Man of Steel

In the Daily Planet set for Man of Steel, it needed to look and feel like a lived in functional newspaper office.  We needed an easy way for our guys on set in Chicago to build multiple desktop computer screens for all the monitors on set.

Because of clearance issues, we couldn't use any actual existing operating system.  Chris Kieffer designed a custom UI for our fake OS.  I built a custom application for the film that allowed create multiple desktop layouts.  Using sets of PNG files we could now just select a background, icon set and add and position windows and save a different layout on each on set computer.

I was also on the production in the California unit as a playback operator for the green screen in the tibetan tent scene.  Since it was an old CRT Tube TV, I needed to synchronized it's refresh rate to the 24 frame film camera or there would be a rolling bar in the shot making it harder for the VFX guys to composite in post.

Because of the enormous amount of post production VFX that needed to happen on Man of Steel, I was asked to help out on the monitor replacement in the Daily Planet scenes.  

Move mouse to see before & after (touch on left & right of image on a touch screen device)

I used Nuke for the tracking and composites, and color matched in DaVinci Resolve for editorial screenings.

Move mouse to see before & after (touch on left & right of image on a touch screen device)

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

On The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, I got involved in post production as a compositor for the TV screen replacement shots.

Move mouse to see before & after (touch on left & right of image on a touch screen device)

Using Nuke to do the composites, on some of the shots I needed to also replace the channel number so it could change in the shot.

View fullsize

I also needed to rebuild the news content for 4:3 aspect since the original content was in wide screen 16:9 aspect.

Move mouse to see before & after (touch on left & right of image on a touch screen device)

In the smoke covered stage shots I ended up using Mocha Pro to track the shots.  It gave me better results using it's planer tracker.  I then brought the tracking information into Nuke for the final composites.

Alex Cross

In the film Alex Cross, most of the playback on set was green screen to be replaced in post production. I designed and animated the graphics for the interactive mobile device where Alex Cross disables the Police Dept. Security System.

I was also brought on to do the VFX replacement composites of the green screen computer monitors in post production.

Using tracking markers in the green screen playback files on set made tracking the shots easier.

Move mouse to see before & after (touch on left & right of image on a touch screen device)

I moved to Nuke for compositing the screens on this film because of it's speed and powerful compositing tools. 

View fullsize

and DaVinci Resolve for color matching the outputs for editorial's screenings.

Move mouse to see before & after (touch on left & right of image on a touch screen device)

The Tourist

In the Tourist because so much of the computer screens used surveillance video that was going to be shot later, we ended up compositing most of the screens in post production.  

In the Scotland Yard set we decided to shoot the screens off so that we could get nice reflections of the actors that we could blend back in with the computer graphics that were built by Coplin LeBleu.

Move mouse to see before & after (touch on left & right of image on a touch screen device)

All the 50+ VFX monitor shots in the film were composited in Adobe After Effects.

We also had to match the color and look of the screens that were shot on set.  The three screens behind the 2 standing actors were live on set and the screen on the lower left is one I composited in post.

Again in this shot I needed to replace the bottom left screen with a different surveillance video while still matching the look of the other monitors in the original shot. 

Also needed to replace a phone screen in order to make the action of taking Jonny's picture more visible.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Often in when doing playback graphic on a feature film I need to take existing images wether it's a computer desktop, smart phone screen, software application, news graphics, etc... and add the fake "movie" story content to it.  

In Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps I needed to take existing stock monitoring software and add the Keller Zable (KZI) our fake company I the film to it and make it's stock data match the story.  

I also animated the stock ticker animation used to project on Shia LaBouf's face. 

Most of the story driven news segments were shot on green screens.  I needed to build the final composites early in production so they could have them for playback on set.  

I designed and animated the news elements... 

As well as tracking the shots and building the final comps.

Move mouse to see before & after (touch on left & right of image on a touch screen device)

One thing that always proves to be difficult in building content for feature film is clearing the use of artwork and photos.  Even stock photo libraries can be too expensive or have licensing issues with the production company... That's why I make sure I take pictures where ever I go. In one of the news clips we needed a New York background... 

It is actually a photo I took on my iPhone from the top on the building I was staying in while I was there shooting The Taking of Pelham 123.

I cropped, retouched, and flipped it for use in the composition as the backdrop for the news segment.

Move mouse to see before & after (touch on left & right of image on a touch screen device)