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Blink’s directing trio Lynn Fox and the Mill London 3D team have just finished a beautiful spot for the Audi A5. ‘Lines’ is a fully CG animated spot directed by Lynn Fox and collaboratively designed by Mill 3D’s team including James Sindle and Mikko Martikainen, and Mill 3D’s concept designer Ross Urien.

The piece is inspired by the fine design lines of the new Audi A5. The animation of the piece was created in unison by both Lynn Fox and the Mill 3D team, with the Mill setting up a specific project room for the duration of the project to house the entire team.

The piece follows a mesmerising journey of many colourful lines creating ambient shapes that slowly reveal the form of the new Audi. This all creates and almost kaleidoscope effect. The team decided to use very simple and current primary colours like red, green and blue for maximum effect.

One of the most challenging aspects of this project was editing all the animation to the fantastic classical music piece by piece. Once the animation was edited the team worked on the colour pallets as this was also a very important part of the brief. The other major challenge was to design the animated journey of the lines so that the cars shape and form would be revealed subtly at certain moments.

Pat Joseph the Mill’s Group Creative Director says “we are extremely happy with the final result and the collaborative nature which were able to work with both Lynn Fox and BBH. What i do believe shines out from the final piece is the initial test work and R&D the 3D team did at the beginning of the Project. ‘Lines’ is a perfect example of a great job where the Mill was involved right from the outset of the project.

Kit wise Maya was used to create the animation, combined with some in-house plug-ins written by Mill R&D’s James Studdart. Shake and Flame were then both used for the final composites, where great care was spent on the depth of field, enhancing the textures and finessing the grade to achieve the sublime definition of the car shape.

The Mill

London
40-41 Great Marlborough St.
Soho, London W1F 7JQ
+44 20 7287 4041

New York
451 Broadway 5th floor
New York NY 10013
+1 212 337 3210

Los Angeles 1657 Euclid Street Santa Monica CA 90404 +1 310 566 3111
info@the-mill.com

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For its latest feat of magic, RIOT undertook a task that many would consider impossible: getting kids to eat their vegetables. The studio supplied file-based color correction and visual effects services for two Hidden Valley spots which conjure an idealized world where youngsters gobble up broccoli and cauliflower as if they were ice cream.

The project is the latest example of RIOT’s integrated approach to digital production. In this instance, the studio employed a data-centric workflow that allowed Colorist Siggy Ferstl to collaborate seamlessly with the visual effects team. The approach helped to speed production, hold costs in check, and achieve creative results that could not have been attained through conventional post production workflow.

The two spots, conceived by DDB San Francisco, use humor to encourage kids to dip their veggies in Hidden Valley’s ranch dressing. One spot shows an amusement park where, instead of popcorn, cart vendors serve up bags heaping with cauliflower florets and kids engage, not in pie eating contests, but in downing plates of salad. The other spot shows kids flocking to a man serving “lettuce cones” and other goodies from the side of a vegetable truck.

RIOT’s role was to present the commercials’ environments as an Eden-like paradise. It did so by giving colors a super-real intensity and by creating a series of dimensional matte paintings that make both the amusement park and the neighborhood appear to be part of a “hidden valley” of rolling hills, lush foliage and quaint homes.

Ferstl performed the color work on a Resolve, Da Vinci’s digital mastering suite, which allowed him to manipulate the imagery in the form of 2K data. Because Resolve can accommodate edit decision lists, he was also able to color the spots in cut order. Additionally, the coloring system allowed him to affect colors individually, something that was key to his ability to achieve the spot’s brilliantly colorful look.

“We went for deep, rich colors without saturation,” Ferstl explained. “I accomplished that by isolating and deepening colors: blues, greens, reds and yellows.” Ferstl also isolated details within the frame for specific manipulation—including the products – which appear in the final shot in both spots, making them stand out while blending naturally into the overall color scheme.

