Speed VFX Review

Movie -  Speed
released - 1994
Director - Jan de Bont
Cinematography - Andrzej Bartkowiak 
VFX - Sony Pitures Imageworks

Speed is a 1994 movie about a remote terrorist hijack of a passenger bus. The movie unravels around a LAPD SWAT officer who had been met with the hijacker in a previous incident which is shown at the start of the movie. Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Sandra Bullock, Joe Morton, Alan Ruck, and Jeff Daniels play the major roles in SPEED. Despite it's rather straight forward story the movie went onto become a box office hit! & a sequel was made.

let's get to the visual effects of this. sorry guys, it has been some time since I wrote as a lot of things happening in my life, i will try to cover up the pending list soon. 1994 or the entire 90's had a lot of creative use of VFX in movies. practical effects were the trend & Computer generated imagery came into play hand in hand. This balance of Practical vs CGI effects played a major role in movie Visual effects looking believable compared to some recent movies that look way off the reality radar!
The elevator hijack scene with all the explosions & blowing was practical effects. they used air pumps & explosive stuff to fake the big explosions. If there were any CGI used, it must have been small touch ups. After this action packed SWAT sequence the story switches to the bus incident.

few days later the SWAT officer jack (keanu reeves) witnesses a bus exploding & is soon contacted by the bomber of the elevator incident. He is told that another bus rigged with a speed limit gauge is set to explode if it is slowed less than 50 MPH. so the main focus is set on the bus from this moment onwards.

Fun Fact! - The jumping scenes of jack from the car to the bus is actually performed by Keanu himself!

11 GM new look busses were used for the filming. 2 busses were used for the jump, one bus was cut in the front to film the inside shots, two busses were blown up, one bus was used for under the bus scenes & another for high speed scenes. 

For the bus jumping scene, a bus was specially prepared with special setup to safeguard the driver. Most film stunts that had vehicle jumps & crashes were ended causing spinal injuries & deaths to the drivers. so the movies safety crew prepared a special harness which suspended the driver in mid air, hanging him horizontally & vertically with elastics. The driver sat in the middle of the bus and a dummy was placed in the driver seat to fake it. most of the internals were removed to make it lighter so that it could fly in the air for longer & travel a long distance.

The missing 50 ft of road was later added (actually it was removed from the shots) using CGI. If you happened to have a copy of the movie watch for this scene and note the shadow of the road below. you will see the shadow of the highway continues even though the road is missing a whole 50 ft. 

Cameras are setup inside the bus by the bomber to make sure that everything goes as planned. all these footage that you see are actually shot and played on the movie set, and that was more than just creating a fake loop for the background computer screens. Hats off to the director & the crew for keeping it live.

The shots of the Metro redline used both 1/8 scale models & actual trains. A full scale model was built for the final sequence. The movie to date is a very good example of both scale model & practical effect usage. please leave a comment if you found this article useful. thank you.

Unbroken - Visual Effects Review

Movie - Unbroken
released - 2014
Director - Angelina Jolie
Cinematography - Roger Deakins
VFX - Industrial Light & Magic | Rodeo FX

Rodeo FX delivered 240 staggering visual Effects shots for Angelina Jolie's biopic Unbroken, including the amazing air battle between the B24s and the Zero fighter aircraft, and in addition the arrival scene of the harmed B24 Superman plane at the Funafuti airstrip.

In light of the top rated memoir by Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken recounts the narrative of war saint, Louis Zamperini (Jack O'Connell), whose B24 plane crshed in to Pacific. Zamperini was caught and put in more than two years in awful conditions in Japanese POW camps. With the supervision & Acting skills of Director Jolie, to essayists Joel and Ethan Coen, DP Roger Deakins, and to Zamperini himself, who was still alive amid creation – this is a prominent venture that required  Visual effects from more than 100 craftsmen who dealt with the film at Rodeo FX. The Director chose a visual styling that was true to the day and age with imperceptible VFX that did not occupy the viewer from the intense  movie.

