McDowell lays out the production pipeline in this pie chart. Courtesy of Alex McDowell.

“They’ve just become a catalog of A…B…C…style of shots and levels of complexity, which gives a very accurate shot breakdown. Based on the kinds of technical shots, the effects guys seem confident that it’s accurate as well. Basically what we have is one huge window in the set and a situation where we’re building backing so Steven can decide in post where his shots are going to hold. This is interesting because this is a character-driven movie and we’re setting it up in previs so that Steven can ignore the visual effects issue and just think about what he has to shoot within this space.

“At the same time, Ron and his team’s been building a very architecturally accurate 3D model of the exterior, which is wire frame, so we know what’s exactly out there, but also that the data’s going directly into a straight pipeline to visual effects. But because there are nine months of season changes that occur in the story, we’ve got a 3D matte painter and a bunch of guys with computers who are just starting to do lighting and rendering. So we’ve put all our money into a model that’s based on the previs that is derived from the interior architecture of the terminal.”

McDowell and Frankel are currently making great strides in bringing vfx teams earlier into the process via previs. They point to the great divide between practical and virtual set design, and how previs helps provide visual clues that allow more seamless transitions. “We’re just looking at different aspects of production and there’s something very remarkable about getting production designers, visual effects supervisors and producers who are really buying into it,” Frankel observes. “Obviously because they just get that, it’s all about speed and more control.”

Bill Desowitz is the editor of VFXWorld.