Wanted required more than 800 visual effects shots, including a train derailment sequence from Framestore that almost half of its crew worked solely on. Courtesy of Framestore. All images © 2007 Universal Studios. 

In 2006, the Russian movie Night Watch made a strong impression on American producers. Director Timur Bekmambetov's innovative use of visual effects created a definitely unique movie experience, enough so to land him his first American directorial gig with Wanted (which opened June 27 from Universal). In this adaptation of a comic book created by Mark Millar, a young "nobody" (James McAvoy) finds out that he is the son of a legendary assassin. He enters a mysterious fraternity where he is trained to become a perfect killing machine, a human being able to bend the laws of physics and gravity to his own advantage.

The movie required more than 800 visual effects shots, a massive effort initially supervised and produced by Jon Farhat. However, during post-production, Farhat fell very ill and had to be replaced by Visual Effects Supervisor Stefen Fangmeier. "I had directed Eragon, and, at that time, I was exploring new directing opportunities," Fangmeier says. "I didn't want to get into a vfx assignment that would tie me up for too long. This project was perfect in the sense that they only needed somebody for four months to come in and finish up."

Stepping in a colleague's shoes is never easy, but on Wanted, Fangmeier ended up facing many other challenges. "When I came in, most of the shots had already been assigned to a variety of vendors. The majority of the visual effects were being created by Bazelevs Studios, Timur's own company in Moscow. They did almost 500 shots encompassing a very large range of effects. We also had Hammerhead, Hydraulx, PacTitle, Hatch FX and CIS Hollywood and Framestore in London. So, I had to delve into shots that someone else had conceived, with visual effects already well underway and with key creative people based in Moscow. Since Bazelevs were in charge of two thirds of the shots, I primarily focused on the work that was being done there."

Adaptation
The Moscow-based studio had produced some spectacular shots for Day Watch and Night Watch, but Wanted was their first American production. This new experience didn't go without difficulties, as Hollywood doesn't do things quite the same way as a Russian director employing his own company on his projects.

"They really have a strong talent pool there, they also have the software, but they didn't have any experience interfacing with a major studio, dealing with constant editorial changes, and meeting a schedule of deadlines, etc." Fangmeier observes. "For instance, when I got involved, they only had 12 final composites out of 500 shots, and we were already close to the original deadline (the movie was initially due for release in March 2008). One of their issues was to get the director to buy off on concepts and shots. They had to date done many different versions for quite a few shots. At one point, somebody needed to make decisions and get the shots done. So, part of my job was to establish priorities, to select the 50 or 70 shots that could be completed each week, and to push them forward. For the remainder of the post schedule, we needed to finalize 45-50 shots per week in order to meet the deadline! It definitely put a lot of pressure on everybody… So, this project was a creative challenge on one hand, but on the other also a significant production challenge."

After his first three days in Moscow assessing the production, Fangmeier requested that American Visual Effects Producer Steve Kullback should join him in order to wrangle the production management side of things. VFX Producer Juliette Yager had already been brought on board by production. "If there is one thing I appreciate after 15-and-a-half -years at ILM, it is the importance of very rigorous production management!"