Blade Runner: The Final Cut

[kelvinmack]

I have been meaning to post on this forum for quite some time. Last year I was fortunate enough to work on the "Blade Runner: Final Cut" project. Along with extensive original matte painting restoration I also got to create a new matte painting for Ridley Scott for the infamous "Batty's Dove" shot. it might be of interest for folks on this forum to get a glimpse of the process in making such a piece. Please excuse the primitive nature of my website as I am rather new to the medium and am often pressed for time. Comments are surely welcome, as I am well aware that this shot created a bit of controversy among "Blade Runner" fans.

http://www.kelvinmcilwain.com/Main/BRFC_final_Big.html

http://www.kelvinmcilwain.com/Main/BRFC_final_Big_files/shapeimage_1.jpg

Cheers,

Kelvin

[jeremy]

hey, fantastic stuff - did that replace the infamous dove shot background?

[emptyslot]

AWSOME :D blade runner is my ultimate favorite movie and i bought the collectors edition bluray box and i loved the final cut. the background replacement was okey by me i liked the new stuff and the awsome quallity of the movie was stunning. you and the rest of the team did a great job!

thanks

[Timmay]

Wow awesome work!

That must've been a treat to work on.

[richn]

much as i'm quite a purist at heart. I prefer this version, has a much better feel to it. The old one always bothered me, looked like a barn!

[nickmarshallvfx]

I think you did a great job on this! Im not a die hard blade runner original cut fan, so im looking at the work as i would any other movie, and i like what I see!

[britishrebel04]

Beautiful work! I've actually not seen the movie yet (I'm sure everyone wants to stone me now) but looking at your matte, I'm thinking maybe there was something I missed and that I should go back and watch it! I love that I was able to see it from concept to finish; keep up the wonderful work.

Cheers!

[kelvinmack]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the kind comments!

Working on "Blade Runner: The Final Cut" was a dream come true. The first time I ever read about matte painting was in an article in Fangoria magazine when I was about fifteen. It was about Matthew Yuricich and the matte paintings he and his team did for "Blade Runner". At the time it seemed like such a remote and mysterious profession that it never even occurred to me that I could some day be a Matte Artist.

jeremy:
Yes it did replace the infamous dove shot background. Lucky for me this shot has always bothered Ridley Scott and it was a priority for him to replace it.

It has occurred to me that the link I provided didn't take you to my home page easily. I will provide it below. I have tons of matte paintings that I have accumulated over the years that I am trying to get up on my site as time permits.

http://www.kelvinmcilwain.com/

I'm eager to discuss the business and welcome questions.

Cheers,

Kelvin

[Suirebit]

very nicely explained process...thanks :) share more like this if you have time, would help us all :)

[thenextside]

man what a cool opportunity! You are the envy of us all. Nice to see the process. Thanks for showing that.
Cheers,
Tim

[kelvinmack]

Tim,

Thanks for the comment. I have to say that I am envious in return of your work on the Bioshock TV spot. That is some beautiful work. We bid on the work for "Babel" when I was at Illusion Arts. It was disappointing not to get it.

Cheers,

Kelvin

[thenextside]

Thanks Kevin, that means a great deal coming from you. Regarding Babel it's always fun after the fact to find out who the other vendors were in the mix. You guys would have done a brilliant job I'm sure. Love the stuff on your site by the way. Your Vanhelsing work has always been a favorite of mine. I hadn't seen it before. Are you still with Illusion Arts?
Cheers,
Tim

[kelvinmack]

Tim,

No, I am no longer at Illusion Arts. This business of ours is at the same time wondrous and sometimes very cruel. Small companies like IA are getting squeezed very hard these days and last year was very difficult for the company. I decided that after 11 years it was time to move on and try something new. It was truly an marvelous run. Having Syd Dutton as my mentor was an amazing learning experience and changed my life as an artist and as a human being. Syd is a legend of matte painting and can do with a couple of brush strokes what most of us artists spend hours toiling over. I am very lucky to have had the experience that I had.

