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www.postmagazine.com 11 POST JULY 2018 PREVIS some shots taking multiple weeks each. While the London artists visualized Act Two, LA entered another phase where Howell rejoined to help previsualize Act Three, including some key Millennium Falcon flights. In this phase, they also started postvis in Los Angeles. THE BREAKDOWN The Third Floor used location and aerial scans to create accurate techvis for com- plex sequences and shots. "To support shooting for the train heist sequence, we did techvis to plan aerial helicopter flight paths and provided diagrams of path and altitudes that they used to film plates as mapped out in the previs," explains Cheng. "We had accurate (to some limited detail) scans of the local mountain terrain of the Italian Dolomites as we planned the paths the train would be traveling. Then we staged previs virtually at these loca- tions and, once we had approved previs, we provided location-specific techvis for all aerial shots. That was so they could shoot the aerial plates. We even included altitude data so Rob could call out the height from sea level at which points the camera angles and path slopes matched the visualized shots." The team's work also helped program hydraulic rigs with moves needed for vehicles like speeder cars and bikes. According to Hameed, "The train heist re- quired detailed vehicle and rig planning/ programming, as did the car chase. The car was on a hydraulic robot that needed to perform moves preprogrammed using The Third Floor's previs and ILM's anima- tion. We were responsible for all aspects of this process, which involved taking animation, processing it on our spe- cial Maya rig and outputting to special effects department. We tested it every day on the practical car, which was fitted to a track driven by hydraulics. The same technique was also done for the speeder bikes in the train sequence, where the moves were worked out in advance and operated via animation data." They also produced 8K previs to proj- ect on screens surrounding actors on-set. "Modern film tools like live on-screen pro- jectors were used to help the actors see and respond to space footage," Hameed explains. "We had whole sequences taking place within the Millennium Falcon cockpit and there was a need to provide a view of the visuals and to-be-created visual ef- fects as something to react to. We would create previs and provide 3D content and renders for projection around the practical cockpits to allow the actors, directors and DP to view temp CG backgrounds against plates in realtime." TOOLS AND CHALLENGES Some of the key tools the team relied on to complete the work on Solo included Autodesk Maya for previs asset building, modeling and animation, along with Pixel Farm PF Track for plate tracking, Adobe After Effects for postvis compositing and Adobe Photoshop for stitching together images for set extensions or breaking out elements. In addition, the team used Adobe Premiere in cutting an early rough edit of the Kessel Run. According to Howell, one of the big- gest challenges of the job was helping develop the Kessel Run. "It was a really fun challenge," he says. "With the other teams taking on extensive live shoot and production planning for the train heist and Kessel mine battle, we did a lot of focused tests and scenario ideas for Kessel. Being able to work on the scene when Han becomes one with the Falcon for the first time was truly gratifying. It was my favor- ite part of the movie." For Cheng, the train heist was a true test. It was "one of the first sequences to be filmed because the dates to get the intended look of a shoot in a partial, snow-covered mountain range were rap- idly approaching. We needed to plan the sequence and determine where the action was to take place in order to have a shoot- ing plan ready when the weather arrived. "To achieve this, the visual effects department did aerial photoscans of the Italian Alps and we were able get scanned geometry for different shoot- ing locations where the action could take place. Being able to plan the entire sequence in advance utilizing scan data for difficult and dangerous shooting conditions proved successful, although Rob and the crew still had to fly right alongside those rocky faces represent- ing the path of the train using a camera array mounted on the helicopter! The measurements and location information was really valuable so they could pull off the shoot given the conditions and time constraints." Hameed adds, "There were many challenging but rewarding aspects of the show, one of which was exploring the story with previs. We often produced large amounts of high-quality previs to try out ideas and approaches to telling the story and bringing out the characters. It was fun and exciting to present them to the department heads, executives, filmmakers and editor. Another challenge was producing a large amount of detailed techvis. There were many complicated shots, especially in the train heist and car chase, and we had to make sure the shots could be accurately shot with high precision." Maya, Pixel Farm PF Track and Aer Effects were used for previs. Train Heist breakdown