As Ferstl performed his work, colored shots were passed onto the visual effects team. The imagery was maintained at 2K resolution with 10-bit color. That allowed artists to add visual effects elements and further enhance colors and other aspects of the imagery without diminishing its quality. The visual effects artists were also able to return shots to First’s Resolve suite for further color enhancement at their original resolution and bit depth, again preserving maximum image quality.

“The larger color space gave our artists maximum range to work in,” observed RIOT Creative Director Andy Mac. “It provided the ideal base layer for the matte paintings.”

The matte paintings were produced in 2 ½ dimensions and consisted of many layers of individual elements—tree, hillside, cloud and sky. Compositors were able to tie the layered elements to the camera movement employed in the live action element to create the illusion of full 3D. Although the scenery seems impossibly beautiful, this trick creates a strong sense of realism and makes it very difficult to distinguish which elements are “visual effects.”

“It’s so understated that it’s hard to tell how much work went into it,” recalled Mac. “We put a lot of thought into how we constructed our team and our workflow and that allowed us to achieve a unique look. It also proved to be very efficient and cost effective, and it provided the client with a lot of flexibility.”

www.riotatlanta.com

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Anthem Visual Effects recently completed over 100 visual effects shots for “Marco Polo,” a miniseries and feature film produced by RHI Entertainment, announced Lee Wilson, President and Visual Effects Supervisor at Anthem.

“Marco Polo” was produced by executive producers Robert Halmi, Sr., Robert Halmi Jr.and Uwe Schott and producers Matthew O’Connor, Michael O’Connor and Shan Tam. It was directed by Kevin Connor (“Blackbeard”) and written by Ron Hutchinson (“The Ten Commandments”). Shot as a four-hour miniseries, “Marco Polo” will make its U.S. network debut as a three-hour movie June 2 on the Hallmark Channel. The miniseries will air internationally in various countries.

The epic story was shot entirely on location in China and is a compelling exploration of the trials and triumph of one of history’s most famous, yet enigmatic figures. Ian Somerhalder (“Lost”) plays Marco Polo, the 13th Century Venetian trader enlisted to accompany a pair of priests to the court of the fabled Mongol warlord and despot of the mysterious East, Kublai Khan, played by Brian Dennehy (“Cocoon,” “Our Fathers”).

Anthem created a myriad of matte paintings for cities and settings that no longer exist in the present day, or have developed into modern landscapes (requiring the removal of many elements that did not match the old world time period), including old Beijing surrounding the Forbidden City, the coast of China (complete with pirate ships) and the Mongolian countryside hosting numerous army encampments. Anthem also created a realistic CG pirate ship for a battle sequence. The studio also performed crowd replication for a land battle scene and events at the Khan’s compound in the Forbidden City. In order to portray the massive army of the Kublai Khan, Anthem cloned the 60 extras supplied by Production, and then inserted the multiple “clone” passes into the wide plate shots. The final result was dynamic, colorful crowds numbering in the thousands.

Anthem researched the historical context of elements used to recreate Marco’s hometown of Venice and relit greenscreen shots of the streets of Venice to place the action outside with the sun shining.

The studio designed and created the maps of Marco’s journey giving them an authentic appearance appropriate to Marco’s day and age but also incorporating modern signifiers for the understanding of the audience.

Anthem is currently busy creating more than 1,000 visual effects shots for “Tin Man,” a six-hour miniseries from RHI Entertainment for the SCI FI Channel. Anthem also recently created effects for RHI’s “Son of the Dragon” miniseries (set to air in 2008 on the Hallmark Channel) and completed over 130 effects for the third installment in director Dario Argento’s horror trilogy “The Third Mother.” The studio produced hundreds of visual effects shots for the first two seasons of IDT Entertainment’s “Masters of Horror” series for Showtime, as well as for New Line Cinema’s “The Butterfly Effect 2.”