Rodeo FX constructed high detailed 3D models of the B24 utilizing blueprints and verifiable photographs as references. "The plane resource was a test since we just had a set number of recorded photographs," Matthew Rouleau, VFX administrator at Rodeo FX. 

One of the difficulties Rodeo FX confronted was making these completely CG successions look photoreal, The cockpit insides were shot utilizing an incomplete model set on a gimbal, encompassed by a whitescreen to give more common light. Rodeo FX made the impact of appearance in the glass, and additionally compositing scratches, earth, and surfaces.

Rodeo FX has a long history of working with ILM, having made visual effects together on such movies as Pacific Rim, Terminator, Indiana Jones, Mission Impossible, and Red Tails. ILM's Bill George was additionally VFX manager on The Planet of the Apes (2001) and won an Oscar for the VFX in Innerspace (1987).

True Lies VFX review

Movie -  True Lies
released - 1994
Director - James Cameron
Cinematography - Russel Carpenter
VFX - Digital Domain 
Miniature explosions : Joe Viskocil

True lies is a james cameron directed 1994 movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Art Malik, Tia Carrere, Bill Paxton, Eliza Dushku, Grant Heslov and Charlton Heston. Harry is a special task force operative under cover who leads a double life as a computer salesman at home.

This Movies Main action sequences use explosions, Harrier jet stunts & mid air fights which were very realistically done! lets have a look at how these effects were pulled off.

Climax of the movie had helicopter chase scenes, & harrier jet mid air hovering sequences while actors fought on the wings & cockpit. to achieve these John Bruno & his team from Digital domain were summoned. To achieve what james cameron wanted as the final result, it had to be a mix of practical effects & CGI.

A 47 foot replica of a harrier jet was made with fibre glass material & fixed to a metal frame. then the  setup was mounted on a motion control platform. the platform simulated the moves of the jet it could turn a 60 degree angle in any direction.

The harrier jets motion control system was controlled by computers. Computers controlled the hydraulic base which weighed 20,000 pounds which had the 7000 pound jet replica mounted on it. To add realism james cameron opted to move out of the safety of the sound stage & moved the whole setup on top of a 30 story building!

Because the jet was controlled by a computer, a sequence of moves can be programmed & repeated the same way over n over again, which gave the director freedom to focus on the actors & there emotions. all the parallel  up looking shots of the jet sequence were shot on this motion controlled stage.

GreenScreen effects came in to play when the more reisky actions involved, this shot shows the terrorist Aziz jumping on to the harrier jet, which was added later & then cuts to a parallel shot of him sliding on the plane.

Though the parallel & up looking shots were possible on top of the set, other shots required the use of the green screen which helped more control for the VFX artists. so the motion controlled setup was moved to a airforce hanger which served as the green screen setup.

The plus side of having a computer driven motion control system is that you get the same movements where ever you set it up. 

once the onset work was over, the VFX artists started adding the backplates, hovering jet engine fume effects to the shots. the hovering jet engines hot air effects were simulated & added to the moving & rotating jet which is seen very realistic in the movie.

John bruno who worked with james cameron in movies such as Abyss, had to pull wizardry on air this time around compared to the underwater shots of Abyss.

Jumanji - VFX review

Movie - Jumanji
released - 1995
Director - Joe johnston
Cinematography - thomas ackerman
VFX - ILM (Industrial Light & Magic)
Practical / Animatronics -  Amalgamated Dynamics

Jumanji is a board game, which has magical aspects to it with which the players & the world gets affected with each roll of the dice. the movie uses many practical & CGI shots as most of this magical world includes Animals running around in the world spelled by magic. 

The Lion that everyone thought real was indeed full animatronics with a human inside! this video show how much work and concentration went in to create such a feet! the final product on film is unbelievable!

The CGI Wasps & the Monkeys in film are fully CGI as they had no interaction with the human characters on set. ILM team did an outstanding job hear with the computer generated work!

