail and accuracy that would be required. We had multiple people capturing texture and reference photograph, LiDAR capture from Clear Angle, and a drone team for further coverage. Mace explains, We worked with a local production company, Motion State, to capture drone footage of the Aquarium, Great Wheel and a number of other Seattle buildings, which allowed us to create a full photogrammetry scan of each location. James notes, In order to get data of the waterside of the buildings where our team couldnt access, we had permission to fly a drone in the early morning before sunrise for both photogrammetry and photography. Our drone pilot had to dodge seagulls defending their nests while capturing each structure, which meant several trips to ensure the safety of the drone and the seagulls! We also ran video of the drone traveling along the water, beside the Great Wheel and various angles of the city, which were [an] excellent reference for shot composition for any of our full CG shots.The Pinnacle Theatre was based on the real Paramount Theatre in Seattle. DNEGs Environment team extended the city street in CG and dressed it with vegetation and ivy.Based on the real Paramount Theatre in Seattle, we had to extend the CG building [of the Pinnacle Theatre] off a two-story set built on a backlot in Surrey, B.C. The set was actually a mirror image of the real location, so it took a bit of work to line up but still retain the original building design. We were also fortunate enough to have the original Pinnacle Theatre asset from the game, which Naughty Dog very kindly provided for reference.Melaina Mace, DFX Supervisor, DNEGMace notes, Given the scope of the work in Episode 7, we knew we would need to build hero, full-CG assets for a number of locations, including the Seattle Aquarium and Seattle Great Wheel. Each asset was primarily based on the real-world location, with slight design alterations to match the show concept art and set design.A partial set was built on a backlot for the backside of the Aquarium where Ellie climbs onto the pier in Episode 7. Mace adds, We then lined up the location LiDAR and photogrammetry scans with the set LiDAR and adjusted the design of the building to seamlessly line up with the set. Small design details were changed to tie into the design of the game, including the whale murals on the side of the Aquarium, which were a story point to guide Ellie on her quest to find Abby. Another hero asset build was the Pinnacle Theatre, Ellie and Dinas refuge in Seattle, seen in Episodes 4, 5, 6 and 7. Mace explains, Based on the real Paramount Theatre in Seattle, we had to extend the CG building off a two-story set built on a backlot in Surrey, B.C. The set was actually a mirror image of the real location, so it took a bit of work to line up but still retain the original building design. We were also fortunate enough to have the original Pinnacle Theatre asset from the game, which Naughty Dog very kindly provided for reference. Our Environment team then extended the full city street in CG and dressed it with vegetation and ivy.Nearly all sequences required vegetation and overgrowth, weathering and destruction.Drone photogrammetry, on-site location photography, LiDAR scans and custom FX simulations were used to craft expansive CG environments and dynamic weather systems. We spent a week on location in Seattle with our Shoot team, led by Chris Stern, capturing as much data as possible, Mace states. We captured Roundshot photography at varying times of day from multiple different rooftop locations in downtown Seattle, as well as various different angles on the Seattle skyline, which we used as both reference for our CG environments and as the base photography for digital matte painting.DNEGs asset team created nine unique WLF (Washington Liberation Front) soldier digi-doubles based on 3D scans of the actors, then blended them in seamlessly with the actors.Approximately 70 water shots with crashing waves, animated boats and complex FX simulations were crafted. Due to the complexity of the environments and digi-double work and then needing to run hero FX simulations against each of those, it was really vital that both the environment and animation work for these sequences were prioritized early, James notes. Environments focused on any coastal areas that would have FX interaction such as the collapsed city coast, docks and boats run aground. We were very fortunate to have FX Supervisor Roberto Rodricks, along with an FX team with a lot of water experience, James comments. That allowed us to hit the ground running with our water workflows. Each ocean shot started with a base FX ocean that gave us buy-off on speed, wave height and direction. That was then pushed into hero simulation for any foreground water. The animation team, led by Animation Supervisor Andrew Doucette, had boat rigs that would flow with the ocean surface, but then added further detail and secondary motions to the boats. The soldiers were both mocap and keyframe animations to have the soldiers reacting to the ongoing boat movements. Once animation was finalized, FX would then run additional post simulations for boat interaction, which allowed us to quickly adapt and update ocean simulations as animation changed without redoing the full simulation. However, in a few shots, there were so many boats with their wakes interacting with each other that it had to run as one master simulation.Full CG assets were built for a number of locations, including the Seattle Aquarium and Seattle Great Wheel, based on the real-world locations, with slight design alterations to match concept art and set design.Drone footage of the Aquarium, Great Wheel and a number of other Seattle buildings allowed DNEG to create a full photogrammetry scan of each location.To deliver a realistic storm and match plate photography, DNEG Environments added layers of depth to each shot, including secondary details such as wind gusts, rain curtains, ripples and splashes on the water surface.The introduction of water added another layer of complexity to Season 2. Approximately 70 water shots with crashing waves, animated boats and complex FX simulations were crafted.DNEGs Environment team worked in tandem with the FX team to build a massive, flooded section of the city along the waterfront for Episode 7.James continues, In order to sell a realistic storm and match plate photography, it was vital that we added layers and layers of complexity to each of