Framestore CFC was the sole London facility to contribute to SUPERMAN RETURNS vfx, and was responsible for the film's climactic sequences.
A team of up to 70 Framestore CFC artists and technicians worked for eight months on 313 shots. They were led by vfx supervisor, Jon Thum, who explained: "Our work encompasses huge CG environments of oceans, crystal rocks, water interaction, a seaplane, a helicopter and Superman himself; this is all mixed with 2D elements of mist, waterfalls, layered skies and various greenscreen elements. There was only one partial set built for all of this action, so our contribution was substantial."
Framestore CFC's work on the film centers on Lex Luthor's crysal island, the environment around it, and Superman's showdown there with Luthor and his henchmen.
A significant technical feature of SUPERMAN RETURNS is that it was shot on the Genesis camera, one of a new generation of digital movie cameras. This is the future of filmmaking, precipitating changes in the post- production process. "The first thing I did," recalled Thum, "was install a digital projector on our floor, turning our Avid suite into an ad hoc projection room. With no need for shooting out, I was able to review the progress of vfx shots, watching them in 2K projected large on a large screen in the final delivery format, mere minutes after the renders were complete. It was a great new way to work." The new setup promises to be very popular with clients, too, as they can now view their work-in-progress projected large at any point in the process.
The CG team was led by CG supervisor Justin Martin. One of the most demanding areas of CG research and development was the ocean. The team developed their own techniques for creating the roiling waters, pipelining their work through Houdini and Maya, feeding into RenderMan, and then composited in Shake. In addition, the CG team had to break up the (CG) set, smash crystal columns and break up rocks from the rising island. For this, they pushed Houdini's dynamics to the limit, expanding its choreography abilities, and building on previous techniques developed for earlier shows such as BLADE II, HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS and THUNDERBIRDS.
Of the sequence of the seaplane struggling through a ravine to escape the still-growing island, Martin said, "This was a tricky one the CG elements included the crystal rocks, the plane and some of the water elements. But if there's one thing we've learned from previous projects, it's to use live elements whenever possible, so the waterfalls were mostly real ones. The ocean material, on the other hand, was CG, because of the shots needed and the fact that shooting plates of water as stormy as required is almost impossible."
Martin added that somewhat to his surprise the crystals posed much more of a challenge than the ocean work. "Managing the complexity of the crystalline geometries, and how much would be in each shot was a real headache," he said, "whereas with the oceans we had a look established quite early on, and it was just a case of refining it and going back and forth with the compositors."
As is more often the case these days, the team was frequently required to deliver shots in which there were no (or very few) real elements a blank canvas, as it were. The matte painters, led by Matte Painting supervisor Martin Macrae, played a crucial part in such situations, with their artistic eye helping to create compositions and lighting schemes that instantly worked. Photoshop and Maya were their main tools. "It was pretty much like Lego," said Macrae, half jokingly. "We had to basically build a 3km wide island, on a scale that none of us had previously tackled, so we needed blocks that we could easily assemble and tweak." For Macrae, the hardest part was to make the full CG shots look convincing. "Essentially you're dealing with a pure fantasy environment," he added. "One that doesn't occur in real life and our job was to make it look 'natural'."
The overhead shots of the island, seen from Superman's point of view as he nears Luthor's base, were created with a combination of techniques that were repeated throughout Framestore CFC's shots. The first involved procedural textures for the crystal rock, 3D waterfalls and projected 2D elements, where possible. The second, led by Macrae, involved projecting matte painting onto the rendered geometry to create extra detail: a technique that produces better results, but only works for small camera moves.
Gavin Toomey led the compositing team, having also attended the shoot in Sydney, following on from Thum's initial stint there. Of what proved to be a pretty arduous compositing job he said, "As with previous very heavy-render projects such as TROY, we didn't use any beauty passeseverything was re-lit in 2D. So we had a couple of guys building the template scripts to begin with, concentrating on the ocean and the rocks." Working in HD did not faze the team. "When you're working in film, you're always aware that when it's shot out it will, to an extent, be a 'forgiving' medium. HD is much crisper and more demanding in that respect. At the same time, you have to make the material look like what the audiences expect their films to look like. The art lies in knowing when to stop piling on the detail, keeping it implicit rather than explicit nailing the point at which it looks photographic."
The production handed Framestore CFC one final surprise six weeks before delivery was due. "Our end sequence of the island rising out of the ocean was re-cut," recalled Thum, "And the island put back to concept. Meeting this challenge required someradical reorganization, let's say. The fact that we turned it all around in time is something we are justly proud of."
London-based Framestore CFC (www.framestore-cfc.com) is one of the leading visual effects companies working on effects for feature films and commercials. Recent film work includes X-MEN: THE LAST STAND, SUPERMAN RETURNS, V FOR VENDETTA and HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
