Technique | How They Did It | Cinematography, VFX, Animation, Editing, Audio and Finishing | Film & Video

ILM Builds the Bots for IMAX Shots in Transformers Sequel

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 0:00:00 EDT

With over 52,632 parts and nearly 12 million polygons, the robot is the biggest model Industrial Light & Magic has built in its 30 years of model making. And they built the bot for IMAX shots....

Pitch-Black VFX for Fast & Furious

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 0:00:00 EDT

Fast & Furious had many artists at Double Negative working in the dark. Literally. Three sequences in the film have chases through mine shafts. Two of those tunnels were unlit except for car headlights and taillights, and one had only overhead tungsten lights with shades....

Spec Director Scores Super Bowl Slot With Red-lensed Doritos Ad

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 0:00:00 EST

Heimbold shot "Power of the Crunch" on a single day in downtown L.A. with a donated Red camera (from SIM video), a tiny lighting package, and a dedicated, fast-moving crew working free or for peanuts as a favor....

Fine-Tuning the Digital Image for Benjamin Button

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 0:00:00 EST

One of Lowry's most recent projects, director David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, has just been nominated in 13 Academy Awards categories — including cinematography. We asked Silvers and Lowry Senior Image Processing Specialist to talk about taking Oscar-caliber work to the next level....

The Spirit Closes the Distance Between VFX and the DI

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 0:00:00 EST

The Spirit, directed by Frank Miller and based on the Will Eisner comic book series, may have been disappointing at the box office, but it excelled at finding new ways to integrate digital production and post. That’s thanks to The Orphanage, a VFX/production company in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and its co-founder Stu Maschwitz, the movie’s second unit director and visual effects supervisor....