these shots. FX added secondary details such as gusts, rain curtains, ripples and splashes on the water surface, and drips/water sheeting on any surfaces. Digi-doubles were involved in some water shots. The asset team created nine unique WLF (Washington Liberation Front) soldier digi-doubles based on 3D scans of the actors. Each digi had four unique costume sets: two variations on their tactical gear costume and a set of raincoat costume variants to match the plate photography in Episode 7. Mace remarks, Our Animation team, led by Andrew Doucette, brought the soldiers to life, filling out an armada of military boats with the WLF militia, which needed to blend seamlessly with the actors in the plate photography. For the water sequences, we were able to get layout started early and postvisd the entire sequence in late 2024. We were very thorough at that stage, as we wanted to make sure that we had a very solid foundation to build our complex environment, animation and FX work on. Layout had to consolidate a variety of set locations such as the water tank, dry boat rig and multiple set dock locations into one consistent scene.

By TREVOR HOGGImages courtesy of Digital Domain and Marvel Studios.Banding together in Thunderbolts* is a group of criminal misfits, comprised of Yelena Belova, John Walker, Ava Starr, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian and Taskmaster, who embark on a mission under the direction of filmmaker Jake Schreier, with Jake Morrison providing digital support. Contributing nearly 200 shots was Digital Domain, which was assigned the vault fight, elevator shaft escape, a surreal moment with a Meth Chicken, and creating digital doubles for Yelena Belova, John Walker and Ava Starr that were shared with other participating vendors.Whats great about this movie is that [director] Jake Schreier wanted to ground everything and have things be a lot smaller than we normally would propose. The first version of our explosion with Taskmasters arrow tip was big. Jake was like, I want it a lot smaller. Jake [Morrison] kept dialing it down in size because he felt it shouldnt be overwhelming. That was the philosophy for a lot of the effects in the tasks that we had in hand in visual effects.Nikos Kalaitzidis, VFX Supervisor, Digital DomainMotion blur was a key component of creating the Ghost Effect.One of the variables would be if we looked at the shots assigned to us and had Yelena as a mid to background character, explains Nikos Kalaitzidis, VFX Supervisor at Digital Domain. We might have cut corners and built her differently, but we were the primary vendor that created this character, which had to be shared with other vendors that had to build her more hero-like. We had to make sure that the pores on her skin and face were top quality, and we could create and match the photographic reference provided to us along with the scans. Even though other vendors have their own proprietary software, which is normally a different renderer or rigging system, we provided everything we had once [the character] was completed, such as the model, displacement, textures, reference photography, renders and HDRIs used to create the final turntable.Sparks were treated as 3D assets, which allowed them to be better integrated into shots as interactive light.Serving as the antagonist is the Void, a cruel, dark entity that lives within a superhuman being suffering from amnesia known as Sentry aka Robert Bob Reynolds. In Bobs past life, he was a drug addict, and during a bout of depression he goes back to a dark memory, Kalaitzidis states. As a side job, Bob wore a chicken suit trying to sell something on the side of the road while high on meth. This is one of those sequences that was thought up afterwards as part of the reshoots. The Thunderbolts go into Bobs brain, which has different rooms, and enter a closet that causes them to fall out into a different dimension where its the Meth Chicken universe. A lot of clothes keep falling from the closet until they enter a different door that takes them somewhere else. We only had a few weeks to do it. We had to ensure that everything shot on set had a certain feel and look to it that worked with all of the surrounding sequences. What was interesting about this is they shot it, not with greenscreen, but an old-fashioned matte painting. Our job wasnt to replace the matte painting with a digital one that had more depth, but to seamlessly have the ground meld into that matte painting and make things darker to fit the surrounding environments.As part of the set extension work, the elevator shaft was made to appear as if it was a mile long.There is a point in time where they try to save themselves and go through the threshold at the top of the elevator shaft. Most of them fall and had to be replaced with digital doubles, which meant using the assets we created, having CFX for their cloth and hair, and making sure that the performances and physics were working well from one shot to another.Nikos Kalaitzidis, VFX Supervisor, Digital DomainConstructed as a 100-foot-long, 24-foot-high practical set, the vault still had to be digitally augmented to achieve the necessary size and scope. There were certain parts of it that we needed to do, like set extensions for the ceiling or incinerator vents or hallways that go outside of the vault, Kalaitzidis remarks. There was one hallway with the elevator shaft they built, and we provided three different hallways with variations for each one if the Thunderbolts needed to escape. Contributing to the complexity was the stunt work. We pride ourselves on going from the stunt person to the main actor or actress. There was a lot of choreography that either had to be re-timed and re-performed so it feels like the hits are landing on the other actor and the weapons are hitting the shields. The arm of the Taskmaster had to be re-timed while fighting John Walker. Kalaitzidis notes, They are fighting sword to shield, and the re-time in editorial didnt work out because there was a lot of pauses during the stunt performance. We took out those pauses and made sure there was a certain flow to the fight of the arm hitting shield. We keyframed the arm in 2D to have a different choreography to ensure that both actors were fighting as intended.The new helmet for Ghost makes use of a white mesh.Multiple elements were shot when Walker throws Yelena across the vault. Normally, with a shot like that we would do the hand-off of the stunt person to