Computer Graphics World

that mimics the emotional reaction people have to the comic book." e film's hero—that is, e Spirit—is a cop killed in the line of duty who doesn't die. He wears a mask and a red tie, and falls in love with every woman he meets. He doesn't have superpowers; he feels pain. Miller drew the storyboards in a graphic style. "It's hard to achieve minimalism in a live-action film," Maschwitz says. "It takes great taste to make it look good." To help realize Miller's vision for e Spirit, Maschwitz contracted with 10 fa- cilities that produced the film's 1950 VFX shots. "I had time to cast to their strengths," he says. "None of the work was technically challenging, but everything had a unique aesthetic." e list of studios included Fuel, Furious FX, Look Effects, Olin Studio, Rising Sun, Digital Dimension, Riot, En- tity FX, Cinesoup, and Maschwitz's own e Orphanage. "e whole project was a great experi- ence from start to finish because it was so well organized with Stu masterminding the approach, and because we had a quick feedback loop," says Rich McBride, VFX supervisor at e Orphanage and a con- cept artist for the production. And herein lies the innovation. Rather than working from a trailer on a studio lot, Maschwitz and visual effects producer Nancy St. John persuaded producer Debo- rah Del Prete and Odd Lot Productions to center the visual effects and postproduction management in the basement of the same building that houses e Orphanage. ey called it "the Bunker," and they provided the production staff with special key cards to restrict access. By locating these production offices a few steps from e Orphanage, Masch- witz had quick access to the visual effects studio's knowledge, talent, and tools. For instance, he could easily call on McBride, as he did, to help production with concept art. "We could scale the amount we inter- acted with e Orphanage at a moment's notice," Maschwitz says. "at's part of what made this process unique." Further- more, the innovation continued inside the Bunker, where Maschwitz installed a Nu- coda Film Master color-grading and finish- ing system. In doing so, he integrated the DI process fully into the production of the visual effects from day one. Staging the Production Work on the film began in the summer of 2007, with Miller storyboarding, Gregory Nussbaum editing the previs in Odd Lot's offices, and Maschwitz organizing set building. His experience working on Sin City persuaded him to build sets rather than rely solely on digital backgrounds. He remembers a close-up shot of Bruce Wil- lis pounding his fist on the pavement in Sin City as especially painful. "We spent as much time creating the pavement for that shot as any other shot," he says. "Robert Rodriguez was breaking new territory and achieving a miracle, but what I took away from that shot was to build sets for things the actors touch and walk on." Before shooting began, Maschwitz worked with director of photography Bill Pope—who had been the cinematographer for the Matrix trilogy and Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3, among other films—to design a library of color corrections, or col- or lookup tables (LUTs), for e Spirit. He then loaded these color presets into Pana- vision's Genesis Display Processor (GDP). us, although the raw image remained intact, anyone looking through the view- finder on the Panavision Genesis camera during filming saw a stylized image rather than the captured image. "Frank [Miller] and the producer had a 100 percent preview of what people would see in the theater," Maschwitz says. In the viewfinder, green, for example, might look white or black, and other colors appeared desaturated. "A couple weeks after editing, I took them to a screening room to see the [stylized imagery]. ey asked, 'Why are we seeing this?' ey had already seen it on set." Equally important, through the GDP, Pope could see how the lights would af- fect the final processing of the stylized images, and adjust the lights accordingly. "e LUT made things contrasty and moody, and changed the way he lit things," McBride says. "It could make a big differ- ence for us. In some cases, e Spirit's tie became very graphic red, and they had to make sure it was lit so that we could extract the tie or enhance the color. Because it was well thought out ahead of time, once we got into shot production, our jobs were much easier." Digital Dimension, one of 10 VFX studios that worked on the film, created the atmospheric digital background for this live-action shot. Although the actors were filmed on greenscreen and black- screen stages, the crew added practical sets for items the actors touched and walked on. December 2008 27 VFX/ Post ■ ■ ■ ■ Images ©2008 Lionsgate/Odd Lot Entertainment.

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