“Children of Men” by Framestore CFC

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Conference:


Title:


    Children of Men

Company / Institution / Agency:


  • Framestore CFC

Description:


    A CG baby had to be inserted into a scene to be shot as an extended, three-and-a-half minute “single take,” filmed with a hand-held camera, lit by a hand-carried “hurricane lamp,” with the baby in close-up from delivery onwards. The baby is also seen in later scenes.

    The paint and animation teams had to help remove the model baby used on set, as well as the large cable that supplied the electricity to the hurricane lamp.

    The biggest single challenge was the skin, both the look and the subtle movement from wobble and wrinkling. The team used a number of recent RenderMan tools, for example, for some of the subsurface scattering techniques, as well as pro-prietary skin-deformation tools.

    Once the animation and the skin’s look were right, the baby had to be put into the shot and, more specifically, into Theo’s hands. Many layers of lighting tweaks were applied. Theo’s fingers had to be reanimated in the comp. Kee’s dress had to be disturbed by the baby’s movement. Finally, subtle additions that helped sell the shot were applied: gentle steam rising off the baby, for example, and the drips of fluid falling off it.

    The rig and animation were accomplished in Maya, the rendering in RenderMan, the tracking in Matchmover and Boujou, the paintwork chiefly in Commotion and the compositing in Shake. Silhouette was also used, as were a number of proprietary plug-ins and tools.

Additional Contributors:


    VFX Supervisor: Tim Webber

    CG Supervisor: Andy Kind

    Animation Supervisors: Michael Eames, David Lomax

    Modelling/Rigging/Texture: Felix Balbas, Alessandro Bonora, Danny Guertsen, Ben Lambert

    Animation: Craig Bardsley, Ross Burgess, Paul Claessens, Vincent Devay, Pablo Grillo, Barth Manoury, Nathan McConnel, Max Solomon

    3D: Nick Epstein, Edmund Kolloen, Colin Laski, Patrick Lowrey, Paul Oakley, Marine Poirson, John Roberts-Cox, Neil Weatherley

    2D: Jonathan Fawkner, Patricia Llaguno, Adrian Metzeelar, Ivan Moran, Alex Payman, John Peck, Pedro Sabrosa, Jeremy Sawyer, Gavin Toomey, Guiliano Vigano

    Tracking: Erika Bermingham, Christina Boon, Gordon Curtis, Lee Dexter, Frederick Heymans, Carl Jackson, Marc Jones, Melvyn Polayah, Nicholas Reed, Ross Stansfield, Mark Tudor Williams

    Paint/Roto: Simon Allen, David Aulds, Jarnail Bhuchu, Scott Chambers, Emma Clifton, Alex Cumming, Sandro Henriques, Rebecca Manning, Bruce Nelson, Steve Parsons, Tony Peck, Travis Porter, Aled Prosser, Alex Tate, Shahin Toosi, Tara Walker

    Production: Amy Beresford, Robin Saxen, Lorna Paterson, Penny Hayler, Maria Michalopoulou