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Filed under: Visual Effects •

Invictus: “The Largest Rotoscoping Job of All Time”

Original plate of stadium (top of page). Stadium filled with synthetic crowd (bottom of page). Photos courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and CIS Vancouver.

Awash, like everyone else, in “Avatar” madness (see here and here the two parts of my recent conversation with camera guru Vince Pace about the stereoscopic camera technology developed for that movie), it’s been hard to ponder the fact that there are, in fact, other things going on in the world of visual effects. With effort, I forced my mind to examine the concept, and have come to realize that one of the quietest, yet significant, visual effects developments in the last 12 months came out of a feature film that is getting all sorts of notice, but none for its visual effects. I’m talking about Clint Eastwood’s “Invictus”—about as traditionally made a film as you are likely to find, and a film not even on the short list for Academy Award consideration in the visual effects category this year.

Still, a chat I had recently with Eastwood’s visual effects man, Michael Owens—visual effects supervisor on all Eastwood’s films that utilized digital effects since “Space Cowboys” (2000)—contextualized for me the fact that there is, in fact, an important role for visual effects in the world of so-called “traditional” filmmaking. Owens explained the crucial, and growing, role that so-called “invisible effects” are playing in the world of cinema at precisely the same time that such tools are permitting James Cameron and his cohorts to revolutionize big-budget effects’ films. Owens points out that “Invictus” has a surprising 600 digital effects’ shots in it, all created at CIS Vancouver, with help from its sister facility, CIS Hollywood, and a large group of boutiques across the world contributing rotoscoping and match-moving assistance.

The bulk of that work was hardly revolutionary from a conceptual point of view, as compared to, well, “Avatar.” It largely involved digital crowd creation and massive rotoscoping work to replace an empty stadium background with synthetic crowds and backgrounds for the film’s key scenes involving the South African rugby team’s march to the World Cup in 1995. Filmmakers also created an entirely synthetic United Nations General Assembly room for a key scene, among other digital touches. But, the biggest single visual effects challenge in the film was clearly the digital stadium and crowd work. Indeed, Owens declares with confidence that, believe it or not, “Invictus” is “the largest rotoscoping job of all time for cinema.”

That’s hard to prove, I suppose, but interesting that the movie might even possibly contend for such a niche distinction. Among other things, it’s interesting because it illustrates how willing the longtime rock of traditional filmmaking—Clint Eastwood—has become to utilize digital tools and techniques, and experiment with them, compared to what one might think given his reputation and typical meat-and-potatoes results with movies like “Invictus.”

“On ‘Invictus,’ one of the main tasks was to put 60,000 people into rugby stadiums,” Owens explains. “We only had a few extras on set, and therefore, to be able to create those crowds any time we show play in a rugby match, the entire background had to be replaced. We shot in real stadiums, but had to replace everything but the players in order to fill those stadiums convincingly. The only way to do that is frame by frame rotoscoping, separating the players from the stadium. Then, we had to synthetically re-create the stadium and put our synthetic crowds into the synthetic stadium. We completely replaced everything from the grass up in for practically every shot involving rugby play.”

The typical notion of putting up some kind of a gigantic blue screen in order to do digital extractions of the players in the foreground, of course, was out for both logistical and creative reasons. Logistically, it would have been tough to do in facilities the size of the stadiums the production filmed at in South Africa anyway, and besides, Eastwood traditionally wants little or nothing to do with blue screen, green screen, or anything else that will slow down or otherwise inhibit his legendary rapid shooting pace. Thus, “Invictus” evolved into one hell of a gigantic roto job.

The basic approach, of course, evolved out of work Owens’ team did on Eastwood’s “Flags of Our Fathers,” in which backgrounds had to be replaced or augmented with CG location extensions to create the legendary look of the island of Iwo Jima, and to combine live action with CG shots of the gigantic Allied armada assaulting the island. That film was Eastwood’s largest foray into visual effects since “Space Cowboys,” and played a central role, Owens and other Eastwood collaborators insist, in convincing the legendary filmmaker that his “traditional” process can, in fact, merge seamlessly with digital filmmaking tools and techniques.

“The key was to keep a management team, based at CIS Vancouver, and counting on that team to manage the other facilities that were doing all the roto and the other work,” says Owens. “To populate and replace all the elements of the stadium was the main task, and we realized we could do it without blue screen because we had done it on ‘Flags of our Fathers.’ It’s tedious, but definitely the right thing to do. This approach lets Clint stay in his mode and his cameraman (Tom Stern) stay in his mode (during production)—working as though it were a non-effects’ movie. The camera movement and everything else feels just like any other (Eastwood movie). I get a lot of work to do later in post to replace it all, but Clint is very understanding about waiting for the shots, and is now well used to using animatics and storyboards (in the evolving cut) while he waits for them. He has learned to trust the process and the results.”

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South Africa grabbed the luck to be the seat for World cup 2010 The ceremony will be launched on June/July 2010. These sports and events takes place all around ten stadiums and cities comprising the Cape Town. The stadiums have been sketched and the building has started. In fact the tickets are for sale on the various venues put up on the website

Posted by Steve123  on  05/03  at  04:11 AM

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