Tuesday 09 Jun 2009 - 12:50
Frantic Films VFX created visual effects shots for the forthcoming John Woo-directed epic, Red Cliff, including one of the film’s key naval battle scenes. The most expensive Chinese-language picture ever made, Red Cliff is based on the historic Battle of Red Cliffs and other events during the end of the Han Dynasty and immediately prior to the period of the Three Kingdoms in ancient China.
The film stars Asian heavyweight talents including Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Fengyi and others. In Asia, the film premiered in cinemas in two parts clocking in at four and a half hours. The first part was released back in July 2008 to huge critical acclaim and box office success, while the second half -- on which Frantic Films VFX worked -- was released in Asian cinemas in January. In Europe and the US, both parts of the movie will be condensed into one two and a half hour film.
Frantic was given an important part of one of the main battle sequences of the second film, and was tasked with creating the entire environment surrounding a massively destructive attack waged on an enormous fleet of ships - all within a very truncated eight-week production schedule.
"With shots that called for a fleet of 2,500 of the same 26-metre boat, giving each of the boats a unique ‘hand-crafted’ feel was both a creative and technical challenge," explained Jason Crosby, VFX supervisor at Frantic Films VFX. "We really wanted to avoid the repetitive look that comes from using the same CG model. To do this, we broke the boats down into components that were randomly assembled using a rule-based particle system called Thinking Particles, which also propagated and animated the fleet."
Story continues...
Jump to page :
[ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]
For more information see the Frantic Films VFX Web site.
Keep up-to-date with the latest creative news -- click here follow @digital_arts on Twitter.
Submit to:
Click here for the latest reader comments