About Anthem Visual Effects
Vancouver, B.C. based Anthem Visual Effects was founded in 2004 by President and Visual Effects Supervisor Lee Wilson, CFO and Visual Effects Producer Lisa Sepp-Wilson, and VP and Digital Effects Supervisor Sebastien Bergeron. Anthem’s inaugural project was the Hallmark/SCI FI Channel miniseries “Legend of Earthsea” for which the studio delivered over 200 visual effects shots and went on to receive a 2005 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Special Visual Effects For a Miniseries, Movie or a Special. www.anthemfx.com

www.anthemfx.com

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Visual Effects Studio An Ideal World worked its magic on a new spot for Texas-based Fiesta Supermarkets in which a shopper is surprised to find a living, breathing (and wisecracking) mermaid lying on a bed of ice in the store’s seafood department. Conceived by Houston agency Lopez Negrete, the spot makes a humorous pitch for the store’s fresh seafood. Locke Bryan Productions was the production company.

The task for An Ideal World was to cement the mermaid illusion by making the creature’s hair “float” around its head as if it were underwater. Although a CG solution was initially considered, An Ideal World’s founder and visual effects supervisor Robb Hart thought better results could be attained through a practical approach. “The best way to capture the organic feel of hair underwater is to shoot hair underwater,” reasoned Hart.

Hart’s technique involved shooting the mermaid and her hair as separate elements. The actress playing the mermaid was shot in a Houston supermarket and wore a tiara-like headdress with six inch tentacles adorned with tiny soccer balls. “The soccer balls made perfect tracking marks to tie the hair to her head movement,” Hart said.

Hart then shot a voluminous black wig, attached to a foam head, in a swimmimg pool in California and manipulated it to match the actresses’ movement. He brought a portable visual effects workstation to both locations and that allowed him to create rough composites on the spot. “We use an AJA IO and a laptop running Final Cut,” he explained. “We test the effects on nearly every shoot to make sure everyone is happy with the look before we leave the set.”

Hart and his staff performed the compositing work (using Apple’s Shake) at his studio in Santa Ana, California, while editorial was being carried on in Texas. “We fed the online suite in Houston with our shots via ftp,” Hart said. “using the Avid HD codec, we were able to send two-second high def shots over the Internet in about 20 minutes. All of the reviews were done remotely.”

Lopez Negrete Communication’s Vice President of Creative Direction, Javier Gonzalez-Herba said that An Ideal World made what could have been a complex and difficult production seem effortless. “Robb Hart’s eye for detail and ability to make complicated special effects seem effortless has made him the successful visionary he is today,” Gonzalez-Herba said. “We are very pleased, as is our client, with the special effects and visuals Robb and his team created for Fiesta Mart’s latest spot.”
An Ideal World is located in the Artists Village of Santa Ana at 209 N. Bush St., Santa Ana, CA 92701. For more information, call (714) 953-9501 or visit www.anidealworld.com.

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Design firm 72andSunny, have just released the first of several new artist collaborations to be featured on zune-arts.net over the next two months. The latest is a music video short entitled “Los Corazones” that is animated by Argentinean collective Punga and set to the song “Lex” by electro-rockers Ratatat. The film tells a noirish story of a lonely soul who resurrects his dead friend by sharing half of his heart. Dancing and hijinx ensue.

The unique design of the main character is a twist on a creature often featured in Punga’s other projects. “I don’t know if that character is a monkey or a teddy bear or a combination of both but we loved it from the get-go,” said Jason Norcross, Writer, 72andSunny. “Most of our communication with the animators was about story. We gave them a lot of freedom in execution. For obvious reasons.”

The Zune Arts program and website launched in August of 2006, in anticipation of the launch of the Zune media player. The program’s ongoing mission is to live the Zune brand idea of friendship and sharing through inspiring collaborations between artists in all mediums.

“Zune Arts has had great energy around it since day one. Already it is one of Zune’s most successful programs and it has been a useful platform both for Zune and for the artists involved,” said Glenn Cole, Creative Director and Co-Founder, 72andSunny. “Every day, we hear from new artists who want to participate. And it’s inspiring to see Zune help out some of the artists with their personal art projects.”