the main actor during the whip pan, Kalaitzidis explains. But in this particular case, the director wanted us to zoom in on the main actress after the stunt actress hits the ground. The camera was more or less handheld, so we had to realign both cameras to make sure that they were working together. The ground and background had to be redone in CG. The most important part was, how do we see both the stunt actress and Florence Pugh? That was done, in part, by matchmoving both characters and lining them up as close as possible. We even had a digital double as a between, but what helped us was accidentally coming up a new solution with our Charlatan software. When using Charlatan to swap the face, the artist noticed that he could also do the hair down to the shoulders. All of a sudden, he began to blend both plates together, and it became a glorified morphing tool. There is another shot where Walker does a kip-up. One of the stunt guys springs off his hands and lands on his feet. We had to do the same thing but using a digital double of his character and lining it up with the actor who lands at the [desired] place. We matchmoved his performance, did an animation, and used the Charlatan software to blend both bodies. It turned out to be seamless.The live-action blazes from Backdraft were a point a reference when creating the fire flood.The elevator shaft had to be extended digitally so it appears to be a mile long. We had to come up with a look of how it goes into the abyss, which feels like a signature for a lot of different sequences throughout the movie, Kalaitzidis states. They shot the live-action set, which had a certain amount of texture. Jake felt that the textures inside of the set could be more reflective, so we had to enhance the live-action set to blend seamlessly with the set extension of the shaft that goes into darkness. They had safety harnesses to pull them, which had to be removed. There is a point in time where they try to save themselves and go through the threshold at the top of the elevator shaft. Most of them fall and had to be replaced with digital doubles, which meant using the assets we created, having CFX for their cloth and hair, and making sure that the performances and physics were working well from one shot to another.When youre phasing in and out, you might have four heads, and we called each one of those a leaf [a term coined by Visual Effects Supervisor Jake Morrison]. With those leaves we would make sure that they had different opacities, blurs and z-depths, so we had more complexity for each of them. As the leaves separate into different opacities, we also see them coming together. There is a certain choreography that we had in animation to achieve that.Nikos Kalaitzidis, VFX Supervisor, Digital DomainDigital Domain contributed nearly 200 visual effects shots, with lighting being a major component of the plate augmentation.Sparks are always fun to simulate. I always like 3D sparks because theyre more integrated, Kalaitzidis remarks. We also take the sparks and give them to our lighting department to use as interactive light. The same thing with 2D sparks, which have a great dynamic range within the plate and crank up the explosion to create interactive light as well. Explosions tended to be restrained. Whats great about this movie is that Jake Schreier wanted to ground everything and have things be a lot smaller than we normally would propose. The first version of our explosion with Taskmasters arrow tip was big. Jake was like, I want it a lot smaller. Jake kept dialing it down in size because he felt it shouldnt be overwhelming. That was the philosophy for a lot of the effects in the tasks that we had in hand in visual effects. A particular movie directed by Ron Howard was a point of reference. Kalaitzidis explains, Jake Morrison told us, Take a look at the fires in Backdraft because they are all live-action. There was a lot of slow motion. Looking at the texture and fire, and how the fire transmits into smoke, studying the smoke combined with the fire, we used a lot of that to adhere to our incinerator shot.A slower mechanical approach was adopted for the opening and closing of the helmet worn by the Taskmaster.Costumes and effects get upgraded for every movie, with Ghost (Ava Starr) being a significant example this time. Ava can phase out for up to a minute, so she has a bit more control over her phasing power, Kalaitzidis states. This is interesting because it leads to how the phasing is used for choreography when shes fighting and reveals the ultimate sucker punch where she disappears one second, comes back and kicks someone in the face. How we got there was looking at a lot of the footage in Ant-Man. We did it similar but subtler. The plates were matchmoved with the actress; we gave it to our animation team, which offset the performance, left, right, forward, back in time and space. Then in lighting we rendered it out at different shutters, and one long shutter to give it a dreamy look and another that had no shutter so it was sharp when we wanted it that was handed to compositing, which had a template to put it all together because there were a lot of various renders going on at that point. It was a craft between animation, lighting and compositing to dial it in the way Jake Schreier wanted it.A physicality needed to be conveyed for the Ghost Effect. We would recreate the wall in 3D and make sure that as Ava is phasing through in 3D space, she doesnt look like a dissolve but actually appears to be coming out of that wall as her body is transforming through it, Kalaitzidis explains. That was a technique used wherever we could. Another key thing that was tricky was, because we had some long shutters in the beginning in trying to develop this new look, it started to make her feel that she had a super speed. We had to dial back the motion blurs that gave us these long streaks, which looked cool but implied a different sort of power. Multiple layers of effects had to be orchestrated like a dance. When youre phasing in and out, you might have four heads, and we called each one of those a leaf [a term coined by Morrison]. With those leaves we would make sure that they had different opacities, blurs and z-depths, so we had more complexity for each one of them. As the leaves separate into different opacities, we also see them coming together. There is a certain choreography that we had in animation to achieve that.Stunt rehearsals were critical in choreographing the fight between Taskmaster and Ghost inside the vault.Explosions were dialed down to make them more believable.