Cinesite’s 115 VFX shots for X-Men: First Class
Cinesite worked on a range of shots including a retro version of the Cerebro Room, Azazel’s fight sequences, a military parade in Red Square, and Washington DC, devastated by nuclear war
Avoiding the use of ‘First Class’ to describe your work on the latest X-Men movie would be an impossible ask for any studio, but there’s no doubt the film features some great effects.
Following our previous report on Luma Pictures’ work on X-Men’s character design, we’ve also taken a look at Cinesite’s massive feat of 115 shots, encompassing a huge range of content.
The film’s plot deals with the beginnings of the X-Men story, detailing the secret history of the Cold War and our world at the brink of nuclear disaster. Cinesite was tasked to work on some wide and detailed location shots, among various character effects and locations.
Fully CG
One particular scene shows a 1960s military parade through Moscow’s Red Square, which is entirely computer generated.
VFX supervisor Matt Johnson spent a week in Red Square capturing hundreds of HDR stills to be used as a basis for modelling and texturing, before being projected in Nuke to create a full CG virtual set.
An army of CG Russian soldiers were also created using Massive.
For a scene depicting Washington DC, Hero mutants were shot on a plinth against a green screen.
The studio camera tracked shot and created a panoramic matte painting of a nuclear war-ravaged Capitol Hill. A 3D layout, smoke and fire were then added along with a mutant army, again, created using Massive.
“Working on X-Men: First Class gave us the opportunity to do some of the most complex compositing we’ve done yet,” says Cinesite managing director, Antony Hunt. “We’re all about creating seamless effects, and our Red Square shots are a great example of our ability to produce invisible visual effects.”
CG domes and demonic mutants
Cinesite also handled a number of other sequences, including the creation of a 1960s version of the Cerebro Room, which houses the device used to locate mutants.
The scene was shot against a 360-degree green screen, upon which the studio created a CG dome before compositing shots of Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) wearing the Cerebro helmet.
To simulate the mind state experienced when using the helmet, Cinesite added fluid simulations and physical smoke elements to create auras around characters shot again a blue screen. Virtual camera pulled the final shot together and time warp effects were added.
Finally, Cinesite also worked on shots featuring the demonic mutant Azazel (Jason Flemyng).
The character can teleport and uses his taile as a weapon. The studio created CG teleportation effects leading into his fight sequences.
Azazel’s tail was modelled and animated in Maya before it was tracked into the live-action shot.
X-Men: First Class is in cinemas now.
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Posted on Monday, June 13th, 2011 at 5:16 pm under Movies, Showcase. You can subscribe to comments. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
