The filmmakers placed an enormous amount of trust in Keith Vanderlaan and Ted Rae (above left) for the make-up and visual effects. All images © 2004 Icon Distribution Inc. All rights reserved. A New Market Films Release. On set photography: Phillippe Antonello; Post images: Chuck Zlotnik.

Ted Rae (Beetlejuice, Nixon, Idle Hands) had side lined vfx supervision a while back to concentrate on cinematography when his old pal, Keith Vanderlaan, called to recruit him for The Passion of the Christ. After having collaborated with Mel Gibson on several previous films, Vanderlaan got the director’s approval to branch out into visual effects with his Burbank-based company Captive Audience Prods. As the only company contracted by the production for vfx, the challenge appealed to Rae, the son of a minister, who also shot and directed the film’s 2nd unit.

Bill Desowitz: So what was the experience like working on The Passion?

Ted Rae: This is certainly my best project yet concerning effects as pure filmmaking. The visual effects supervisor is still not yet as embraced or understood as say, the cinematographer, but more and more they are being included as part of the core process right from the beginning.

BD: You obviously worked very closely with Mel?

TR: Yes, Keith and I both did. And since I was on set in Rome the whole time, I was even free to ask the production designer [Francesco Frigeri] to make accommodations in the sets for things that I knew we were going to be doing later on. Keith and I were invited along on all the location scouts with Mel and Caleb [Deschanel, the cinematographer] as well.

In order to make the temple earthquake seem dynamic, Rae used a two-camera rig, which moved each camera independently during the shot. Those two angles were then pre-composited together with a constant infinity in the center. To complete the illusion, a miniature of the stone floor splitting was inlaid in the center.

BD: Of the 135 vfx shots, how much CG work was there?

TR: There were only three CG elements. There were no full CG shots at all, only CG elements that were part of shots. There’s lots of digital. Every shot that we did in the visual effects end of things is digital and the whole film is a digital intermediate done by EFILM.

BD: And since Captive Audience was the only effects company contracted, there must’ve been a lot of trust involved.

TR: There was a great amount of confidence on the parts of both Mel and [producer] Steve McEveety to give Keith’s company the visual effects in addition to the makeup effects. In turn, the amount of trust that Keith placed in me was extraordinary.