"Axel Bonami, a compositing lead, created a Shake macro that allowed the compositing artists to generate arrow animations almost automatically. He wrote some variations to this macro to specify where a number of arrows were fired from or landed and calculated trajectory and speed based on references that he worked from. The only input was a library of arrows they photographed under different lighting conditions.

"My biggest fear was that we had such a large compositing team and that there would be inconsistency in terms of the style of animation between one person and another and this allowed it to be a bit more consistent between everyone and save a lot of time. It was an incredibly effective tool and a good success."

Bill Desowitz is senior editor of AWN & VFXWorld.