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Bits & Pieces MPC, The Senate create effects for Dark Shadows L ONDON — MPC (www.moving-picture.com) and The Senate VFX (www.senatevfx.com), both with offices London, provided visual effects services for the new film Dark Shadows, based on the late '60s gothic horror soap opera. It's directed by Tim Burton and stars Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer. MPC delivered 340 visual effects shots for the film, making use of both its Vancouver and London locations. MPC VFX supervisor Erik Nordby led the Vancouver team, which completed of just over 90 shots for the tion," explains Yri. Sequences included shots involving the manor, the Angel Bay Fish Canning Factory, the McDonalds/construction attack and the Josette supernatural/ghost scenes. "For Collinwood Manor, although both the exterior and interior sets were built at Borehamwood and Pinewood Studios, respectively, extensive work was required to replace vast greenscreens and build addi- tional portions," he continues. "The life-size exterior was only built to the bottom of the first floor and the rest required visual effects using a mixture of high-res stills, matte paintings, CG builds and elements from a 1/3 scale model shoot. The Senate's single most complex shot involved a sweeping camera move over the manor under-construc- tion. Starting with a basic art department model, the 3D team deconstructed it, removing roofs and walls and replacing them with wooden beams and the interior struc- film. Their main focus was on two sequences set in and around a 200-foot high seaside cliff, where much of the pivotal action takes place. The rough shape of the cliff was built, and some portions of it were sculpted in Z-brush to help add detail. It was lit to pull as much topology as felt natural. This was then married with a set of textures that were projected onto the slices. Above the cliff was a pine forest and the manor. The forest was built by seeding individual trees using Vue software and then painting over the top. The Vancouver location was also tasked with creating the large estab- lishing shots of Liverpool that open the film. MPC's London studio focused on the supernatural showdown between Johnny Depp's character and his scorned ex-lover/witch (pictured). This action unfolds in the grand foyer of the manor, where wooden stat- ues come to life. The team also handled the witch's gradual cracking skin, a vengeful ghost, and a werewolf. In addition, the team also had to augment the scene with various destruction elements, including bleeding walls, floors cracking and flowers dying. The Senate VFX completed 186 shots. Anton Yri, The Senate's VFX supervisor, along with the studio's VFX producer, Sam Spacey, oversaw six major sequences in the film. Yri was on set for the duration of the first unit and model photography production phases. "We were entrusted with a broad range of work, which required a great variety of visual effects tech- niques — from extensive greenscreen work to full CG environments, ghost effects and creature anima- 6 Post • June 2012 ture of the house. CG period scaffolding was then added to the exterior, along with a CG crane in the foreground. The manor's surroundings were created using a mixture of sea plates, matte paintings and model element shoots. To add life to the scene, 18th Century construction worker elements were then dotted around the various walkways. "For the widest shots of the manor, which were generally lock-offs, we created more matte paintings," Yri notes. "Tim Burton preferred the slightly surreal look of the gardens created from scratch, rather than using model elements of the house." To add life to these shots, movement was added to the clouds, which in turn created animating light pat- terns on the house and gardens. Flocks of distant birds were also added in some scenes, as well as model cars and additional people. For the manor burning sequence, The Senate set the model house alight and filmed it at high speed to help give the flames a greater sense of scale. These model elements were then blended with the life-size foreground of the manor and supplemented with additional flame elements. An animated collapse of the tower was also added. Additional work by The Senate includes set exten- sion of the Angel Bay Fish Canning Factory, recreating a 1970's McDonald's, developing a watery ghost effect for the spectre of Josette, creating CG crabs that would crawl over her body, and creating a cracking effect of the witch Angelique. www.postmagazine.com Bag End offers mix studio low end L OS ANGELES — Sound mixer Frank Mor- rone (www.frankmorrone.com) makes the most of his compact studio, where he works on film, television and music projects. Designed by Anthony Grimani and tuned by Dolby, the 12-x15-foot space is equipped with Avid Pro Tools 10 with two HDX cards, a Euphonix control surface and Westlake BBSM6s for 5.1 Dolby mixing. Carrying the low end is a Bag End single 18-inch subwoofer. "I need that low end to be especially complete and tight," he notes. The first project Morrone worked on using the new Bag End subwoofer was a 5.1 re-mix of Bhatia's famous "Interstellar Suite," originally created using only analog synthesiz- ers, for its 25th anniversary release. Mor- rone's TV credits include work on Lost, The Kennedys, Boss, The L Word and Sex and the City. His film credits include Ransom, Sleepy Hollow, Shaft, Lost Souls, The Cider House Rules and the Oscar-winning doc, When We Were Kings. Barry Sonnenfeld's Men in Black 3 was on location in New York last summer, with a rigorous produc- tion schedule supported by Sixteen19 (www.six- teen19.com), which provided five dual-boot Avid Media Composers linked to a 32TB Avid Unity run- ning V.5.1.3. Each system incorporated a 50-inch Panasonic Pro 20 Series monitor, two 27-inch Apple Cinema displays and a 27-inch JVC studio monitor. They also ran a line from the VFX station to Sonnenfeld's East Hampton theater. Pictured is first assistant editor Jason Solberg.