Punga is an artist collective led by Tomas Dieguez, one of the most renowned designers in Argentina. Ratatat is guitarist Mike Stroud and synth driver/producer Evan Mast out of NYC. Both shared their hearts on this project and lived to tell the tale.

“This is one of the most impressive Zune Arts collaborations to date in terms of quality, detail, and sophistication,” said John Boiler, Creative Director and Co-Founder, 72andSunny. “This might be my favorite Zune Arts film yet.”

PROJECT CREDITS:
Project: Zune Arts “Los Corazones”
Airdate: May 23, 2007
Length: :60

Client: Microsoft Zune, Redmond, WA
Marketing Manager: Peter Kingsley

Concept: 72andSunny / Los Angeles, CA
Creative Director: Glenn Cole
Writers: Jason Norcross, Bryan Rowles
Producer: Rebekah Mateu
Brand Manager: Jessica Lewis

Animation: Punga / Buenos Aires, Argentina
Music: “Lex” by Ratatat

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Entertainment and design company Imaginary Forces (IF) was recently called upon by Walt Disney Pictures to create a teaser for its upcoming feature, “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.” The teaser breaks today with the premiere of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.”

In the “National Treasure” sequel, treasure hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) looks to discover the truth behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by uncovering the 18 missing pages from assassin John Wilkes Booth’s diary, and embarks on an adventure with many surprising twists.

The 1:40-minute teaser, art-directed by Sean Koriakin of Imaginary Forces, opens on a CG 19th century globe. The viewer is taken into the globe where script type – from the 18 missing pages of Booth’s diary – is revealed. Gates (Cage) provides the voiceover, telling the story as though we are seeing the adventure in his head. Through his deductive thought process, we follow the type where highlighted clues and symbols lead to animated images of President Lincoln and his assassination, and to various landmarks in Paris, London and the US where this global journey takes Gates and his team.

“What’s nice about this teaser is that it stays true to the storyboards we pitched to the client,” says Koriakin. “Everything from the color to script type to the globe to stylistic elements; we were able to execute our concept all the way through to the end. We didn’t have much film footage to work with initially so we used as much animation and motion graphics as possible to tell the story – to connect its action, extensive historical references and global perspective.”

Within the body of the teaser are Masonic symbols, hidden and embedded by IF into the landmarks. The symbols also turn into the cast run at the end of the film. Fire and smoke elements were shot by the IF team, which were included in the animated portion when Booth’s pages were incinerated, as well as all of the graphic cards in the teaser.

The animations were created in Autodesk Maya and Adobe After Effects, and composited in Autodesk Inferno. All of the type and symbols were designed and animated in Maxon Cinema 4D. The entire teaser, including film footage, was edited in Avid.

“We have a great existing relationship with the Disney team,” concludes Annabelle Richardson, IF Executive Producer. “Our goal was to stay true to the ‘National Treasure’ franchise. We had a lot fun with this project.”

Koriakin concurs, “I never dreamt that I’d have to model a 3D Abraham Lincoln head!”

CREDITS
Designed & Produced by: Imaginary Forces (IF)
Creative Director: Peter Frankfurt
Art Director: Sean Koriakin
Executive Producer: Annabelle Richardson
Producer: Pascal Leister
Designers: Sean Koriakin, Ronnie Koff,
Animators: Sean Koriakin, Nate Homan, Andrew Soria, Dan Meehan, Hsaio-Fan Mo, Ryan Zunkley, Juan Monasterio, David Lewandowski, Freda Lau, Gary Hebert, Justin Nardone, Miguel Lee, Sal Rangel,
Editors: Keith Roberts, Walter Louie
Inferno Artists: Rod Basham, Matt Spencer
Production Coordinators: Joe Denk, Courtney Graham

Studio: Buena Vista Motion Pictures Marketing
Buena Vista Pictures Marketing, President, Creative Film Services: Jim Gallagher
Buena Vista Pictures Marketing, Executive Vice President, Creative Film Services: David Singh
Buena Vista Pictures Marketing, Vice President, Creative Film Services: Jeff Schectman

Music Company: Musikvergnuegen
Composer: Walter Werzowa

Additional Editorial: The Ant Farm

About Imaginary Forces
IMAGINARY FORCES (IF) is an entertainment and design company based in Hollywood and New York. Its award-winning work spans the diverse industries of feature film production, entertainment marketing and promotion, corporate branding, architecture, advertising and interactive media. IF’s recent work includes identity packages for Lifetime, USA Network, Animal Planet and MTV, as well as effective and compelling broadcast advertising for Nike, Toyota, Pontiac, Smirnoff and Lexus.