[Ghost (Ava Starr)] can phase out for up to a minute, so she has a bit more control over her phasing power. This is interesting because it leads to how the phasing is used for choreography when shes fighting and reveals the ultimate sucker punch where she disappears one second, comes back and kicks someone in the face. How we got there was looking at a lot of the footage in Ant-Man. We did it similar but subtler.Nikos Kalaitzidis, VFX Supervisor, Digital DomainConstructing the Cryo Case to store Bob was a highlight. It was one of those effects that no one will pay attention to in the movie in regard to how much thought went into it, Kalaitzidis observes. We went through a concept stage with the previs department to come up with almost a dozen different looks for the inside of the Cyro Case. Digital Domain was responsible for how the energy is discharged from Yelenas bracelet for the Widow Bite effect. That was fun because it was established in Black Widow and was a red effect. We went from red to blue, and the Widow Bite was like the explosion when we first did it; it was big arcs of electricity, and Jake Schreier had us dial it down and be more grounded, so we made it smaller and smaller. Not only is it the electricity shooting out as a projectile and hitting someones body, but what does the bracelet look like? We did some look development as if theres an energy source inside of the bracelet.Contributing to the integration of the vault fight was the burning paper found throughout the environment.Allowing the quick opening and closing of the of helmet for Ghost was the conceit that it utilizes nanomite technology.Helmets proved to be challenging. In the MCU, there are these helmets that have nanomite technology, which justifies why they can open and close so fast in a matter of four to six frames, Kalaitzidis states. Ghost had a cool new helmet that had a certain white mesh. We had to break the helmet up into different parts to make it feel mechanical while receding and closing. That happened quickly because there are lot of shots of her where she touches a button on a collar and opens up, and you want to see her performance quickly. It worked well with the cut. For the Taskmaster, we only see it once, and Jake wanted the effect to be more mechanical. It wasnt nanomite technology, and he didnt want to have it magical. Unlike the other helmets, it had to be nice and slow. We had to make sure that it worked with the actors face and skin so it doesnt go through her body and also works with the hoodie. As the helmet goes back, you see the hoodie wrinkle, and it does the same thing when closing.Contributing to the surrealness are the Thunderbolts entering the dark recesses of Bobs mind and encountering his time spent as a chicken mascot high on meth.One of the more complex shots to execute was the fire flood effect in the vault. If the room was exploding, we had a lot of paper on the ground and ran a simulation on that so it would get affected, Kalaitzidis remarks. Then they would run a lighting pass to make sure whatever explosion was happening would light the characters, the crates in the room and ceiling to ensure everything was well integrated. A collaborative mentality prevailed during the production of Thunderbolts*. We were graced with having such a great team and working closely with Jake Morrison. Having him in the same room with Jake Schreier during reviews so we could understand what he was going through and wanted, and the sort of effects he was looking for, was helpful.Watch an informative video breakdown of Digital Domains amazing VFX work on the vault fight and elevator shaft escape for Thunderbolts*. Click here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0DtdBriMHg

By TREVOR HOGGImages courtesy of Apple Original Films and Warner Bros. Pictures.While the term reskinning is associated with video games where the visual aesthetic is altered within the original framework, it is also an approach utilized extensively by filmmaker Joseph Kosinski, where live-action footage is digitally altered to take advantage of the innate reality while accommodating the needs of the story. This technique was critical in order to bring F1: The Movie to the big screen, as it allowed for broadcast footage to be intercut with principal photography to ensure that the racing scenes envisioned by Kosinski, and starring Brad Pitt and Damson Idris, were dynamic, executable and believable. An extremely high percentage of the 1,200 shots contributed by Framestore involved altering Formula One cars, which made reskinning much more significant than crowd replication and set extensions.The interesting thing about F1: The Movie is that its all got the motion blur of film. On the broadcast footage we added motion blur on top to give the sense of that 180-degrees shutter. In many ways, people are seeing F1 in a way that has not been seen since the 1990s, before F1 became this digital widescreen presentation format, and the blurry shutter went away. It feels quicker because of the way it blurs.Robert Harrington, VFX Supervisor, FramestoreVisors were actually worn by the drivers rather than being digitally added.Its rare to have a shot where you were just adding crowd, notes Robert Harrington, VFX Supervisor at Framestore. You would normally have cars and then there would be some crowd in the background. Reskinning comes down to camera and object tracking. For the Apex cars [driven by Brad Pitt and Damson Idris] we had CAD as a source. Whenever you see the broadcast shots, they get repurposed with a two prong-attack. Broadcast cameras are not like normal cameras. On the other side, youve got to have your objects to track in those shots. We would have a Williams car and turn it into an Apex car. To do that, we had to work out fairly accurately how big those cars were as well as their shapes to solve the camera tracking.Formula Ones massive archive of races was indispensable. For the production shots, you know what those cameras are, Harrington remarks. You can go to the Panavision office and grid all of these lenses. Conversely, broadcast cameras have tiny sensors, and because theyre filming real events, the zooms are humongous. One of them had a Canon UJ86, which goes from 9mm to 800mm. These humongous zooms are quite hard for us to work with. If I took a camera setup with an 800mm zoom and a