American Cinematographer - April 2006 - 138

the head," notes Kosinski. Frame rates for
some mo-co shots went as high as 150 fps
for slow-motion work. Some of those
were

300

slowed down

even

further in post to

fps using the Kronos retimer plugin.
A sweeping camera move through

the CG environment that follows

a runner

small, reflective pool of
is actually two motion-control

who hurdles
water
moves

a

stitched

together. Explains Neder-

horst, "The environment

was

built for the

first part of the camera's move, and for the
second move, when the camera shift

happened, the actual 3-D terrain

was

rotated."

Compositing was performed with
Digital Domain's Nuke software. "Nuke is
blindingly fast and allows for giant scripts
and thousands of operators," says Nederhorst. "Using EXR files, we embedded
different channels of data
RGB, alpha,
Z-depths and reflections, speculars,

Guava Performs Massive

way to

Feat

been to shoot

by Stephanie Argy

-

normals and
very

so on.

Nuke deals with those

elegantly. It also allowed

us to

build

lens-aberration tools and other custom

operators like the Rienzo Keyer pretty

easily. Nuke is designed by compositors
for compositors, and that makes it an
ideal choice in a fast-paced, high-end
environment."
Nuke also

used to

adjust
depth of field in the CG environment.
"About 95 percent of the time, we
matched the live-plate depth of field,"
says Nederhorst. Kosinski cites a closeup of a runner's foot as a good example:
"That's one we matched exactly to the
plate. Even the foot behind her is slightly
was

dren there

and features Atlanta Falcons offensive

for months

lineman Keith Brooking, as well as more
than 100,000 digitally generated chil¬
dren. Created by New York-based

combination of 150 real children and

Guava in collaboration with freelance

more

artist

Massive. "The children closest to the

programs,

lem with that
seum,

was

which seats

the scale of the Coli¬
as many as

100,000

spectators. "We quickly realized that
unless

could have thousands of chil¬

we

the day, we would be there
trying to fill every seat," says
Catchpoole.
on

The solution turned out to be
than 100,000

a

digital kids created in

down-converted for the television market.

Given that the commercial lasts

tude of the task before him, the

complicated than we expected
because the kids fidgeted, and some

voiceover

turned to the

completely until we blurred out the fore¬
ground as well."
Color correction and conforming
were completed in Assimilates Scratch,
and then the completed spots were
only 60

seconds, many of the details Nederhorst
and his visual-effects team put in each

Mezzo

announcer appeals to view¬
help by volunteering for literacy
programs through United Way.
Alex Catchpoole, Guava's visualeffects supervisor on the spot, says
everyone knew from the start that the

done," and it

stadium crowd would have to be done

shot

might be missed by the casual

viewer, but their efforts certainly didn't go
unnoticed. The client referred to the

campaign as "the best thing we've
was the only commercial
nominated for a Visual Effects Society
VES Award for Outstanding Compositing.
April 2006

for commu¬
United Way
created the "Lend a Hand" campaign, a
series of PSAs starring players in the
National Football League (NFL). One of
the spots focuses on children's literacy
nity-service

Philipp Hartmann, the effects
were done largely in Massive Software,
an application that generates 3-D
crowds in a way that is different from
most computer-animation programs.
The PSA opens with Brooking
reading Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham
to a small group of children. As he holds
up the book to show them the pictures,
the view widens to reveal he is sitting in
the middle of the field at the Los Ange¬
les Coliseum, reading to a stadium full
of kids. As Brooking takes in the magni¬

out of focus. That shot didn't work

116

To drum up support

approach the task would have
a number of plates,
moving extras from seat to seat to fill the
stadium in stages, and then composite
all the different views in post. The prob¬

ers

to

as an

effect, but they weren't quite sure

how to

accomplish it. The traditional

camera were

all real, and as you get

farther away the digital
take over, intermingling

kids begin to
with the real

kids," says Catchpoole.
After the stadium material

was

shot, the Guava team began by filling up
the

immediately in front of the
footage of real children to
create what Catchpoole calls a "real-kid
buffer" between the viewer and the digi¬
rows

camera

with

tal kids. "That turned out to be

a

little

more

camera

and waved," he

The artists ended up doing "quite a
bit of head replacement" to make the
real children look the right way.
Massive's digital
characters
needed something to sit on, so Hartmann
created a replica of the stadium and its
seats in Cinema 4d. "We got in touch
says.

with

an

architectural firm that had

FReilocamcutsorftr.esy
Phot s
American Cinematographer - April 2006

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