Tippett Studio had to bug out on the creation of Vermin Man. Images courtesy of Tippett Studio.

Tippett Studio also tackled two exorcism sequences. In the first one, Constantine extracts a demon out of the body of a little girl and traps it into a large mirror. “This sequence was filled with challenges,” comments visual effects producer Jay Heapy. “How would the demon interact with the mirror? What would the mirror world look like when the demon entered it? What happens when the demon reaches back through into our world? The director knew what he wanted, but he also allowed us to run with his ideas and try new things. We did a lot of studies in how the demon would get from the possessed girl to the mirror’s surface, the smudges it left on the mirror, how the cracks and holes in the mirror formed and looked. The shots were photographed in an actual apartment with a practical mirror. A greenscreen set up behind the window made lighting a challenge since we had to establish what kind of highlights or lighting the director wanted based on an unknown source.”

The second exorcism sequence involves Angela and Mammon, a powerful demon hiding inside her. Through out the shots, Mammon fights with Angela and, at times, stretches her stomach with his face. “Early on, it became obvious that any sort of physically based simulation would fall apart quickly,” explains Heapy. “The team started the simplest way possible: our CG Mammon pushes up through a simple cloth-like sheet modeled to match Angela’s stomach. We looked at the results and came up with ways to make it look better: we put some dampening geometry between Mammon and the sheet; we also had Mammon’s hands control how the sheet folded, stretched, and relaxed; finally, we made it so the veins and other internal layers could move differently from adjacent layers to help show that Mammon was pushing through lots of stuff.”

In this exorcism scene, visual effects producer Jay Heapy (inset) said the crew had to come up with a practical approach to bring the scene to life. Images courtesy of Tippett Studio.

From Hell to Heaven
During the climax of the movie, one character is taken to heaven. The sequence was awarded to Hatch FX and executed by founder and lead matte-painter Deak Ferrand. Interestingly, the artist had already created (for Pacific Ocean Post) the famed sequence of the heavenly city in What Dreams May Come and also contributed to Hellboy. “I don’t know if heaven and hell are becoming Deak’s trademark, but I do know that, although the sequence comprised five shots only, it was extremely important to the movie,” observes Fink. “We had very little screen time for these shots, and yet, they had to carry a lot of weight. I think we did our job right, because the audience loves these shots.”

Alain Bielik is the founder and special effects editor of renowned effects magazine S.F.X., published in France since 1991. He also contributes to various French publications and occasionally to Cinefex. He just finished organizing a major special effects exhibition that will open Feb. 20 at the Musée International de la Miniature in Lyon, France. Displays include original models and creatures from 2010 Odyssey Two, Independence Day, Ghostbusters, Cliffhanger, Alien Vs. Predator, Alien 3, Pitch Black and many more. The exhibition will run through Aug. 31.