The Moving Picture Company and A Game of Shadows

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| January 31, 2012 | 10:42 pm or 11:42 pm GMT

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from the The Art of VFX article:

What is your background?
I studied mechanical engineering in college and worked in product design for about 2 years before moving into visual effects. I first worked as a compositor at RGA Los Angeles, then Warner Digital Studios and Cinesite Hollywood. I then moved to Sony Pictures Imageworks, where I stayed for 11 years and worked as a compositor/lighter, CG Supervisor, and DFX Supervisor. Currently, I’m a visual effects supervisor at MPC Vancouver.

How did MPC got involved on this show?
MPC had worked together with Chas Jarrett, the show VFX supervisor, before on a few shows, so Chas was familiar with MPC’s abilities and strengths. For SHERLOCK 2, Chas was very interested in our in-house destruction tool Kali, that can produce very complex physical simulations, and which was a good fit for the work, such as the watchtower destruction.

How was the collaboration with director Guy Ritchie and Production VFX Supervisor Chas Jarrett?
Chas was great to work with, he had some areas where he was very specific, and other areas where he gave us a lot of creative freedom to develop the environments and ideas for shots. Chas always has a strong focus on the intent of the shot, is it telling the point it needs to? is it giving the appropriate sense of time period and ambience? Guy has a lot of confidence in Chas in that same manner, he knows what the shot needs to convey, and for Guy, the shot either works or it doesn’t.

What have you done on this movie?
MPC worked on approximately 400 shots across 10 sequences, the main sequences being Baker Street, Paris Opera House, and the Factory Complex/Forest Escape.

Can you explain to us in details the recreation of Baker Street?
The precedent for the look and feel of Baker Street had been set in the first movie, so we had to be faithful to that same feel while working on views that hadn’t been seen in the first movie. The most complex Baker Street shot was the establishing wide shot that ran after the main titles, where we start looking across the rooftops of London and crane all the way down to street level to find Watson walking up to 221 Baker St. We started with a live action plate shot at Leavesden, with a partial set piece for the front of the building. We also shot some motion control elements of people and horse and carriages to dress along the second block. We also had an art dept layout of the intended look and feel, so we photographed many buildings around London that we could use for source texture. We modeled about 20 CG buildings that we used to extend the street, as well as some digital matte painting and projection work to take those models further. The opening wide vista was a mix of 3D buildings, 2.5D projection, and 2D paintings for the very distant buildings. The cloudy sky is a panorama that I shot from my balcony here in Vancouver. The clouds here in Vancouver have a different feel than those in London, so we worked on the pano in comp to give it a London feel, but also to retain a sense of drama. The art dept was very specific that the wide vista of London have little to no trees, and very few white window frames, all in keeping with the Sherlock feel. Then the entire shot was brought together in comp with a lot of effort and balancing and sorting of technical issues from bringing elements from so many different sources together.

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Categories:

• Visual Effects

Tags:

• chas jarrett
• seth maury
• sherlock holmes: a game of shadows
• the moving picture company