Day Watch (above) and the previously released Night Watch are watershed films for Russian vfx. Both titles have been blockbusters in their native country. All images courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Vladimir Leschinski happened to be in town last month looking for work for his Moscow-based visual effects company, Dr. Picture Studios, thanks to the blockbuster success in Russia and Europe of both Night Watch and Day Watch (opening domestically June 1 through Fox Searchlight). The sci-fi adventures about the epic battle between the forces of Light and Dark to restore Moscow have obviously been a watershed for Russian vfx. Leschinski spoke to VFXWorld about Day Watch and other projects, including his country's first outsourced assignment with Hollywood.

Bill Desowitz: Tell us about the differences between Night Watch and Day Watch.

Vladimir Leschinski: Actually, we shot both movies together. Sometimes the action is in winter and sometimes in summer and we just combined our schedule. We then did post-production for Night Watch, and a year later we did post-production for Day Watch. And finished in January 2006. It got released in Russia and did essentially $34 million, the biggest ever for a movie in Russia, after Night Watch did $16 million, which was the previous record. Before that, the max was $3 million.

BD: There's a lot more 3D work in Day Watch. What did that entail?

For vfx supervisor Vladimir Leschinski, the tech requirements for both films were about the same, although Day Watch had 800 shots compared to Night Watch’s 400.

VL: The final shots when the building is reconstructed from the ruins. We used a lot of 3D for wide shots of the castle in the beginning. Again, for the airplanes and for the red car, a Mazda. As far as character animation, again we have the spider doll from Night Watch. And we have a lot of castle guardians and a lot of riders who are taking the castle. Technology-wise, it was the same as Night Watch and the management was oriented around the headquarters in the production house where [director] Timur [Bekmambetov] was doing his cut. Again, we got together maybe 20 vendors to do the job and 180 people altogether. We had 800 shots compared to Night Watch's 400 shots. So it took about a year to finish the visual effects. Color correction was done here at Encore Hollywood. It was a large amount of work but pretty much the same challenge.

BD: But some more complicated shots?

VL: Sandman is a complicated shot. In a way, it's something new, some new software that allows you to animate the sand. So we didn't have anything like that here -- not yet. But visually it had improvements. The shots are cooler. We have a television tower in Moscow that had to explode and fall down, so we did that. And then we show the crowd of people running out. It's very powerful. I personally like the shot of the castle attack, which is pretty dynamic and has a completely 3D wide shot. And the Mazda is a photorealistic 3D car. And we see it drive through a corridor.

BD: Tell us more about the exploding tower.

VL: The effect has a toy that kids like -- a yo-yo. But it doesn't come back: it multiplies and has a lot of metal balls that fly like bullets. Finally, the whole city fills with flying bullets and they destroy everything in their way and the same happens with the television tower and it falls down. So, of course, we modeled all that and the exploding glass.

BD: You use the usual tools?

VL: Yes, Maya and XSI, RenderMan and some people use Houdini. And for compositing we use NUKE and Shake and Digital Fusion and After Effects. And we do some of our own lighting to make it more spectacular.