The stampede scene which has Rhinos, Elephant's Zebras running through the city demolishing cars & other structures feel a bit CGI by todays standards, it was nothing short of a WOW factor at the time. the creatures move a bit blocky at some point's but the entire shot is believable when added with crumbling cars and moving shots.

The Animatronics built by Amalgamated dynamics is hown here where Robbin william fights with the giant prehistoric crocadile. a full scale animatronic crocodile is built which Robin williams gets on and interacts with. 

RIP Robin williams, the Actor who had a tragic death is a talented individual who is known for his iconic roles, as a comedian and if I recall correctly a guy behind the game spore

As of writing this small piece I found out that a sequel to the original Jumanji is being worked on! it features the Rock, kevin hart, jack black & Karen Gillan, and is scheduled to be released december 2017

Flubber - VFX review

Movie - Flubber
released - 1997
Director - Less Mayfield
Cinematography - Dean Cundey
VFX - ILM (Industrial Light & Magic)
Practical / Animatronics - 

If flying Robots & Flying robots aren't enough a gone wrong experiment gives life to a live n dancing jelly called flubber! Just to let you know that I'm not using any copy pasting here to write articles but my memory of the film & captures pulled from the net. If i got the movie with me I do my own captures too.

Flubber was a more open approach to ILM as the directors wanted their input's on forming the jelly goo. and it was something way different to the CGI characters ILM was doing at the time. Creatures like Dinosaurs or other animals retained their shape throughout a story unless they were damaged allowing ILM to use the same digital model for animations. but this jello guy had no boundaries when it came to popping heads, arms n legs when needed!

Professor philip portrayed by the great Actor 7 comedian Robbin williams, is a goofy guy himself. having a fully automated house with robots who make toast n eggs n sporting a one of a kind flying car "thunderbird" he lives a crazy life experimenting & blowing things off!

This movie is one of a kind for the time it was shot n produced as the main character of the film which is a CGI element will only be added in post production. so until then the Actor had to interact with an imagined character, Robin williams pulled this off as he had done a few movies before which had VFX including "Jumanji".

Weebo the flying robot assistant who flies around the house showing it's emotions via the two ear like hovering controllers is a hand held puppet.  It also uses it's LCD panel which it pops out when needed to display parts of movies to show how it feels. Weebo had a few models, one for flying around and functioning with all it's wings, another which would bump into walls & get hit.

the following clip shows a remake project of Weebo where the actual guy interviews the project head with all the crazy details n input & what he had to endure in the movie.

Godzilla 1998 - VFX review

Movie - Godzilla
released - 1998
Director - Roland Emmarich
Cinematography - ueli steiger
VFX - Viewpoint DataLabs
Practical / Animatronics - Tatopoulo & his studio

Godzilla is a 1998 Monster movie which was originally a concept of japan, the Japanese had done a few films in the 1950's and Godzilla was portrayed as a fire breathing dragon which could stand against any weapon that was used against it! The US version of the movie had a modified fresh looking Godzilla since it's origins in japan. The movie is also one of its kind as it did not go to ILM or stan winston (who were the kings in the VFX / Animatronics), instead they went with in-house & mostly new studios & teams.

The film starts with a nuclear explosion and some iguanas getting affected by it! it's an effective way to set the stage with no big theme park tours, and when a group of fishing trollers pick up a strange reading on their radar they has nothing to do but to sit n watch what unveils in front of them. attacked by a giant creature only one survives.

Ripped fishing boats, big footprints are shown with devastated land marks to build up the scale of the creature. This is one of those exaggerated moment's where some one with a little idea of realism will throw away the idea of sharp cut footprints on hard ground! but still the audience bought it!

The previous Japanese made Godzilla movies mainly used stop motion or people inside suits. 1998 Godzilla mainly used CGI to portray the refreshed fast moving creature. The creature is almost 30 stories high and moves faster and is able to manoeuvre itself within small spaces, either making no big deal or at times taking down entire skyscrapers with it's tail. The CGI is very good as it shows no signs of faking. The Apache chases and the explosions all add in to the story line too.

instead of showing water ripples, the Godzillas aproach is depicted by harsh & very big shakes. cars fly a few feet up & the finger nail of a foot is as big as a car's hood!