tiny sensor, but then put the lens on a Sony Venice camera, it would be the equivalent of around 3000mm. We have to work around that and still get the ability to put the cars in those broadcast shots. Beyond that, you have all of the motion blur and the shaking cars, so tracking was a point of focus.Motion blur was digitally inserted into the broadcast footage to better convey the sense of high speed.Terrestrial LiDAR scans were taken of the entire racetracks, and textures were captured by drones. By perhaps Tuesday, everything would have been taken down from the race, so we had to add some props and sponsors back in, Harrington notes. You cant only use the LiDAR. They would be filming in the week following the race and would go around a corner where, during the race, they might have had a bright yellow Pirelli sponsor on the lefthand side, but now theres nothing there, so theres nothing to reflect onto the car theyre filming with the actor. We had a nice car asset. We spent time on the micro scratches and all the little details so that we could render a car that looked like the car on the plate. We could replace panels and areas.The decision was made not to rely on virtual production but to use archival and principal photography footage captured on location.We found some references of hot laps for specific racetracks, for example, Carlos Sainzs best lap in Monza, to have what speed at what corner. We tried to be accurate to that. The shots used the original filmed cars with stickers on them, for example, a Ferrari sticker on an AlphaTauri car, to indicate which car should be replaced in each shot. We were able to use the actual speed of the footage as a reference. We paid close attention to vibration on the car, and how the camera was shaking to give a sensation of having a powerful engine behind you.Nicolas Chevallier, VFX Supervisor, FramestoreCreative license was required for the digital cars. We tried to do the best we could to model the car as closely as possible, states Nicolas Chevallier, VFX Supervisor at Framestore. But its not something where you can go to the Red Bull team and say, May I take pictures of your car in every detail? Its like a secret. Lighting was tricky throughout the movie. Monza and Silverstone are sunny; however, the last race in Abu Dhabi starts in daylight and then goes all the way up until night. The lights around the racetrack in Abu Dhabi were important to match. Yas Marina racetrack has a complex setup of lights, probably engineered for every single one; recreating this was a challenge, mostly at night. We had real-life reference underneath, so we tried to get as close as possible to the car that we were replacing. A strategy was developed for the tires. Chevallier notes, We had a massive database to say, Ferrari needs to have the #55 and has to be on red tires. We had to build a comprehensive shader to be able to handle a lot of settings to change the number on the car, the yellow T-bar or to alter the tire color to make sure they had the right livery for every single track. For example, Mclaren has a different livery for Silverstone. Actually, youre not building 10, but 20 cars in various states. We had different variations of dirt and tire wear.Figuring out how to execute a crash sequence through mathematical calculations, previs and techvis.Shots were tracked through Flow Production Tracking. We developed some bits in Shotgun so we could control car numbers, tire colors and liveries, Harrington states. It was driven entirely at render time essentially with Flow Production Tracking to find out how each car should be set up for liveries, helmets and tire compounds; that gave us a level of flexibility, which was good because there are lots of shots. The Formula One cars needed to look and feel like they were going at a high speed. We found some references of hot laps for specific racetracks, for example, Carlos Sainzs best lap in Monza, to have what speed at what corner, Chevallier explains, We tried to be accurate to that. The editorial team provided us with a rough cut of a sequence. The shots used the original filmed cars with stickers on them, for example, a Ferrari sticker on an AlphaTauri car, to indicate which car should be replaced in each shot. We were able to use the actual speed of the footage as a reference. We paid close attention to vibration on the car, and how the camera was shaking to give a sensation of having a powerful engine behind you.Atmospherics were important in making shots more dynamic and believable.Whenever you see the broadcast shots, they get repurposed with a two prong-attack. Broadcast cameras are not like normal cameras. On the other side, youve got to have your objects to track in those shots. We would have a Williams car and turn it into an Apex car. To do that, we had to work out fairly accurately how big those cars were as well as their shapes to solve the camera tracking.Robert Harrington, VFX Supervisor, FramestoreMotion blur had to be added. We have the footage they shot with the same production cameras, such as the Sony Venice, which was 24 frames per second and 180-degrees shutter, so it had the motion blur look of film, Harrington notes. Broadcast footage always uses a very skinny shutter, which minimizes motion blur. This is done so viewers can clearly see the action, whether its in sports like football, tennis or auto racing. Whenever you press pause, everything is fairly sharp. Things dont look smooth, and it affects how you perceive the speed of the shot. The interesting thing about F1: The Movie is that its all got the motion blur of film. On the broadcast footage we added motion blur on top to give the sense of that 180-degrees shutter. In many ways, people are seeing F1 in a way that has not been seen since the 1990s, before F1 became this digital widescreen presentation format, and the blurry shutter went away. It feels quicker because of the way it blurs.Every shot was based on actual photography.Reflections on the racing visors were not a major issue. I have done my fair share of visors in my career, Harrington notes. But it wasnt a problem on this one. The visors were in all the time because theyre really driving cars. Sparks are plentiful on the racetrack. Most of the time we tried to keep it like the sparks that were actually on the footage. We did some digital sparks for continuity, but always had the next shot in the edit to match to. Chevallier states. Broadcast footage uses a different frame