rrische
01-08-2005, 08:43 PM
Here's a shot I worked on in 1991 for "Terminator 2: Judgment Day".
In the film, Sarah Connor has a recurring nightmare about the nuclear
holocaust she knows is coming in the near future. I was working at 4-Ward
Productions (a company headed by "Aliens" FX Supervisors Robert and
Dennis Skotak and producer Elaine Edford). In this shot, Jim Cameron
needed a "God's POV" angle of the entire city of Los Angeles being leveled
by the nuclear shockwave. Bob Skotak broke the shot down and decided
he wanted to use 2 matte paintings for the cityscape (one before and one
after the blast), a foreground miniature of an exploding house, and some
kind of effect that shows the city disintegrating as the shockwave passes.
He eventually decided to use CG for this effect (remember this was EARLY
in the history of CG). He hired the software developers at ElectricImage to
create an element of the buildings fragmenting as the wave progresses.
First, Bob commissioned an aerial photographer to shoot a high angle view
of downtown L.A from a helicopter. This photo was blown up to a 6 foot
enlargement and handed over to me. While the photographer had done
an OK job with the photo, the sun direction wasn't correct, and I had to
completely paint over the cityscape to put the light source in the upper
right, behind the buildings, as this was where ground zero was supposed to be.
I also needed to remove a number of buildings and shorten others, as
we needed a less cluttered view of the skyline. And the photo wasn't wide
enough to cover the Panavision frame, so I extended it out about 2 feet
on the left.
Next came the aftermath painting. Since the "after" view had to align
perfectly with the "before" view, I got a roll of clear, heavy duty plastic
and made an overlay that was in perfect registration with the before city.
Then, I brought in Richard Kilroy (a matte artist friend) and together we
completely painted over the scene with miles and miles of nuclear
devastation.
Once the "before" view of the city was completed, it was photographed and
sent to ElectricImage. They match-modeled the area of the city seen in the
shot, and wrote software to generate the radiating blast and debris element.
Then the shot was assembled on stage using beam-splitters to overlay
different elements on top of each other, and to wipe the before painting
to the after painting, one frame at a time. It took a team of seven about
15 hours to complete a single take.
This shot uses many different kinds of elements (matte paintings, models,
CG) but it's interesting to note that by themselves, these elements aren't
really that special. But combined in the composite, the shot is stunning.
I'm very proud to have had the opportunity to work on it.
Here are the matte paintings-
http://img131.exs.cx/img131/5813/no2paintings1xu.jpg
Here is the CG element created by ElectricImage-
http://img153.exs.cx/img153/6141/no2cg8ko.jpg
And here's the final composite-
http://img153.exs.cx/img153/7789/no2finalsmall6nh.jpg
In the film, Sarah Connor has a recurring nightmare about the nuclear
holocaust she knows is coming in the near future. I was working at 4-Ward
Productions (a company headed by "Aliens" FX Supervisors Robert and
Dennis Skotak and producer Elaine Edford). In this shot, Jim Cameron
needed a "God's POV" angle of the entire city of Los Angeles being leveled
by the nuclear shockwave. Bob Skotak broke the shot down and decided
he wanted to use 2 matte paintings for the cityscape (one before and one
after the blast), a foreground miniature of an exploding house, and some
kind of effect that shows the city disintegrating as the shockwave passes.
He eventually decided to use CG for this effect (remember this was EARLY
in the history of CG). He hired the software developers at ElectricImage to
create an element of the buildings fragmenting as the wave progresses.
First, Bob commissioned an aerial photographer to shoot a high angle view
of downtown L.A from a helicopter. This photo was blown up to a 6 foot
enlargement and handed over to me. While the photographer had done
an OK job with the photo, the sun direction wasn't correct, and I had to
completely paint over the cityscape to put the light source in the upper
right, behind the buildings, as this was where ground zero was supposed to be.
I also needed to remove a number of buildings and shorten others, as
we needed a less cluttered view of the skyline. And the photo wasn't wide
enough to cover the Panavision frame, so I extended it out about 2 feet
on the left.
Next came the aftermath painting. Since the "after" view had to align
perfectly with the "before" view, I got a roll of clear, heavy duty plastic
and made an overlay that was in perfect registration with the before city.
Then, I brought in Richard Kilroy (a matte artist friend) and together we
completely painted over the scene with miles and miles of nuclear
devastation.
Once the "before" view of the city was completed, it was photographed and
sent to ElectricImage. They match-modeled the area of the city seen in the
shot, and wrote software to generate the radiating blast and debris element.
Then the shot was assembled on stage using beam-splitters to overlay
different elements on top of each other, and to wipe the before painting
to the after painting, one frame at a time. It took a team of seven about
15 hours to complete a single take.
This shot uses many different kinds of elements (matte paintings, models,
CG) but it's interesting to note that by themselves, these elements aren't
really that special. But combined in the composite, the shot is stunning.
I'm very proud to have had the opportunity to work on it.
Here are the matte paintings-
http://img131.exs.cx/img131/5813/no2paintings1xu.jpg
Here is the CG element created by ElectricImage-
http://img153.exs.cx/img153/6141/no2cg8ko.jpg
And here's the final composite-
http://img153.exs.cx/img153/7789/no2finalsmall6nh.jpg