This shot features the woman on horseback riding up over the crest of a hill to witness a view of
Normans ransacking a coastline.



The composite is a combination of motion tracked 2d and 3d elements. Ted Rae did some fine motion tracking work that allowed the matte painting of the shore line, village, distant mountains and left sky to follow the dolly and crane camera move that traveled with actress Julienne Marguiles riding the horse. The painting was worked into a live action plate of the ocean, along with a plate of marauding horsemen photographed by Dale Fay.



Some of the boats were animated moving towards the shore, and greenscreen extras were matted onto the boats to give the impression they were inhabited. Live action fires and smoke plumes were also added to the matte painting. I thought the foreground rocks in the live action looked kind of artificial, but the client actually wanted more rocks, so I added an animated CG rock to fill in the left foreground area.


(click to view a quicktime movie)