rate. Harrington observes, The only battle would come when you had particularly sharp sparks in a broadcast shot and had to re-time it from 50 frames-per-second skinny shutter to 24.Rain was a significant atmospheric. Monza was shot without rain because it was not raining in 2023, so the Monza rain was a mix of the 2017 race, Chevallier reveals. It was funny how old-fashion the cars looked, so they had to be reskinned for the rain. We also had to add rain, replace the road, insert droplets, mist and rooster tails. There was lots of rain interaction. The challenge was to create all the different ingredients combined at the right level to make a believable shot while keeping efficiency regarding simulation time. We had little droplets on the car body traveling with the speed and reacting to the direction of the car. Spray was coming off the wheels, sometimes from one car onto another one. We had to adjust the levels a couple of times. Lewis Hamilton had some notes as a professional driver, and told us to reduce the rain level by at least 50% or 60% as it was too heavy to race this amount on slick.Around 80% of the visual effects work was centered on reskinning cars.For the production shots, you know what those cameras are. You can go to the Panavision office and grid all of these lenses. Conversely, broadcast cameras have tiny sensors, and because theyre filming real events, the zooms are humongous. We have to work around that and still get the ability to put the cars in those broadcast shots. Beyond that, you have all of the motion blur and the shaking cars, so tracking was a point of focus.Robert Harrington, VFX Supervisor, FramestoreProduction VFX Supervisor Ryan Tudhope organized an array camera car that people saw driving around the races. Panavision went off and built it, Harrington states. It had seven RED Komodos filming backplates plus a RED Monstro filming upwards with a fisheye lens. Komodos are global shutter cameras, so they dont have any rolling-shutter skewing of things that move past. The camera array positions were calibrated with the onboard cameras. This allowed us to always capture the shot of the driver from the same consistent position, even in scenes with rain. We made sure that the array was designed to maximize coverage for these known angles on the car, and thats what Framestore used to then replace the background. They never had to do virtual production.Trees and rain were among the environmental elements digitally added to shots.All of the racetracks are real. Were not doing CG aerial establishing shots, Harrington remarks. We added props, grandstands and buildings to them. The crowds were treated differently for each racetrack. The standard partisans have a specific shirt, but they dont have the same shirt in Monza or Silverstone, Chevallier observes. It was like a recipe with the amount of orange and red, and clusters of like fans all together, to make them seamless with the actual real F1 footage. We were looking at static shots of crowds with people scratching their head or putting their sunglasses on. It was like a social study,Reskinning comes down to camera and object tracking.Sparks were a combination of real and CG elements.Sponsorship signage was part of the environmental work.Personally, Ive watched F1 since I was a kid, Harrington states. What was interesting for me was that we got to forensically rebuild events from the sports history. We actually found out how high that guys car went, or how fast an F1 car actually accelerated. The visual effects work placed everyone in the drivers seat. The thing that impressed me is when we did a few shots and had to matchmove all of the helmets and hands, Chevallier recalls. I gave notes to the team saying, Okay, guys, there are some missing frames because it looks like its shaking like crazy. I had a look frame by frame, and the heads of the guys are jumping from the left side of the cockpit to the right side in less than a frame. I was surprised by all of the forces that apply to this. Some things you would give notes because it looks like a mistake we kept because that was what it was really like for the driver. Im still impressed by all of this.

By TREVOR HOGGImages courtesy of Universal Studios.While Shrek launched the first franchise for DreamWorks Animation, How to Train Your Dragon has become such a worthy successor that the original director, Dean DeBlois, has returned to do a live-action adaptation of a teenage Viking crossing the social conflict divide between humans and flying beasts by befriending a Night Fury. Given that the fantasy world does not exist, there is no shortage of CG animation provided by Christian Manz and Framestore, in particular with scenes featuring Toothless and the Red Death. Framestore facilities in London, Montreal, Melbourne and Mumbai, as well an in-house team, provided concept art, visual development, previs, techvis, postvis and 1,700 shots to support the cast of Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Gerard Butler, Nick Frost, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James and Nick Cornwall.A full-size puppet of Toothless was constructed, minus the wings, that could be broken down into various sections to get the proper interaction with Hiccup.What I hoped is that people would watch it and see real human beings flying dragons. Youre emotionally more connected because youre seeing it for real. The animation is amazing and emotional, but we wanted to try to elevate that in terms of storytelling, emotion and wish fulfillment.Christian Manz, VFX SupervisorEven though the animated features were not treated as glorified previs by the production, the trilogy was the visual starting point for the live-action adaptation. Deans challenge from the beginning was, If you can come up with better shots or work, thats great. If you cant come up with better shots then it will be the one from the animated movie, states VFX Supervisor Manz. When it came to a few key things like flying and reestablishing what that would look like in the real world, we began to deviate. Elevating the complexity of the visual effects work was the sheer amount of interaction between digital creatures and live-action cast. What I hoped is that people would watch it and see real human beings flying dragons, Manz notes. Youre emotionally more connected because youre seeing it for real. The animation is amazing and emotional, but we wanted to try to elevate that in terms of storytelling, emotion