Currently I am broadening my horizons working on movie poster finish work for a company called "Daniel Clark and Associates". I'll attach some images of my latest work. Keep in mind that this level of work is a major team effort so I can't claim credit for everything. As a point of interest we used pieces of one of Dylan Cole's matte paintings on the "Prince Caspian" poster. I have also discovered that a lot of the tricks that I could get away with in film don't hold up in high resolution print work. The original artwork for the "Wall-E" poster that I created was 9K x 9K (a psd file with over a hundred layers and 5GB file size) so they could take different extractions for different media buys, such as billboards and bus sides. It is yet another learning experience. Thanks for all the kind words.


http://www.impawards.com/2008/posters/wall_e_ver3.jpg

http://www.impawards.com/2008/posters/chronicles_of_narnia_prince_caspian_ver2.jpg

http://www.impawards.com/2008/posters/nims_island.jpg

[thenextside]

Hi Kevin,

Sorry to hear that you had to leave IA. As you say it is an Icon in the industry. I really hope they bounce back. I think last year was rough for a few places including where I had been. Hence the move for me as well. It's frustrating when all you want to do is work on good projects and produce great work.

Your poster images don't seem to be showing up. I'd love to see them.
Great chatting.
All the best,
Tim

[kelvinmack]

Tim,

You aren't at Intelligent Creatures any more? The Los Angeles VFX business in general really seemed to struggle in 2007, but it seems to be coming back this year. I've been getting a lot of calls.

I'm sorry about the links. I guess certain websites don't like linking. So I have added them to my site and below.

Cheers,

Kelvin


http://www.kelvinmcilwain.com/Main/Narnia_2_files/narnia_prince_caspian.jpg

http://www.kelvinmcilwain.com/Main/Wall-E_files/wall_e.jpg

http://www.kelvinmcilwain.com/Main/Nims_files/nims_island.jpg

[thenextside]

Hey Kelvin,
First of all... big apology for calling you Kevin for all these posts. :(
No I left IC at the end of last year. I'm at Animal Logic in Sydney at the moment working on "Australia".
Great stuff by the way. I always thought movie posters would be cool. I was a huge Drew Struzan fan in college.

Cheers,
tim

[metalrahul]

Great Work man.. I can imagine how good a person will feels to work on something which inspired that person to do what he or she does now and I just feels happy for you!

[Giorgio]

hi kelvin, it's a very pleasure for me to can write you!
i'm sorry for my english, i'm italian, This forum is very important for me, i can look very talented artist like you, you are a great inspiration for artist as me, that trying to do this job...
very very thank you, for all.
About your works.....simple extraordinary
I hope to meet you soon
All the best
Giorgio

[warlord]

duuuuuuude!!!!!!
are you kidding me ...." 9K x 9K (a psd file with over a hundred layers and 5GB file size)"
thats insane, I would love to know what harware specs your machines have.
my pc is starting to struggle with 300MB psd's at 5k x 3k...i need an upgrade
must be an incredible mix of enjoyment, satisfaction and frustration... to work on something like that.
Im guessing that there were numerous revisions as well?
anyway, nice works there.....BRAVO
lincoln

[carschool]

Kelvin:

A number of fellow filmmakers and I got together early this year to watch BR on Blu-Ray. I am a BR addict, but I had the disc sitting on my shelf for a couple of weeks before we could all find a time to do it. Like buying a vintage wine and waiting for the right time to open it, I waited.

Finally we got to it, and though the film was full of surprises, I have to admit without (much) shame that when your shot came up I shouted and applauded!

Unlike a lot of special edition-type remakes, this shot is, I believe, truly what was intended for this film.

[kelvinmack]

Holy Cow! Didn't realize that this thread was still alive. For some reason I haven't been receiving email updates.

metalrahul : Yes I can't even explain how cool it was to do that shot for "BR: Final Cut" . I even got to meet Syd Mead at the premiere. He was kind enough to give his stamp of approval on the shot. It put me on cloud nine for him to even acknowledge the shot !

Giorgio : If you are ever in LA give me an email thru my website and we'll hook up. Some of the best artists I've met in this business are Italian so you definitely have that going for you.

warlord : Yeah it takes the latest and greatest hardware to work at a high level. I have the latest Intel Mac Pro with 16GB of RAM, unfortunately Photoshop still only recognizes 4GB of memory so you need a fast array of HDs for swap space to work on files of that size. The good thing is that Mental Ray can use all of that memory for 3D rendering. I recently saw that blue Wall-E poster on a building side in Santa Monica and it looked great so I was very happy.

carschool : Yeah, I was nervous about the shot but I think it turned out well. I recently had lunch with one of the original Matte Artist's on the project. He felt that the shot was good, but that I should have used more of the original models and elements from the original model photography, I think that he is right, but you do do the best you can at the time . If Ridley Scott and Syd Mead are happy that's enough for me.

Thanks for the comments guys. I have recently started my own company ( Kaliber Visual Effects ) and am currently working on a whole mess of shots for the the next installment of the "Fast and Furious" franchise, which I have worked on since the first one. Wish me luck.

Cheers,

Kelvin