"Frantic was brought on board very early due to our liquid dynamics technology," Shand details. "The Lava Lake was our first major chunk of work and it was supervised by Chad Wiebe. The sequence featured liquid dynamics, elaborate set extensions, matte paintings, particle work and fully-CG Fullum assassins. I think it was the success of that effort that led Ariel Shaw to awarding us more of the show, including the final battle sequence, which was supervised by me."

Shand says in that climactic battle Goku performs a move known as the final Kamehameha, which was ultimately something their team needed to create through visual effects. "It was the most challenging aspect of the entire sequence," he reveals. "We knew there was a huge fan expectation for this effect. We also knew that our presentation of the move needed to accent the anime yet work in a live-action sequence. We looked at the anime versions as abstractions of something that would be more complicated and sophisticated in the real world. Some people wanted it to be over the top, others wanted it to be a more literal representation of the move. So we tested many different looks. We also had to consider the larger story and how Goku's power will increase in possible sequels. There was a ceiling we needed to establish in order for this move to fit into the larger character arc… We had only three very short months with Christmas in between, so needless to say it was a wild ride."

CafeFX put finishing touches on several scenes, including one of Goku's house in a quarry. Courtesy of CafeFX. 

For CafeFX, their work on Dragonball Evolution came out of their previous collaborations with Velasco-Shaw. Danny Braet, vfx supervisor for CafeFX, explains, "On this one our Art Director Alp Altiner did a lot of concept work for Dragonball before the movie even started. He did a lot of sketches for different shots, working closely with the director. He also did some animatics before he came over full time with [CafeFX]. Because some of the shots involved required some of his art it made sense for the work to stay here."

Braet details that Alp's design work expanded throughout the whole production and became the basis for the visual effects work created by other vendors like Hydraulx (of Santa Monica) and Hybride. But CafeFX's work on the film remained rather small. "We were brought in at the end just because what needed to be done required a little bit more on the art end. They had ideas for things and because Ariel liked working with Alp, I got introduced to Ariel, as well as our CG Supervisor Will Nicholson. We never had planned to be on this show but that's how we came aboard.

"The three main things that we were brought in for was the visualization of Goku's house, which is an abandoned old house in a quarry in the middle of city. They wanted us to visualize that because his living quarters are important. Secondly, at the beginning of the movie, the storyline shows that one of the character's villages gets wiped off the face of the map. On the set, they couldn't go wide enough and it was localized. So we took that and made a full 14 seconds in front of that where we pull out all the way and go into the clouds and hook up from one of Hydraulx's shot. When you are up in the air that way, there was no description yet about what was around that village or where the village was, which needed to be conceptualized. That scene wasn't playing so well in the edit so Ariel, Alp and [I] came up with some ideas and we experimented with it. We made something that is not in the movie but was used elsewhere in the movie because they liked the concept. We made an energy burst explosion from a wide view. We decided that we were showing too much at the start [of the film] so we wanted to tone it down. But, in fact, it was used later from a different angle. And that's what we do -- traditionally we are brought in as a vendor and set out to do what needs to be done at the start and then we did more. For us, this was fun for us because it was more of a collaboration figuring out how to show this without altering the focus. There was a lot of back and forth and it came out great which is what we are known for at CafeFX.