A straightforward scene became even more explosive to raise the stakes.

The crows were a combination of Maya and some custom tools for the feathers. Beau Cameron did the close up work; Edwin Braun did the wide shots.

Another challenge was that there were reshoots ordered after test screenings late last year. Initially, Ariel Velasco-Shaw was the overall visual effects supervisor on set in New Orleans, with McIntyre overseeing the 2nd unit vfx at night. But when the climax was deemed too tame, and an explosive attack on Washington by ship was added, Hydraulx was enlisted to handle the vfx. Originally, Turnbull's terrorist plot was foiled by Hex and the Navy before the boat could leave the dock.

However, Pixel Magic would resume work on the sweat hut, among other things. "We actually started the sequence last July," McIntyre recalls. "We delivered one shot, it sat for a while and we continued to work on it this year."

The other big shot for Pixel Magic occurred in a roundabout way. There's an exploding boat on the river toward the end. However, when the attack on the capital was later added, Pixel Magic returned to the shot with a new flourish.

"It was actually our last shot that we delivered and it was given to us after first being cut from the movie," McIntyre explains. "All of a sudden, two weeks before delivery, they decided to put it back in but no longer as a static dry dock shot of the boat exploding from overhead, but where it's now cruising down the river. We rotoscoped the boat out and put in the CG water and the fire balls and the cannon barrel blowing off. And the explosions were made by Riff along with the live-action elements composited in. We composited everything in After Effects: Brad Moylan was our compositing supervisor. It was a big rush for us at that point. It was a lot of effort because of the time crunch."

Bill Desowitz is senior editor of AWN & VFXWorld.