During the filming of The International, the real Guggenheim was under construction, so UPP used archived photos, footage and CGI to re-create the landmark building. All images courtesy of UPP. © Sony Pictures. All images courtesy of Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. © 2009 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. and Beverly Blvd LLC. All rights reserved.

Now, that's timing! Right in the midst of the worst financial crisis in 80 years, Columbia Pictures releases an ambitious thriller in which the bad guy is actually... a corrupt bank. At a time when once-respectable bankers are considered crooks, The International (opening today) focuses on the investigation of INTERPOL agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) on the murky activities of one of the world's most powerful financial institutions.

Directed by Tom Tykwer (Run, Lola, Run), the movie boasts some 550 vfx shots, all produced at Prague-based Universal Production Partners (UPP). The project was shepherded by VFX Supervisor Viktor Muller, VFX Producer Vit Komrzy and CG Supervisor Jaroslav Matys. "UPP had done a number of large projects for U.S.-based production companies, however The International was our first large project with Sony Pictures," Muller says. "We very much appreciated the opportunity to work on this type of project. It consolidates our position as being attractive to U.S. filmmakers. Tom Tykwer was very busy during the project and was not able to be in Prague. He preferred to have meetings during the editing process. We used CineCync conferences and FTP for daily business communication."

Being strongly based in reality, the movie required mostly "invisible" effects shots, which included crowd replication, set extensions, greenscreen composites, a 3D landing plane, 3D bats, a 3D replica of the Guggenheim Museum, a 3D chandelier in the main museum hall, gunfire in the museum, snow additions and 2D architecture enhancements.

UPP used 3D animation for the birds-eye shots, in particular to adjust the traffic in the street. 

Recreating A Landmark Location
A key sequence takes place in and around the famed Guggenheim Museum in New York City. At the time of principal photography, the building was undergoing a major renovation. The exterior of the building was entirely covered with scaffolding and tarpaulin, which was obviously quite a problem for the team -- no one wanted to see building construction on-screen. It meant that UPP had to recreate digitally one of most revered architectural landmarks in the world.

"All the CG work on the museum exterior was carried out in Softimage software -- modeling, texturing, lighting, etc.," Muller remembers. "The model was rendered in mental ray. One of the most critical issues was painting out the original building from the plates, while dealing with many people on the sidewalks and cars in the street. We had to keep a believable interaction between all these elements in the scene. No bluescreens were used in this shoot. Because the plates were shot in winter, everybody was wearing dark clothes in the scene, and they were all walking in front of the dark tarpaulin -- kind of a worst-case scenario in terms of rotoscoping! Most of the time, it turned out to be simpler to replace them with CG extras.