cineSync tackles communication challenge

Friday, 29 January 2010

In Clint Eastwood's latest film, the rugby themed Invictus, the VFX team had to create entire stadiums full of people and in many cases, recreate the stadium itself.

VFX Supervisor Michael Owens worked with CIS Vancouver, who then co-ordinated a number of other facilities around the world to assist with some of the large elements such as the rotoscoping.

An article on CG Society details some of the challenges - and how cineSync can help to solve them:

Michael Owens is quoted as calling the Invictus stadium job, the 'biggest rotoscoping job in the history of cinema'. As a bit of history, in Letters from Iwo Jima, Michael and his crew did a huge rotoscoping job to pull in a background for a huge wide shot out on a hill in Iceland that was doubling as the hill on Iwo Jima.

When it came to doing a very similar but even bigger job in Invictus, the job was given over to Owens once again. CIS Vancouver ended up coordinating and hiring a bunch of facilities around the world to do this rotoscoping.

"It would never have happened if we didn't have the capability that we have today," says Owens. "I can cineSync with anybody on the planet, and work alongside him with him on a monitor. The rotoscoping job was pre-determined and something we could all prepare for."

You can read the rest of the article, including some interesting notes on digital makeup, crowd replacement and some other challenges at CG Society.

The official site for Invictus is here.