Mr. X Takes No Prisoners in "Assault on Precinct 13"
Some complain about the weather -- Mr. X does something about it! Visual Effects studio Mr. X has turned Spring into Winter -- and provided 290 visual effects shots -- for the highly anticipated 2005 action film "Assault on Precinct 13".
Toronto, Ontario (PRWEB) January 18, 2005 -- Visual Effects studio Mr. X has
turned Spring into Winter -- and provided 290 visual effects shots -- for the
highly anticipated 2005 action film "Assault on Precinct 13".
In this
exciting remake of John Carpenter's cult classic, Officer Jake Roenick (Ethan
Hawke) must cobble together a force made up of cops and criminals, trapped
inside a soon-to-be-closed police station on a snowy New Year's Eve, to save
themselves from a mob looking to kill gangster Marion Bishop (Laurence
Fishburne). Mr. X was charged with the formidable task of helping to transform
the entire setting of the film by applying brutal winter weather conditions and
raging blizzards.
"It is always exciting to have the opportunity work
with great filmmakers and have our work impact the very mood and feeling of a
film," comments VFX Supervisor Dennis Berardi. "Much of Mr. X's role on this
picture was to provide greater scope to the fantastic job the production team,
as led by Paul Austerberry and Laird McMurray, did in building and dressing the
set. Our digital enhancements allowed for wider shots of the environment that
would be nearly impossible to dress." Where production created the set, Mr. X
helped to establish the world by providing digital trees, buildings, skyline,
snowdrifts, and falling snow as the finishing touches. "The challenge is always
to realistically integrate our work with the practically shot elements -- and in
the larger sense, to create effects that have great impact but at the same time
don't call attention to themselves."
To help establish a sense of
desperation for the film's protagonists, Director Jean-François Richet wanted to
convey a feeling of isolation for the precinct. In one particularly ambitious
shot, a virtual camera travels from an interior, second-story office of the
Precinct, and then far out the window and into the landscape of the gusting
snowstorm, establishing the remoteness of the precinct's location in relation to
the rest of civilization. Aside from the interior shot of the office, all other
elements in the shot are wholly CG, including buildings, lampposts, terrain,
roads, foliage, power lines, falling snow, the skyline, and more. "To achieve
the level of detail necessary for photorealism, parts of the CGI precinct, which
would appear very large on screen, needed to built, quite literally, brick by
brick, on computer," explains CG Supervisor Kristy Blackwell. "Cracks, weather
damage and other imperfections were modeled into these CG bricks, and in order
for the brick's textures to hold up onscreen, the source images used were at
times up to 14K in size, seven times that of normal film
resolution."
"The sudden blizzard is a major plot point in this film and
becomes a character in and of itself," explains Aaron Weintraub, Compositing
Supervisor. One of the more challenging compositing effects was the creation of
a "veil of snow," using a combination of practically shot elements and 3D
particles in an effect that is subtly and gradually intensified throughout the
film until its exciting climax. 3D snow banks, debris, icicles, and (for
close-up shots of the actors outside) a visible breath element were also added
in order to complete the winter effect.
Other visual effects included a
wide variety of environment matte paintings and cityscapes, shot and explosion
enhancements, laser sights, sniper scope POV's, and CG grenades, icicles,
swords, and snow. The Mr. X team was led by Visual Effects Supervisor Dennis
Berardi, along with CG Supervisor Kristy Blackwell and Compositing Supervisor
Aaron Weintraub, and used such tools as Maya, Renderman, and MentalRay for the
3D work, as well as Shake, Flame, and Inferno for compositing.
Mr. X
continues to build upon its successful track record of partnering with
filmmakers to create story-driven visual effects, as seen in "Dawn of the Dead"
(2004) and "Resident Evil: "Apocalypse", as well as dozens more.
Exciting upcoming projects for Mr. X include such anticipated titles as
"The Greatest Game Ever Played" and "Ice Princes" for Disney, "A History of
Violence" for David Cronenberg and New Line, and "Where the Truth Lies" for Atom
Egoyan, among many others.
About "Assault on Precinct 13"
Scheduled
for U.S. release on January 19, and worldwide theatrical release on January 21,
2005, "Assault on Precinct 13" is a suspense-filled remake of the 1976 John
Carpenter film, produced by Jeffrey Silver. Set in a soon-to-be-demolished
police station on New Year's Eve, the film tells the story of a small group of
policemen and prisoners led by a jaded captain (Ethan Hawke) who must form an
unlikely alliance in order to prevent the staged riot and killing of an infamous
mobster (Laurence Fishburne) being held there. The cast also includes Maria
Bello, Drea de Matteo, John Leguizamo, Gabriel Byrne, Brian Dennehy, Ja Rule,
and Matt Craven.
Who is Mr. X?
Bringing together a unique mix of
artists, filmmakers, VFX supervisors, and programmers, Mr. X specializes in
partnering with filmmakers to provide story-driven visual enhancements. The
artists and creative minds at Mr. X are known for their superb, photo-realistic
achievements in CGI, their skills in digital matte painting, VFX compositing,
and Post/VFX supervision, as well as for their realistic digital creations of
epic-scale and otherwise impossible stunts. With a studio equipped with a rare
mix of the latest imaging technologies, the team at Mr. X is committed to
pushing the limits of the digital realm, and in making the impossible, possible.
With credits on dozens of distinguished projects including "Resident
Evil": "Apocalypse", "Dawn of the Dead" (2004), "Wrong Turn", "Blizzard",
"Ararat", "The Sweet Hereafter" and many more, Mr. X helps to define the very
look and feel of a film.
For more information on Mr. X, please visit
their website at www.Mrxfx.com, or for pictures or interviews, please contact
Dennis Berardi at (416) 595-6222, or via www.Mrxfx.com.
For public
relations materials, bios, or further backgrounders, meanwhile, please contact
publicist Angela Mitchell at (904) 982-8043.
Note: For a complete list of
Mr. X titles and credits on "Assault on Precinct 13", please refer to the posted
credits list at
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/1/prweb198788.htm. Images
from "Assault on Precinct 13" are also posted at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/1/prweb198788.htm -- please
do not crop, and credit © 2005 Focus Features/Rogue Pictures whenever these
images are used for your story.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/1/prweb198788.htm