Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1438374
o c t o b e r • n o v e m b e r • d e c e m b e r 2 0 2 1 c g w 1 1 how much of the trees you saw," adds Harris. Scanline's second sequence entailed the drive through the bamboo forest to Moon Gate, as Shang-Chi and his friends flee Wenwu's compound and try to warn the people of Ta Lo about the planned attack. In the scenes, they drive through what becomes a bamboo maze as the forest comes alive and closes in around them in an attempt to devour the vehicle. For this, the entire environment had to be replaced with CG bamboo forest and ground cover, as only the vehicle and actors were used from the plate. The artists also built a CG car, which was sometimes used or blended with a practical vehicle on set. This sequences required many simula- tions: trees bending, breaking, and moving; ground sims caused by moving trees and the car racing through the shiing forest lab- yrinth; and plant sims reacting to the ground and moving trees. "That sequence was really pushed to the limits of computational power of being able to animate so many millions of leaves in these hundreds of thousands of trees and acres and acres of forest. It was certainly a challenge for Scanline to pull off," says Townsend. From a technical standpoint, the size of the environment and the number of required elements were quite challenging. "Tying them together and having them interact in a cohesive manner that told the story was very complicated," says Micah Gallagher, Scanline compositing supervisor. "Creatively, we had to make the forest act almost like a character. It had to have a motive and reac- tions to the characters in order to create the tension that gives the life-or-death feel of the sequence." Bus Battle—Luma Pictures Aer the flashbacks, we are transported to modern-day San Francisco, where we find a grown-up Shang-Chi and Katy catching Scanline built the bamboo forest near Ta Lo and brought it to life in this escape scene. Luma handled about 150 shots for the out-of-control bus sequence.