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Newly returned from their feature debut, Alien vs. Predator 2, tight’s The Brothers Strause have created a striking ad for the 2008 Mercury Mariner, accomplishing exactly what the new vehicle promises to be: the perfect synthesis of style and technology.

The ad, part of a larger campaign helmed by the Brothers and created by Y&R Team Detroit, employs the latest 3D computer-generated animation technology to create visually captivating images of the 2008 Mercury Mariner that focus on the vehicle’s design features and its available hybrid powertrain.

The TV spots are produced by Tight Films and directed by The Brothers Strause, an award-winning team whose latest credits include VFX Supervision on the movies, “300,” the “X-Men: The Last Stand,” and the Academy-Award winning “Titanic.”

Hydraulx, a special effects company owned by The Brothers Strause, researched particle and fluid movement and created their own computer code to generate the sound wave effect in the first Mariner spot. Two additional TV spots, also directed by The Brothers Strause, are planned to begin airing later this month. A similar creative approach will be carried through to the online ad campaign, which also is slated to begin in April.

“We’ve put a lot of creative power behind these ads because we want to underscore the design sophistication of the 2008 Mercury Mariner,” said Mike Richards, Lincoln Mercury General Marketing Manager. “The Mariner is a very important vehicle to our line-up as it has proven to be very effective in attracting new customers to the Mercury brand. The latest sales data shows more than a 48 percent conquest rate for the Mercury Mariner and that it has been well-received among a diverse range of consumers.”

The Mercury ad campaign employs sophisticated photography techniques and draws the eye to the Mariner’s contemporary design. The first TV spot for the 2008 Mercury Mariner, titled “Sound Waves,” opens with Mercury spokesperson Jill Wagner posing the question, “What happens when an idea strikes just the right note?” Wagner taps the Mercury logo and sound waves reverberate and take shape in the form of the Mercury Mariner. The image then comes into focus to highlight the new design features of the vehicle, both inside and out.

About Tight Films
The latest venture of distinguished ad industry mainstay Jonathon Ker – in which he is partnered with Rich Carter and Don Block – is as its name suggests: a solid, close-knit commercial production company with three directors on the roster and a master plan that includes no more than six.

Related Links:
Click here to view video
www.tightfilms.com
www.media.ford.com
www.mercuryvehicles.com

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Quiet moments of wonder build from a gentle droplet to a storm in the masterful new Nintendo spot. Here magic rains from the sky in the form of Pokemon balls as children look on with awe and wise understanding. The project is the result in an intensely collaborative process by the creative teams including agency Leo Burnett, Director Benjamin Blank, rival Editor Karen Knowles Zuniga and the effects team from Hi-Ground Media.

“The last five months on this project were incredible,” says Leo Burnett VP/Associate Director Tom Gorton. “The team vibe — from the Nintendo client to Karen and rival to everyone at Hi-Ground/Locksmith – made it one of my best production experiences, with a fantastic end result to boot.”

Shot on location in New Zealand, “Pokeballs” ushers the arrival of the new Pokemon as experienced by children around the world. For rival Editor Karen Knowles Zuniga, the challenge was choosing the most effective moments while providing exact timing for the photorealistic CG balls to be added after her initial edit was complete.

“(Director) Benjamin Blank delivered spectacular material – the casting and the imagery of the children is just incredible. So my job was to hand pick the most honest, subtle moments that would capture the inherent magic of the story,” comments Knowles Zuniga. “I also had to allow room, time and space, for the character of the balls so that the multiplying shower could be integrated seamlessly and with impact. That was really fun because I had to dig into my imagination and envision what was to come.”

