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Visual EffEcts ■ TRIXTER artists animated pieces of the new Mark 42 suit as they attached to Tony Stark. At Cinesite, where a team of 18 artists created 100 shots in nine weeks toward the end of production, Visual Effects Supervisor Simon Stanley-Clutterbuck joked, "Chris had more vendors than we had crew on the film." Cinesite artists produced digital environments that extended plate photography leading into a final battle created at Weta Digital and fireworks after. The original plan was to have Digital Domain handle several major elements, including the final battle. "I wanted the skill set and look they brought to Real Steel," Townsend says. "But they were struggling. When they started having the troubles, Mark Soper, Victoria Alonzo at Marvel, and I met, and we decided not to pull the work from them. It was a difficult decision from a business point of view. You can't sacrifice the film; you have to make sure it gets what it needs. But we also needed to consider what was good for the visual effects industry. It made sense to stand by them, support them, and not pull the work, and that's what we chose to do." Under Visual Effects Supervisor Erik Nash's leadership, artists at Digital Domain created 300 shots, of which approximately 250 stayed in the movie, and they made suits for the final battle. But, when the final battle alone doubled in size to 500 shots, it became more than the besieged studio could handle. "The production delays and the other factors put us in a bind where we couldn't deliver that sequence on what was already an aggressive post schedule," says Nash. "Thankfully, Weta Digital had the bandwidth and can expand rapidly. They took a lot of pressure off us." "Weta Digital was a cornerstone vendor, but they weren't even involved until the last few months," Townsend says. "They rose to every challenge." Fun with Previs For Townsend, the work began in August 2012, with early drafts of the script. "We went straight into prep mode," he says. "The beauty of my job happens when I'm integral to the process from the beginning. It's an honor to be that close to the director, the production designers, and the rest of the team." Artists working with the production team had created animatics for two key sequences: one in which the villain blasts Tony Stark's house 20 ■ CGW M ay / J u ne 2 0 1 3 off a cliff, and another in which .com individual pieces Video: Go to "Extras" in the of Tony's suit fly off May/June 2013 issue box a workbench and attach to his body. "We brought on The Third Floor to do the previs," Townsend says. "You can get a sense of drama and energy from the animatics, but we need to make sure everything works and the camera positions are logical in the real world. We need to know exactly what the camera can see." It was clear from the beginning that the house-attack sequence would rely heavily on computer graphics, and after analyzing the animatics, Townsend realized it needed to be fully digital. "We couldn't photograph Point Doom in Malibu [where Tony Stark's house is located] because of an ordinance," Townsend says. "So, we had to re-create it digitally based on stills and previous films' footage." As for the "suit-on" sequence, the challenge was in turning an approved animatic into a workable plan. "So, previs worked on the camera and lenses, how the pieces would fly around and attach to Tony's body, where he would stand, and how he would perform," Townsend says. But, rather than traditional previs, which often looks like a video game, Townsend tried something new. "I had The Third Floor artists work in black and white, in an illustrative style," he says. "In my experience, sometimes directors and producers dislike previs because it has a cartoony look. Also, sometimes people fall in love with a temporary look, and suddenly everything from lighting to directing the camera has been established by a previs artist, not a cinematographer. So, I instructed The Third Floor that I wanted previs to be about line and movement, not color and lighting. By having them work in a black-and-white, impressionistic style, the previs didn't look like a CG world. We worked closely with the director of photography and the director, and they embraced it somewhat. It wasn't people in a dark room creating and then telling the director, 'This is what you're shooting.'" It worked. Perhaps, too well. "The marketing folks said [the suit-on sequence] would be great for Comic-Con," Townsend says. But, Comic-Con was five weeks after principal photography started. To fit the digital suit parts around Robert Downey Jr., the visual effects studio needed his performance. "I told them it would take months and months of work," Townsend says. "They said, 'We really want it.'" For the suit-on sequence, Townsend went to Trixter, based in Munich, Berlin, and Los Angeles. For the house-attack sequence, he called on Scanline artists working in Los Angeles and Vancouver. "I had worked with Trixter several times before and knew they could react quickly and work efficiently," Townsend says. "And, I was impressed with their animation. That's where their strength lies."