it's 2030 & the sun's high radiation has killed almost all the human population & the remaining gather into safe areas & build robots called pilgrims. The movie has these pilgrims throughout the story & the sandy visuals are all thanks to the magic of visual effects. Worldwide FXs team delivered more than 800 Computer generated visual effects shots which includedCG environments, CG set extensions, holograms, painting out puppeteers & some robot creatures work.
more than 100 of the pilgrims were built with different variations and stages of damage. these animatronic models were then shot on green screen where possible & CGI models were used in some shots where the models were not smooth enough to pull the visual effects or jumps & actions that required.
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).
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 starringArnold 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.
Mask is a popular movie based on the comic series of the same name. The movies plot is simple but still the movie along with it's special effects & the Cast made it a great to watch piece. Movies special effects starts with the mask coming to act on jim Carrey who plays the lead role. when donned, the mask turns the individual into a cartoon character giving him/ it the magical powers it has in the cartoon world which affects the real world too.
Relying on practical effects for a small portion of the movie, like makeups and latex green make over the head, all the visual effects are CGI.
ILM was tasked with creating jim carrey & other Actors cartoon charachetrs, or mix them with thier cartoon counterparts so that a real 7 cartoonish mix was achieved on the final production.
Match moving characters, erasing entire parts from screen and then replacing them with computer created cartoon counterparts was done by the team at ILM.
Directed by Antonie Fuqua, the approach to VFX on this film is quoted as "I never want to see them, ever". The team at Zero VFX loved this. As a VFX studio they too reflect it on their name, the focus on not to show the viewer that VFX was used in the shots meant having a realistic output on every shot that required VFX.
A total of 700 VFX shots were delivered by Zero VFX for The Magnificent Seven. The actual filming took place on the sets at baton rogue, a wetland with humidity & rain storms passing by now & then. The VFX team was tasked with converting this wetland scenery into an old texas landscape. having worked with the director Antonie Fuqua on previous films, such as Equaliser, the VFX supervisor sean devereaux & the team were able to get involved in the film from it's pre production phases. The movie was all about the old west & all the VFX shots were laid out to support & enhance the narrative of the story.
As the filming took place at Baton Rogue & Santa Fe offer, the Zero VFX team was responsible in creating the beautiful town of rose creek with vistas of mountains with fiery skies & keeping them consistent throughout the movie. making a few shots vs keeping them consistent in a full movie was no easy task!. To overcome this, the VFX Zero team created a full 3D recreation of Rose creek with high quality LIDAR scans of every building on set. with this data, & the replicated VFX plates of Rose creek the actual set matched perfectly in every shot they wanted to do. they also shot more than a terabyte of scenery footage to use for the reference shots in creating the big background plates. Horses Horses Horses
After the big problem of creating Rose creek & keeping it consistent was over, the VFX team took it to the big showdown between the good guys & the bad guys. Explosions, digital horses, flying debris were needed to enhance the effects & make the audience feel it was the last place they wanted to be during the big battles.
Over 150 or at sometimes almost 300 actual horses were on set & the actual actors took part in the stunts. smoke bombs were set off during filming and the explosions had to be added later in the post production.
Volumetric effects with computer simulated explosions, smoke layers that acted as affected by winds & debris were made & mixed on post production. The level of realism is so believable, that when you watch the movie you connot tell between real & CGI!
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
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.
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!
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!