“Karen and I really saw eye to eye. She understands subtlety and how small details can effect storytelling,” notes Director Benjamin Blank. “My goal was to create something epic, but rooted in reality rather than pure fantasy. Casting played a major role, as did the fact that we all saw the spot the same way and worked to that realization.”

Echoing the sentiment of both Gorton and Blank, Knowles Zuniga says everyone was committed to the concept and collaborated with the sole intention of creating something special. “We worked as true creative partners with a shared vision,” she concurs. “Each person brought their individual expertise and never lost focus, all the while working together. It was rewarding, and I think the energy and enthusiasm shows in the final spot.”

CREDITS
Client: Nintendo
Spot Title & Length: “Pokeballs” :60, :30, :15×2
Air Date: May 18th, 2007

EDITORIAL COMPANY: rival editorial/ Santa Monica, CA
Editor: Karen Knowles Zuniga
Asst. Editor: Jason Dopko
Executive Producer: Bill Fortney
vAGENCY : Leo Burnett, USA/Chicago
Producer: Juan Woodbury
SVP / Executive Creative Director: Bill Stone
SVP / Executive Creative Director: Dominick Maiolo
VP / Associate Director: Tom Gorton
VP / Associate Creative Director: Jason Wright
VP / Executive Producer: Mary Cheney

PRODUCTION COMPANY: Locksmith
Director: Benjamin Blank
Executive Producer: Steve McDonald
DP: Ian McCarroll
Producer: Megan Francis

VISUAL EFFECTS COMPANY: Hi-Ground Media
EP: David Hofflich
Creative Director/ VFX Supervisor: Duy Nquyen
Coordinator: Judd Rubin
CGI Artists: Adrian Diamond & Erik Lee

SOUND: Eleven Sound/Santa Monica
Mixer: Jeff Fuller
Executive Producer: DJ Fox-Engstrom

MUSIC: Comma Music/Chicago
Creative Director: Larry Pecorella, Bryan Rheude
Composer: Justin Hori

TELECINE: Company 3/Santa Monica
Colorist: Sean Coleman

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Noted colorist Beau Leon won the MVPA Award for Best Colorist/Telecine for his work on the music video for “Welcome to the Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance. Leon is director of telecine at creative design and digital production studio The Syndicate.

In addition to the win in the Best Colorist/Telecine category, the darkly emotional music video from the band’s platinum album “Black Parade” also won the award for Best Styling. The video was directed by acclaimed commercial and music video director Samuel Bayer (Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Green Day “American Idiot,” Justin Timberlake “What Goes Around…”)

Leon worked with Bayer on much of the director’s early work and on the acclaimed videos he created for Green Day. Said Leon of their collaboration, “Sam and I each have an intuitive sense of what we like aesthetically and we’re able to push each other creatively. On ‘Welcome to the Black Parade,’ we felt that we got exactly what we wanted: the rich, but muted feel of an old film print, which was perfect for the song and its art direction.” Leon worked with film negative, but treated it as a print in the telecine, reversing the polarity for softened highlights and enhanced grain and texture.

The Music Video Production Association (MVPA) is a non-profit trade organization created to address the concerns of the music video industry. Its membership includes the majority of music video production and post-production companies, as well as editors, directors, producers, cinematographers, choreographers, script supervisors, computer animators and make-up artists.

The 16th Annual MVPA Awards were held on Wednesday, May 16, at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles.

About The Syndicate
The Syndicate is a creative design, branding services and digital production studio specializing in live action direction, visual effects, animation, motion graphics, and telecine for commercials, television and music videos. A division of Santa Maria-based CafeFX, an award-winning feature film visual effects facility, The Syndicate has worked with top agencies, networks and studios on commercials, television programs, and music videos that have been seen around the world.www.syndicate.tv

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Feature film visual effects facility CafeFX created a vertigo-inducing crane disaster sequence for SPIDER-MAN™ 3, setting the stage for a classic Spidey rescue. The 46-shot sequence, along with 35 additional shots, was awarded to CafeFX by Sony Pictures Imageworks, lead effects facility for SPIDER-MAN 3, the latest in the multimillion-dollar franchise.

