Alexander arrives in the city of Babylon. Creating this and Alexandria were major challenges for the digital vfx company. All images © 2004 IMF Internationale Medien und Film GmbH and Co. 3 Produktions KG. Courtesy of Warner Bros.

It took Oliver Stone 15 years to direct his dream movie about the life and death of Alexander The Great. The project almost was greenlit in 1996 with Val Kilmer in the title role, but at that time, the “sword and sandal” genre was all but extinct. Plus, the enormous cost of these movies was more than intimidating, even to the boldest producers. However, in 2000, Gladiator proved that it had become possible to produce a large-scale epic movie at a reasonable cost. Thanks to digital technology, the “cast of thousands” that scared the studios away became a cast of 400 extras surrounded by thousands of synthetic characters. Virtual environments allowed the filmmaker to freely move his camera in what used to be locked-off shots executed via matte-paintings or hanging miniatures. The MTV school of filmmaking had entered the world of “sword and sandal” movies and turned them into hot properties again. Troy followed, then Alexander, and next summer, Ridley Scott will deliver Kingdom of Heaven, an updated version of his infamous Crusades project.

For the bulk of the visual effects, Stone turned to Buf Compagnie, a Paris-based studio that had produced brilliant effects for a commercial that he directed in 2001. Under the joint supervision of Sébastien Drouin and Stéphane Ceretti, Buf ultimately created more than 200 shots for Alexander, while another 50 shots were assigned to London’s The Moving Picture Co. (MPC), where Rudi Holzapfel oversaw the effort. John Scheele was hired as overall visual effects supervisor.

The battle at Gaugamela was the most complex scene of the movie, and required three different categories of effects.

The Mother of all Battles
Although Buf had worked on several high-profile American movies (Fight Club, Panic Room, The Matrix Reloaded), it had never before embarked on such an ambitions project. The prestige of the subject and the “aura” of the director only added to the excitement of the artists. There were two major challenges ahead of them. The first one was the creation of both Babylon and Alexandria, two legendary ancient cities. The second one was the battle of Gaugamela in which Alexander defeated the 250,000-strong Persian army with only 50,000 soldiers. Undoubtedly the most complex scene of the movie, the battle required three different categories of effects. For tight shots of the fights, Buf added CG arrows and blood spurts, a seemingly simple task that was rendered very tricky by the fact that the action had been photographed among layers upon layers of dust. This thick atmosphere was a cause of concern for Buf as it often concealed the background or the ground itself, making tracking an enormous challenge.

Dust was an even bigger problem in the second category of shots, which featured larger groups of soldiers. Since the plates had been shot with 1,000 extras only, it was Buf’s mission to multiply the soldiers on screen. In order to avoid putting any limitation on Stone’s creativity, no bluescreen had been used on the set. As a result, rotoscoping became a major issue, especially with the ever-present dust making it difficult to trace the outline of foreground elements. It actually required the development of a new tool that saved Buf the hassle of painting these manually. Digital soldiers were then added in the background and painstakingly blended in the dusty environment. For this scene and the rest of the movie, Buf exclusively used proprietary software in every aspect of the visual effects.