Magicians

This shot was done as a 3D digital matte painting to allow the camera to follow the van driving across the bridge, as if the camera were mounted on a helicopter.

I painted a sketch of the scene as the first step in establishing a look for the shot. (Fig. 1). This is usually very helpful, as it gives the director and crew an idea of what to expect the shot to look like, and it gives me a chance to "rehearse" the painting work of the matte painting.

Once most of the scene was modeled in 3d computer space, low resolution move tests were created to show the director, editor and visual effects supervisor what the range of movement will be.

The matte painting of the scene is actually broken up into several paintings, each representing areas of the view moving from the sky up to the bridge and river. The paintings are projected onto the 3d geometry from angles close, if not directly in line with the viewpoint of the virtual camera. Live action and animated elements can be interspersed with the paintings, in this case representing the river and steam escaping from the rooftops.



(click to view a quicktime movie)