When the giant moves within the city, the damage done to the surroundings are maximum and the scene of Taxies thrown all over & rain all ad up to the final effect!

While the military tries to take down the city, the group led by the french secret service agent find the nest where 100s of eggs lie around. the eggs were all made and the hatching baby Godzillas were guys inside latex suits. The movie wen't onto be a moderate hit, all the future films were scratched due to being not a big hit as expected!

The lost world - VFX review

Movie - The Lost World - jurrassic park II
released - 1997
Director - steven spielberg
Cinematography - Janusz Zygmunt Kamiński
VFX - ILM (Industrial Light & Magic)
Animatronics - Stan Winston

If a movie had so much hype, then this was the movie that had it all. After the success of the original, which captured fans young & old around the world, it was no easy task to create a movie that delivered what the audience wanted. 

The movie's effects worth noting starts with a young girl who wonders into the woods attacked by a small pack of compies. The small dinos who are portrayed as a bunch who coordinated and hunted in packs are a great way to start as it was a moment for humour & fear. the special effects used a mix of puppets for the closeups & CGI for group shots.

how the puppets worked. look at their eyes, how realistically they work.

how the Remote controlled latex puppets were used to depict being eaten alive, this shot was actually planned for CGI but the clever stan winstons team stole it from them with practical effects.

Hey Mr. get up! compy looks at his prey, the size doesn't matter when your numbers are bigger!

As Dr. Sarah meets a baby dino stegosaurus, animatronic effect comes into play and the life size model is the key here for natural reactions by the actress. how ever when her camera jams and scares away the baby dino stegosaurus  which triggers the parent stegosaurus dinosaurs attacking Dr. Sarah practical effects plus CGI is used.

The Hunting shots are fun to watch and use CGI mostly. whats amazing is that the shots never feel they are animated nor used fake animals of any kind. Spielberg, with inputs from various individuals in many fields, had the secret formula to fool the audience to think these creatures are actually alive. Each capture of individual dinosaur type & reaction is unique in its own, Just think how much of story boarding and thinking went into this to pull such a neat shot. I'm still amazed at how the human flies around as the dino swings him, the action & the reaction is so perfect you will not feel that it's fake, but it uses CGI.

Steven Spielberg could have gone to simple captures for every creature type, instead he went on to create dino specific capture vehicles, and this pays off adding depth into the shots.

Jurassic park I had it's own iconic auto driven jeeps & the sequel needed something badass too. The Benz jeeps with the camo & special fit-ons with flood lights attached around them make up a very aggressive feel.

Then comes the trailer, this with the other two jeeps gets rolled over a cliff n blown, but still with those window grills and camo paint on it makes you feel very comfortable about how strong it will stand against dinos. but that idea of security is blown away when the T rexes attack it and destroy it like cardboard boxes.

Once the Hunting of Ingen  stops for the night, the other team make their way into the camp and release the captured dinos, The stupidity pays off at the end when they are attacked by every known prehistoric predator. 

this particular & rather stupid move to fix the baby T rexes broken leg, which lures the angry parents to the trailer uses two animatronic models, one for closeups where it's on the table, and another full Remote controlled version to carry around. 

Getting chased by the Trex is pretty awesome! when at the actual set all you had was a cardboard cut out of a Trex head prop. These shot's with fully CGI Dinos added later, with the camera shake to mimic the giant footsteps made an impact on the audience. 

When the balled guy arrives to help & pull back the trailer hanging on the edge of the cliff, the T rexes come back for a happy meal. eaten head first, this scene was one of the most scary ones in the movie, feeling that your safe inside the jeep for a moment, and then getting the roof ripped off was enough to jump out n run for your life, instead the guy keeps on pulling back!

This scenes uses practical effects & the timing to build up tension which make the audience jump out of their seats! You don't need big Dinos to build up tension in this film.

