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j u ly • a u g u s t • s e p t e m b e r 2 0 2 1 c g w 4 1 Meanwhile, the creatures were scaled relative to the buildings, as they had to be a lot bigger to clear the height of the skyscrap- ers. (In the ocean battle, for instance, Kong stood at about 300 feet tall, which is three to four times larger than he was in Skull Island. In the Hong Kong sequences, he was scaled up to over 500 feet.) Most of the fight by Scanline occurred around the Zoological and Botanical Gar- dens, so the artists concentrated most of their efforts in detailing this area, creating more than 300 individual buildings, in addi- tion to the gardens, trees, and landscapes. "We made a number of more generic Hong Kong styled buildings that could be used to provide additional detail, and had a proce- dural system to add smaller details such as air conditioning units, antennas, and street- lights to buildings and roads," says Hirota. Scanline further utilized the drone and aerial photography to stitch together a base cyclorama for the deep Hong Kong background, primarily the bay, far mountain, and Kowloon sides. Hirota compliments the environmental team for creating the 2.5D setup that was placed behind the 3D city. BUILDING HONG KONG — MPC FILM Prior to Scanline's battle, though, was one craed by MPC Film. The audience sees Godzilla approaching Hong Kong via its harbor. While mostly submerged, his dorsal plates still extends far enough above the ocean's surface to slice an expansion bridge in half. The shot is where MPC's work began, and continued into the city. "I worked on the first Godzilla — the 2014 one — and every time we bring him back, we make him a bit more high-res," Lefebvre explains. "He carries more scars. We add a bit more barnacles — the little shells on his legs — and stuff like this. We try to keep him up to date with the latest technology that we have, whether it's muscle system or eye design." Both Godzilla and Kong are "super heavy" assets, Lefebvre notes. "For Kong, his groom is very heavy. His hair is a bit coarser than a normal monkey, but he's 300 feet tall, and his groom evolved in his battle. We have a ver- sion called 'Dirty Kong,' where he is covered in dust and has more debris stuck to his fur. We would put in street props that would get stuck, so that pass was very heavy." Godzilla, on the other hand, is complex due to his textures and size. "You always like to frame his feet because he is so big and stomps on stuff, so there's lots of super close-ups on his toes and the back of his spine," Lefebvre adds. The MPC Film sequence takes place at night, where the audience is introduced to Hong Kong as a modern city, with many of its skyscrapers outlined in bright neon lights. MPC provided previs and postvis services for the film, with Kyle Robinson heading the team as previsualization supervisor. Their primary focus was to establish Hong Kong's lighting, with its striking colors, which would illuminate the titans throughout the fast- paced, highly-destructive clash. "That was an artistic mandate," says Lefe- bvre of the city's look. "The director and the production designer had a concept of a very futuristic city, and we kind of made a hybrid of a real metropolis, like Hong Kong, that is quite modern, with lots of lighting and world noise and advertisements. They have a laser show that we were inspired by. And then we did add quite a bit of neon design to make it even more vibrant." Without question, building the city was MPC's biggest challenge. "It's a very long process," says Lefebvre. "We gamble a bit on the look of the city to drive the lighting of the characters. I kept telling my producer, our third character is the city, because it's such a thing by itself. When we were developing it, there was no monster in it for the longest time. We had thousands of props and cars. Compared to a char- acter, a city is almost impossible to finish. The amount of detail you need to make it photoreal or, I call it 'world noise' to make it vibrant, to make it alive, is quite infinite." While much of the Hong Kong scenes were created digitally, there are several live-ac- tion sequences. Ground plates, with people running for cover, were shot with extras. The aerial pass along the water, as Godzilla approaches the city, was captured using a helicopter, as was some of the aerial footage of the skyline. But city restrictions prohibit helicopters from flying close to buildings, so visual effects had to create that illusion. Standing hundreds of feet tall, Godzilla causes considerable destruction when entering the city. Kong, at this point, is deep underground in what viewers learn is "Hol- low Earth" – a subterranean world where all titans come from, and from where they draw their power. Hollow Earth is part jungle, part mountains and exhibits gravitational forces Scanline used its Flowline water simulation pipeline for the wakes, splashes, and sprays.