CafeFX integrated hundreds of animated CG elements with live action cinematography, models and miniatures, digital doubles and photographic backgrounds of New York in the hybrid production of this signature sequence, which is also seen from multiple angles and triple takes. Scott Gordon, visual effects supervisor at CafeFX, oversaw the production of visual effects, along with VFX producer Richard Ivan Mann, CG supervisor Akira Orikasa, and lead FX TD Rif Dagher.

The scene opens as a steel beam, suspended from an out-of-control construction crane, spins toward a glass-encased skyscraper. From her photo shoot inside, Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) reacts to the impending disaster and the audience sees her dawning horror in the reflection of the windows. She dives for cover as the beam slices through the space, shattering windows and shearing off support columns. The off-balance crane then swings in a wild arc and takes out the floor below, causing the floor that Gwen is on to collapse and tilt at a perilous angle.

Without anything to break her fall, Gwen slides helplessly toward the now open edge of the building, along with office furniture, desks, chairs, computers, papers, pens and pencils. She manages to snag a phone cord for a brief, heart-stopping moment, but her halt at the precipice is broken by the impact of an enormous desk. In a truly terrifying shot, she shifts her hold in an instant to a thin piece of metal facing from the building’s exterior, which bows under her weight and slings her out over the chasm below.

he crane, meanwhile, in a violent upward pitch, carves a devastating 10-story gash in the building, sweeping Gwen from her precarious spot in an explosion of glass and debris. It is at this moment, of course, that she is rescued by Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire), who uses the colliding boulder-sized chunks of concrete to ratchet up his speed until he reaches Gwen in mid-fall.

Because the scene is played out from multiple perspectives, from street level to bird’s eye view, from within the office to the building’s exterior, it has all the heightened reality of the frozen moment one experiences just before an accident. From a visual effects production standpoint, perfect continuity and precise timing were required in order to finesse a sequence with this level of drama and detail, in all of its many iterations.

Scott Gordon, visual effects supervisor for CafeFX, said “The crane disaster sequence challenged us on all levels. In order for the action to work, it had to play out against the ultimate choreography, integration and interaction of countless practical and CG elements.”

Photographic backgrounds, shot by Imageworks, were tiled and mapped by CafeFX onto geometry of the Manhattan cityscape throughout the sequence. A real steel beam is intercut with a CG beam; the model crane cab augmented with CG glass and a CG crane. Plates of an actual building in New York were juxtaposed with its perfect CG counterpart, only to be destroyed in a hail of procedurally animated and propagated glass, rubble and smoke, achieved with cebas Thinking Particles, which enabled artists to define the rules and conditions of particle behavior. An unreleased version of Sitrisati’s Fume FX fluid system, which understood the topology changes of Thinking Particles, was used for smoke and dust elements. Mental Ray was used to render the CG building, crane and environment while cebas finalRender Stage-2, noted for speed and image quality, handled the office furniture, paper and debris. A myriad of unwanted reflections were removed and necessary CG ones added. Live action plates were re-projected on CG backgrounds and miniature photography reworked and re-timed to accommodate editorial changes. CG debris slams onto the street below, impaling a CG taxicab. Months of painstaking paint work were required to remove safety harness wires and their shadows.

“Our relationship with Imageworks was just ideal. The process of sharing shots and assets was as fluid as any project I’ve ever worked on,” said Mann. “The crane disaster sequence went so well that Imageworks assigned us 35 more shots.”

Among those were backgrounds for the climactic final battle between Spider-Man and Sandman and the addition of a matte painting of the city square for the key to the city sequence. CafeFX also used Massive software to populate the large crowd that has gathered for the ceremony. Other shots crafted by CafeFX included the rivets that burst from a subway water tank; burning butter and beaten eggs in a skillet; a foggy field; eye shield extensions for the villain Venom; and tears in Sandman’s eyes to enhance emotion.

