Brevig used a computer-controlled rig to fly the camera right up to McGregor’s eyes in this creepy shot. Then animation director Scott Benza put in the burrowing nano-bots that crawled under McGregor’s eyelids.

EW: How much of the clone factory itself did ILM create?

EB: The interior set was built, but it has windows that look out to a beautiful ocean and idyllic landscapes beyond — which were plates shot in New Zealand. So even the non-effects shots had these bluescreen windows that we had to track. But the main visual effects contribution was at the beginning of the movie and at the end. At the beginning of the movie, we follow Ewan’s character as he climbs into a glass elevator that’s on the outside of the building. As he starts to descend, the camera flies back and reveals that they’re in an elevator on a building that has other elevators next to other buildings with elevators. We pull out and establish this whole giant place teeming with clones.

Then when Ewan and Scarlett begin their escape, they run across a catwalk that looks like it’s a bridge. But halfway through, they suddenly run through a plasma-like holographic screen. They find themselves on the back side of the screen and they’re in what looks like the inside of Hoover Dam. It’s a giant containment bunker area and they’re on a maintenance catwalk 800 feet above the ground.

EW: That’s when the characters discover that they haven’t been living in a “real” world?

EB: Yes. It’s great because we designed the shot so that the audience up to that point wouldn’t know what was coming either. So the audience — and Ewan’s character — discover it in the same moment. Then the camera pops back really wide and we see these two tiny figures, which are CG in that shot. We see the entire containment area with this holographic ring around the buildings in the center. It’s all seen in one shot.

EW: Once they escape, The Island becomes a non-stop chase movie.

EB: Absolutely. And the pinnacle of that is probably eight to 10 minutes of just chase. I would guess there were just five lines of dialogue during the time when Ewan and Scarlett are on that on the thing that looks like a flying motorcycle, called the Wasp. They’re being chased by bad guys in cars and in helicopters, which are called Whispers.

Ewan’s and Scarlett’s characters start off on foot and then they jump on the back of a big flatbed truck that’s carrying railroad car wheels. They’re being shot at by both the Whispers and guys in cars. They release some of these wheels like giant barbells and roll them off the back of the truck. So we have some Michael Bay mayhem when the car crashes. Then bad guys on one of the Wasps shoots the truck driver and he crashes. As they come back to finish off Ewan and Scarlett, Ewan manages to knock the guy off the Wasp and then he and Scarlett jump on it. He figures out how to fly it, and they’re then chased by bad guys on another Wasp down the freeway into downtown L.A. of the future. It has lots of aerial mass transportation — big aerial buses that are somewhere between a gondola and a monorail, high above the ground. Those were all CG.

Downtown is “played” by both L.A. and Detroit, but both cities are “futurized” with lots of these buses and monorails. ILM built futuristic CG buildings for enhancement.

Downtown is “played” by both L.A. and Detroit, but both of the cities are “futurized” with lots of these buses and monorails. We also built futuristic CG buildings and put them in the background behind real buildings, or we added upper levels to existing buildings.

The Wasp chase, as it escalates, becomes a combination of intercuts between stunt people on physical Wasp rigs on wires, which were shot racing down the freeway. For those, we had to paint out the wires and add flames to the back of the Wasps. We shot bluescreen of the actors on a motion base and we also created an all-CG version with digital characters.

EW: Did you do any face replacement of stunt people?

EB: We didn’t do face replacement. In wide shots the stunt people looked enough like the actors — and in Michael Bay’s style of photography the camera is shaking! I don’t think that in the continuity of the movie, you notice the stunt people at all. There are quick cuts and the stunt doubles are going by fast.

EW: How close does the camera get to the digital versions Ewan and Scarlett?

EB: We probably have more detail than we need, but you don’t know what you will need when you’re cyberscanning the actors. The most complicated aspect was their clothing, because for the most part when we see them they’re flying along at 80 to 100 mph on what’s basically a motorcycle. So you see the simulation of their clothing and her long hair more than their faces. That caught us by surprise, and we put a lot of effort into simulating windblown hair and the leather that their clothes were made out of. That solved the problem of what the audience sees of the digital characters.