and wish fulfillment.Despite having significant set builds, digital extensions were still required to achieve the desired scope for Berk.The nature of live-action filmmaking presented limitations that do not exist in animation. Glen McIntosh, our Animation Supervisor, said from the beginning that, Everything is going to move slower, Manz remarks. You watch Stoick pick up Hiccup at the end of the animated movie, and in about three frames hes grabbed and flung him over his shoulder. In our version, Gerard Butler has to kneel down, shuffle over to where Mason Thames is and lift him up. All of that takes more time. The sizes of the dragons also had to be more consistent. Manz comments, We all had a go at ribbing Dean about continuity because every dragon changed in size throughout the original film. It works and you believe it. However, here we had to obey the size and physics to feel real. An extensive amount of time was spent during pre-production to discover the performances of the dragons. Because we were literally inhabiting a real world, Dominic Watkins was building sets, so we had to find out how big they are, how fast they would move, and their fire. It was important we figured that out ahead of time.One of the hardest scenes to recreate and animate was Hiccup befriending Toothless.We all had a go at ribbing Dean [DeBlois, director] about continuity because every dragon changed in size throughout the original film. It works and you believe it. However, here we had to obey the size and physics to feel real. Because we were literally inhabiting a real world, Dominic Watkins was building sets, so we had to find out how big they are, how fast they would move, and their fire. It was important we figured that out ahead of time.Christian Manz, VFX SupervisorRetaining the cartoon stylization of Toothless was important while also taking advantage of the photorealism associated with live-action. Three months before we officially began working on the film, Peter Cramer, the President of Universal Pictures, wanted to know that Toothless would work, Manz explains. We did visual development but didnt concept him because we already had the animated one. From there we did sculpting in ZBrush, painting in Photoshop and rendering in Blender. We spent three months pushing him around. I went out to woods nearby with a camera, HDRI package, color chart and sliver ball to try to shoot some background photographs that we could then put him into, rather than sticking him in a gray room. I even used my son as a stand-in for Hiccup to see what Toothless looked like against a real human. We looked at lizards to horses to snakes to panthers to bats for the wings. The studio wanted him big, so he is a lot bigger than the animated version; his head compared to his body is a lot smaller, head-to-neck proportion is smaller, his eyes are smaller proportion compared to the animated one, and the wings are much bigger. We ended up with a turntable, ran some animation through Blender, and came up with a close-up of Toothless where hes attached to the rope, which proved to the studio it would work.Other recreations were the sequences that take place in the training arena.Hiccup befriending Toothless was the sequence that took the longest to develop and produce. During the gestation of that, we slowly pulled it back because when you watch animals in the real world, when they want something rather than moving around and doing lots of stuff, theyll just look at you and have simple poses, Manz notes. That simplicity, but with lots of subtlety, was difficult. To get the proper interaction, there was a puppet on set for Toothless. We had a simple puppet from nose to tail for him, apart from the wings, that could be broken up. For that scene, it would only be Tom Wilson [Creature Puppetry Supervisor] and the head at the right height. We did previs animation for the whole sequence. Framestore has an AR iPad tool called Farsight, which you could load up, put the right lens on, and both us, Dean and camera could look to make sure that Toothless was framed correctly. We could show Mason what he was looking at and use it to make sure that Tom was at the right height and angle. Im a firm believer that you need that interaction. Anything where an actor is just pretending never works.The live-action version was able to elevate the flying scenes.Red Death was so massive that separate sets were constructed to represent different parts of her body. We had simple forms, but based off our models, the art department built us a mouth set with some teeth. We had an eye set that provided something for Snotlout [Gabriel Howell] to hang off of and bash the eye, which had the brow attached to it. Then we had like a skate ramp, which was the head and horn, to run up, Manz reveals. When Asterid [Nico Parker] is chopping off teeth, she is not hitting air. We had teeth that could be slotted in and out based on the shots that were needed. The set could tip as well, so you could be teetered around. Scale was conveyed through composition. We made it a thing never to frame Red Death because she was so big and that was part of making her look big. One of the challenges of animating her is, when flying she looks like shes underwater because of having to move so slowly. Her wingtips are probably going 100 miles per hour, but theyre so huge and covering such a large area of space that having Toothless and rocks falling in the shot gave it scale.Fire was a principal cast member. I called up YouTube footage of a solid rocket booster being tested last year, strapped to the ground and lit, Manz states. The sheer power of the force of that fire, and it was done in a desert, kicked up lots of dust. We used that as the reference for her fire. Another unique thing in this world is that each dragon has a different fire. Her fire felt like it should be massive. Toothless has purple fire. Deadly Nadder has magnesium fire. We have lava slugs from Gronckle. For a number of those, we had Tez Palmer and his special effects team creating stuff on set that had those unique looks we could start with and add to. When we saw the first take of the Red Death blasting the boats, we were like, Thats going to look amazing! The jets of fire would always involve us because they had to be connected to the dragon. The practical fire added an extra layer of fun to try to work out.An aerial view of the training arena showcases a maze configuration.Another significant element was