Gordon observed, “We are seeing a greater trend toward the use of visual effects to heighten a dramatic moment and to provide a greater range of editorial choices.”

Imagework’s visual effects supervisor Scott Stokdyk said “CafeFX did outstanding visual effects work on SPIDER-MAN 3 at all levels. They were able to deliver creative and beautiful visual solutions to complex shots, and work efficiently under very demanding circumstances. The crane disaster work that CafeFX did was particularly well done, with fantastic integration work of different photographic and CG elements. CafeFX also successfully collaborated with Imageworks and its pipeline on a few shared shots, giving maximum flexibility to the filmmakers.”

Jeff Barnes, CEO of CafeFX, noted, “We are very proud of our contributions to SPIDER-MAN 3. Imageworks has raised the bar for visual effects and created a high level of expectation for the SPIDER-MAN films, so we are honored that they believed in our creativity and technical capabilities.”

CafeFX is currently in production on visual effects for FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER, EVAN ALMIGHTY, THE KITE RUNNER, and THE MIST, and recently completed GHOST RIDER, PAN’S LABYRINTH, THE DEPARTED, and ERAGON.

The company’s production pipeline is configured with Autodesk Maya, cebas Thinking Particles, Sitrisati Fume FX, eyeon Digital Fusion, Autodesk Combustion, Massive, Autodesk Mental Ray, cebas finalRender Stage-2, 2d3 Boujou, Adobe After Effects and Apple Shake.

About CafeFX
CafeFX is an award-winning feature film visual effects facility offering visual effects production and supervision, CG character creation, and 3D animation. Founded in 1993 by Jeff Barnes and David Ebner, CafeFX is located in a 36,000-square-foot studio on an eight-acre campus in the heart of Santa Barbara County. The company’s credits include SPIDER-MAN™ 3, GHOST RIDER, PAN’S LABYRINTH, THE DEPARTED, ERAGON, SIN CITY, KING KONG, MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA and THE AVIATOR.

Its commercial and music video division, Santa Monica-based The Syndicate, is a creative design, branding services and digital production studio, specializing in live action direction, visual effects, animation, motion graphics, and telecine.

CafeFX and The Syndicate are held by umbrella corporation the ComputerCafe Group, which has also established Sententia Entertainment, a long form production company. With a focus on both live action and animated projects, Sententia Entertainment is poised to capitalize on years of experience in the feature film market while developing a catalog of properties utilizing the proven strengths of sister companies CafeFX and The Syndicate. Among Sententia’s credits are PAN’S LABYRINTH and DANIKA.

www.cafefx.com

CAFEFX CREDITS:

Visual Effects Supervisor Scott Gordon

Visual Effects Producer Richard Ivan Mann

CG Supervisor Akira Orikasa

Lead FX TD Rif (Rifaat) Dagher

CG Artists Manuel H. Guizar
Will Nicholson
Geoff Mark

FX Animators Mike Fischer
Joe Scarr

Color & Lighting TD John Volny
Model/Texture Artists Steve Arguello
Vlad Bina
Alexander Pouchkarev

3D Matchmoving Lead Kevin Hoppe

3D Matchmovers Andy Byrne
Aaron Singer

Matte Painter Lei Jin

Compositing Supervisor Edwardo Mendez

Compositors Mike Bozulich
Richard R. Reed
Robin Graham
Christopher Scott LeDoux
Jorge de los Santos

Rotoscope/2D Paint Artists Lindsay M. Anderson
Chris Pinto
Ruben Rodas

VFX Editor Desi R. Ortiz

VFX Coordinator Wendy Hulbert

3-D Technical Support Brian “B-Op” Openshaw

Production Executives Jeffrey T. Barnes
David Ebner
O.D. Welch

Executive Producer Vicki Galloway Weimer

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