Originally, the director planned on 200 vfx shots for Night Watch and Day Watch, but that number increased to 400 shots for the first movie only. Day Watch ended up with some 700 vfx shots.

The idea was not to wait for final renders on every shot, but to control the work of each TD in each studio on a daily basis. We also held daily meetings in which we discussed the tasks of each TD, and gave instructions for the next working day. So, by the time we got to the final render, we all knew what we would see in the shot, and we avoided wasting any time on bad solutions. Of course, we had a lot of problems with this “virtual” approach, as we couldn’t possibly be in all the studios at once. But still, we managed to make it work.”

Blending Multiple Tools and Software Pipelines
Adopting the cost-saving strategy used by Hollywood studios on several recent high profile projects (The Matrix 2 and 3, The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3…), Bekmambetov decided to shoot the first two movies of his planned trilogy simultaneously. The second installment of the franchise, Day Watch, opened in Russia in January to record-shattering box office. Originally, the director estimated that he would need about 200 shots for both movies, but, during principal photography and editing, that number increased tremendously to reach 400 shots for the first movie only, including 20 shots featuring CG character animation. For the second movie, the demand for additional visual effects was even more intense as Day Watch ended up featuring some 700 vfx shots. This spectacular increase was a testimony of the director’s growing trust in the ability of his digital artists to deliver ever more complex imagery.

The spider doll was created after the director spotted the prop on the set. Depending on the shot, the spider doll was either CGI-created in Softimage XSI, or a real prop photographed on the set with CG legs added later.

An interesting aspect of the project was the mix of low tech and high tech approaches that was used to create some of the effects. This included an impressive battle scene set on top of a stone bridge in the Middle Ages. The main shot featured an extensive pullback that combined live-action and CG animation. “We started with live-action captured on a real set where the camera went as far back as it could,” Gorokhov explains. “Then, we match-moved the motion of the camera and extended it backwards in the computer. The valley was created in CGI, as were the warriors falling down the bridge. There again, we had to combine data and files produced by three different studios in Moscow and by another one in Ukraine…”

At one point during the bloody confrontation, the leaders realize that the conflict opposing the vampires cannot be settled via force, and decide to negotiate. Using a powerful spell, they “freeze” the battle scene, and walk to each other in the midst of hundreds of soldiers and weaponry frozen in time. “We didn’t use the traditional approach of shooting the plate with an array of still cameras,” Leschinski reveals. “Instead, we simply asked the actors to “freeze” in the middle of the shot, while the film camera continued its motion. The resulting images weren’t satisfactory enough though, as none can remain completely still for several seconds. So we complemented the illusion of frozen time by adding many CG objects and elements in the shots, like arrows, dirt, swords, fog, axes, crows, etc. The eerie stillness of these elements helped to detract the viewers’ attention from the imperfection of the live action.”

The same combination of live-action elements and CG animation was employed for shots featuring a huge flock of crows. “In most of the shots, we used two types of crows: real birds shot against blue screen and composited in, or CG models,” Leschinski comments. “For the shot of the “crow twister” above the apartment house, we built the flock of birds in three layers. The background animation was generated with a particle system; the mid ground featured hand-animated 3D crows with photorealistic rendering; finally, the foreground crows were real birds shot against blue screen. By using real crows in the foreground, we focused the attention of the audience and created the illusion of an impossibly large flock of birds.”