Eyeon Case Study : Rainmaker?s Blades of Glory

Case Study: Page (1) of 3 - 05/01/07

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Rainmaker provided more than 300 shots for Will Ferrell?s Blades of Glory using eyeon Software?s fusion as a big part of the production pipeline. In this interview, Rainmaker?s Mark Breakspear, Mathew Krentz, and Christine Petrov discuss the company?s pipeline for the movie, as well as some techniques used with the software.

Question: What specific skills do you think Rainmaker possess that made them the perfect choice to work on Blades of Glory?
Mark Breakspear: I think we understood what the filmmakers were trying to do from the very start. We shared a common belief that this wasn?t going to work unless we showed Will Ferrell and Jon Heder skating in a way that left you wondering if it was really them. We didn?t want to do any lock-offs, and we wanted to see the faces of the actors up close while they performed the amazing moves.
The passion was built on a solid belief that we had the right people to do the job. We knew it was going to take some ground-up invention to achieve some of the shots, but we knew that the people/software combination that we have here was up to the task.

Question: What was the outline of the specific project? (Who was the client, what were the requirements?)
Mark Breakspear: The client was DreamWorks/Paramount. The directors were two directors mostly known for their excellent commercial work, most recently the ?Geico ? Cavemen? commercials. The requirements going in were that we were going to have to augment our main cast so that they looked as though they could skate at an Olympic level. We also knew that the stadiums were going to have to be entirely CG, as well as the people to fill them. We?d done some interesting crowd work on a previous DreamWork?s feature and that was the initial starting point.

Setting up a shot. (C) 2007 DreamWorks LLC. All Rights Reserved. Images courtesy of Rainmaker.

Question: How many shots did Rainmaker complete for Blades of Glory?
Mark Breakspear: Rainmaker was the main vendor for Blades, with Digital Dimension, Image Engine, Soho FX and Hammerhead taking on the other shots. There were a total of 380 shots, of which 300 were done by Rainmaker.

Question: What makes up your pipeline? (What specific tools were used and why? How did Fusion fit into the overall production pipeline?)
Mathew Krentz: For our face replacements, we used Matchmover Pro to track the face animation of the actors, Maya to match move the doubles, light and texture the heads and Fusion to comp. Our crowds were all done using Massive to create the simulations and then comped in Fusion.
Mark Breakspear: Fusion appeared throughout the pipe, appearing to remove the facial tracking markers, stablize plates. Every CG artist also had Fusion for them to test their CG and in some cases set up precomps for the 2D team.
For me personally, the best use of Fusion was during the shoot. Mathew came down to set and literally comp?d shots right there as we shot them. He only had the camera feed to use, but knowing that you had all the elements needed and that you could show the directors a great temp comp an hour after it had been shot was obviously amazingly useful.

Question: What were some of the biggest challenges you faced on this project and how did you overcome them? How did Fusion help in this regard?
Mathew Krentz: One of the biggest challenges in working on a comedy is that there are so many temp screenings to see if the jokes work or not. With VFX this can cause a problem as we had to deliver temp versions of our shots multiple times throughout production, taking time away from our finals. Fusion's speed and ease of use made it easy for us to quickly update renders and passes to get our temps delivered on time.
Mark Breakspear: Yes, the previews really got in the way of ?doing? the shots! Once we?d reconciled ourselves to the fact that the previews weren?t going to go away, we were really happy with how Fusion was able to aid us in constantly changing and updating cuts.

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