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j a n u a r y . f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 c g w 4 1 the actors to scamper across and for the camera crew to capture their viewpoint in the rooop scenes. Zemeckis, Baillie, and Cin- ematographer Dariusz Wolski primarily relied on two specific types of camera moves to produce the dizzying, vertigo effect. One is when we are looking at Gordon-Levitt on the wire and see the horizon, and the camera moves above him and starts looking downward. The other starts with the edge of the building in frame and moves over it, as if daring us to peer over the edge. Later, Jared Sandrew, 3D supervisor for Legend 3D, picked up on those cues and accentuated the vertigo feeling in the stereo conversion process. "There were times in the movie when we didn't want people to feel that way, so we made the 3D feel shallower. If Petit (Gordon-Levitt) was feel- ing serene and comfortable, we wanted audiences to feel that way too," says Baillie. According to Baillie, "there were a bazillion little things we added to sweeten the look," such as clouds that would blow by in many of the shots to provide depth. Flocks of birds would fly past, stacks would release smoke in the distance, and further down ant-size peo- ple would walk down the street and steam vents would release vapor. A lot of these effects were generated in Side Effects' Houdini, though the birds were done in The Foundry's Nuke 3D particle system. A method of creating haze in the city also helped sell the illusion of height. "If you look at a photograph, it's not just the intensity of the haze that changes as you go off into the distance, but the color of the haze changes, too," says Baillie. "It is a little warmer closer to the sun, cooler and bluer over the water than over the city, where it might be a little brown." To this end, the group developed a system within Nuke that used Nuke 3D with the renders so the artists could control the depth of the haze and tweak the fine grain in the way they do color. "We blurred the line. Nuke for us is no longer a tool that is just used for 2D comp; it is used heavily in 3D to solve the illusion," says Baillie. S E T P I E C E S Before filming began, Gor- don-Levitt was given tightrope lessons from the best – Petit himself – enabling him to do limited walks 12 feet off the ground. For more complex work, a steel plank with a groove in the middle was situated under the wire, giving the actor more support and stability; later, the plank was digitally erased and the sides of the actor's feet were rounded out, making it appear as if they were support- ed solely by the wire. As for the towers, the artists re-created the entire struc- tures with geometry, but the top 30 stories and bottom 30 – which are seen in the film – contained far greater detail. In short, if audiences could see inside the windows, an office was made inside. Indeed, the towers – which no longer stand – were the biggest visceral aspects of this virtually constructed world. However, they were not the only CG sets. The movie was filmed in Montreal, which had to stand in for NYC and Paris, where Petit had spent his earlier years. Many locales were all-digital built by RodeoFX or UPP. According to Baillie, the work on The Walk was among the most satisfying he has done. "Lots of movies are fun, but they are more about creating an effect that is an obvious effect," he says. "For this movie, the goal was to have the effects serve in a supporting role rather than stealing the show. They sit in the background and are there to transport the audience and make them feel like they are there with Petit [Gordon-Lev- itt], a place that is very special to many across the globe." ■ Karen Moltenbrey is the chief editor of Computer Graphics World. TO ILLUSTRATE THE NOTION OF HEIGHT, ARTISTS ADDED VARIOUS EFFECTS, INCLUDING CLOUDS, USING HOUDINI. FOR VIDEO: GO TO EXTRAS IN THE JANUARY.FEBRUARY 2016 ISSUE BOX C G W. C O M