flying. I felt the more analogue we could be, the more real it could look, but it still had to be driven by the movement and shapes of our dragons, Manz remarks. We worked with Alistair Williams [Special Effects Supervisor] motion control team and used their six-axis rig, which can carry massive planes and helicopters, and placed an animatronic buck of the head, neck and shoulders of each dragon on top of that. We designed flight cycles for the dragons, and as actors were cast, we digitally worked out the scale and constraints of having a person on them. When the special effects came on, we passed over the models, and they returned files in Blender, overlaying our animation with their rig. The rigs were built and shipped out to Belfast one by one. There were no motion control cameras. I had simple techvis of what the camera would be doing and would say, This bit we need to get. That bit will always be CG. We would find the shot on the day. The six-axis rigs could be driven separately from animation. but also be driven by a Wahlberg remote control. You could blend between the animation and remote control or different flight cycles. The aim was that Mason was not just on a fairground ride but is controlling, or is being controlled, by this beast he is riding; that was a freeing process.A character that required a number of limb replacement shots was Gobber, who is missing an arm and a leg.Not entirely framing the Red Death in the shot was a way to emphasize the enormous size of the dragon.Glen McIntosh, our Animation Supervisor, said from the beginning that, Everything is going to move slower [in live-action than in animation], You watch Stoick pick up Hiccup at the end of the animated movie, and in about three frames hes grabbed and flung him over his shoulder. In our version, Gerard Butler has to kneel down, shuffle over to where Mason Thames is and lift him up. All of that takes more time.Christian Manz, VFX SupervisorA 360-degree set was physically constructed for the training arena, and was built to full height. We didnt have the roof and had a partial rock wall, but the whole thing was there. We were doing previs and designing alongside Dominic Watkins building the training arena. One of the big things was how fast is the Nadder going to run and how big does this arena have to be? We were also working with Roy Taylor [Stunt Coordinator], who did some stuntvis that was cut into the previs, and then started building our sequence. I ended up with a literal plan in which fences had to be real and what the actions were. It was shot sequentially so we could strike fences as we went; some fences would become CG. That was the first thing we shot, and it snowed! We had ice on the ground that froze the fences to the ground. They had a flamethrower out melting snow. We had short shooting days, so some of it had to be shot as the sun went down. Bill Pope would shoot closer and closer, which meant we could replace bits of environment and still make it look like it was day further away. There was a lot in there to do.Each dragon was given a distinct fire that was a combination of practical and digital elements.Live-action actors do not move as quickly as animated characters, adding to the screentime.Environments were important for the flying sequences. Flying was going to be us or plates, and I wanted to capture that material early, so we were recceing within two months of starting, back in the beginning of 2023, Manz states. We went to Faroe Islands, Iceland and Scotland, and Dean was blown away because he had never been on a recce like that before. All of the landscapes were astonishing. We picked the key places that Dean and Dominic liked and went back with Jeremy Braben of Helicopter Film Services and Dominic Ridley of Clear Angle Studios to film plates for three weeks. We caught 30 different locations, full-length canyons and whole chunks of coastline. My gut told me that what we wanted to do was follow Toothless and the other dragons, which meant that the backgrounds would be digital. Creating all of those different environments was one of the biggest challenges of the whole show, even before we shot the strung-out shots of Toothless flying alone around Berk that made everyone go, That could look cool. It was using all of that visual reference in terms of the plates we shot, the actual date and the stuff we learned. There were birds everywhere, the color of the water was aquamarine in Faroe, and you could get the light for real.Using the practical set as base, the entire environment for the training arena was digitally rebuilt.Wind assisted in conveying a sense of speed. No matter how much wind you blow at people for real, you can never get enough, Manz observes. They were using medically filtered compressed air so we could film without goggles. Terry Bambers [1st Assistant Director: Gimbal Unit] team rigged those to the gimbals and had additional ones blowing at bits of costume and boots. For a lot of the takes, we had to go again because we needed to move more; clothes dont move as much as you think theyre going to. Framestore built some incredible digital doubles that, through the sequence, are either used as whole or part. We utilized much of the live-action as the source, but theres whole lot going on to create that illusion and bond it to the dragon and background.Having smaller elements in the frame assisted in conveying the enormous size of the Red Death.Missing an arm and a leg is Gobber (Nick Frost). Dean and I were keen not to have the long and short arm thing. Our prop modeler built the arm so it could be the actual hammer or stone, and Nicks arm would be inside of that with a handle inside. He had a brace on his arm, then we had the middle bit we had to replace. Most of the time, that meant we could use the real thing, but the paint-out was a lot of work. Framestore built a partial CG version of him so we could replace part of his body where his arm crossed. Like with Nick, the main thing with Hiccup was to try to get almost a ski boot on Mason so he couldnt bend his ankle. The main thing was getting his body to move in the correct way. In the end, Nick came up to me one day and asked, Could I just limp? We got Dean to speak to him sometimes when he would forget to limp. You cant fix that stuff. Once all of that body language is in there, thats what makes it believable. The Gobber work is some of the best work. You dont notice it because it feels real, even though its a lot of shots.