Most of the time when the Trex appeared ramming cars & busses, it was an animatronic model on a track which did it on close up shots.

When the T rex comes to the mainland & makes it's way to the sleepy neighbourhood & stops for a zip at a swimming pool (you know the rest if you watched it!) The Dog gets what it deserves for disturbing the Trex. Still the practical application of such incidents add up to the whole story.

The city scenes are a joy to look at and uses a mix of Animatronics & CGI models, If your a VFX lover, you should watch this movie soon. If you read through the entire writeup please be kind to leave a comment! how my writing is (English is not my primary language) I do this to improve my writing skills as well as to keep in track with the movies i have watched!

Von Ryan's Express - VFX review

Movie - Von Ryan's Express
Release - 1965
Directed by - Mark Robson
Cinematography - William H Daniels

This movie is about a set of US POWs that escape their prison camp with the help of  Fighter pilot Von Ryan who is recently brought to the camp. we can forget about CGI in this movie and talk about the practical effects pulled out to make this movies special effects look believable.

1965 is a good time for a movie based on WW II, as the director with a little bit of budget could move into actual locations, & that's what the director did. The films parts were shot in actual locations which adds to the realism & the details that portray a rich & a well planned movie. The movie has actual vehicles from big locomotives to the bikes, cars & planes.

The prison camp & all the sets were actually built, and theres nothing special to talk from a VFX perspective. It starts to add in when the set of POWs who with the help of Von Ryan escape the prison camp & get caught to the Germans. They are loaded into the train which becomes the stage to tell the story for more than half of it's running time. in this particular shot the compartment is made in a studio, the light rays are pulled out decently with smoke or dust particles present in the cabin. and a little bit of shake is added to the wagon to give it touch of realism. but I guess the movements were larger than that in a train made in 1950s.

Trains outside shots where the German soldiers who guard the train travel on the roof are actual footage. the shadows of the train against the green bushes alongside the road is a hard feet to pull with practical effects which need the use of a screen projection method. This screen projection is used in other shots of the movie.

This shot where the prisoner's make a hole in the wooden platform and drop out on to the rail track are just awesome for the time. the rail track is shot from a moving train & then projected onto a screen beneath the set.

In the next few minutes, just after dropping down, the set of guys roll away from the rail tracks. I think some of the wheels were taken away to provide a gap that is safe enough for the actors to roll over or it would have been fatal with a delay of a second or two. they have some kind of white sand or powder on them which is thrown against the black soil to give a dramatic smoke effect. this can be clearly seen from all the three actors who roll over to the side of the track.

Once the set climb back to the rail cars, the side shots are shot in a studio with moving footage projected to the back screen.

Then comes the fighter planes of the movie which look real, as there is no hint in stop motion nor projected backgrounds. The glass parts show the background nicely and the reflections are not fake.

The closeup shots of the cockpit against the mountain background is really good for the time as the plane behind the focus point too moves realistically. This was a studio shot but still it does not have any unrealistic effect.

This shot of the plane flying towards the train is again a screen projection, where the arial footage is projected to a stationary plain with a rotating blade, but still the shots are brief and used only few seconds, as the director had more footage of actual stuff to show.

Blowing of the tunnel entrance - this is miniature sets in action. this part is a scaled model where the explosion is set up and only shown in one angle.

Here the fighter plane coming towards the POWs is a stop motion feat pulled Ok with perfect shadowing but shows the jumping un-smooth stop motion effect.

When the POWs are able to shoot the plane successfully the pilot is shown getting hit, this glass crack effect must be a hand painted job over the actual footage. 

this is again a practical effect where the plain shot by Von ryan & the group crash into the rocky mountain.  Most probably a scaled model was sent rushing down and made to blow up as soon as it hit the rock.

Movie ends with Von ryan not being able to make it to the train. He is shot by the germans @ lay lifeless on the tracks. The movie is a good watch if you love the old WWII settings n story line.