Show Reel Breakdown

Please note: parts of the surrounding shots in whole scenes are used to put the composited

shots in their proper theatrical context.

Alice in Wonderland

As a senior compositing artist for the final battle sequence on Alice in Wonderland, my role

was to assist in establishing a look for the scene’s environment. These tasks included

design of sky color and cloud placement, grading of CGI and live-action characters into the

environment (particularly Alice) and techniques to achieve these goals in Katana. All

compositing involved attention to final stereo output. Alice in Wonderland was a mixture

of full CGI, live-action and digital characters in a completely digital environment. In many of

the shots on the demo reel, Alice is the only live-action element in the midst of a fully CGI

world. The blonde actress was filmed on a green screen using an HD camera which

presented the usual challenges of extracting a perfect key, suppressing the green spill and

then performing the final delicate color correction of face, hair and armor into the Tim

Burtonesque environment in such a way as to be easily replicable across the sequence by

other compositors. Oh, and then there’s the dragon spitting fire and the CGI armies.

G Force

The first shot on the reel is of the Clusterstorm monster rising out of an unholy union of

space junk and household appliances. The plate was created from a composite of other

plates with added explosive flashing and extraordinary attention to the animated monster’s

integration. The vfx elements were many and the time was short. The best part of G Force

was compositing the CGI guinea pigs into their live-action and digital environments. It was

good fun to integrate them using their AOV passes which provided great control over every

lighting nuance of the characters and environments. As Darwin and the mole struggle on

the platform of the Clusterstorm in full CGI, I had fantastic control over every element

because of the expert CG character generation pipeline at Sony Pictures Imageworks.

The Chroncles of Narnia Prince Caspian

The vast majority of compositing work on Prince Caspian involved integrating 3D creature

bodies with actors. MPC’s massive creature pipeline brought centuars, fauns, minotaurs

and countless other creatures brilliantly to life. In the battle shot featuring Susan firing her

arrows, there were hundreds of fully CG animals as well as actors needing CG bodies. The

ground was completely replaced with a matte painting necessitating weeks of rotoscoping and paint work.

In the storming of the castle sequence, the Gryphons, the Glenstorm centaur and the

Asterius minotaur were the creatures that I composited, often leading the way for other

compositors in terms of technique for each specific character. In the Gryphon shot featured

here, Edmund’s legs were replaced with CG legs

10,000 BC

Compositing these epic shots of the construction of the pyramids at Gaza as well as the

extraordinary 3D woolly mammoths in this film was a spectacularly rewarding experience,

requiring every compositing feat of magic known in Shake, Nuke and Maya. The 3D

pipeline at MPC for this project broke new groundwork in the art of 3D visual effects

production. The pyramid building shots presented here were composed of live action sets,

miniature models, massive crowds, matte paintings, bluescreen elements, smoke, smoke

both practical and CG as well as the 3D woolly slave mammoths. These CGI creatures

required particular compositing attention to multiple 3D elements including fur, skin and

bone.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

For HP5, I was a lead compositor at Double Negative in London for the veil room wand

sequence in which Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix engage the deatheaters in a

wand battle. As compositing lead for the sequence, I supervised a team of compositors in

reproducing and maintaining continuity for all the wand spell effects in the veil room. Also

as sequence lead for the “battle wand” effects, I was instrumental in establishing the look of

these battle spells which began as particle elements from the dynamics team. The wand

shields and offensive strikes were designed with special 2d warping to create distortion of

both of the particle elements as well as the plates under the elements using Shake.

Combine with animated glows and flashes, throw in a pinch of exploding debris and you

have the receipe for the look of the decisive wand battle in the veil room.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

The opening title sequence of this film was originally photographed during the day. My task

was to grade the sequence for night. I tracked the full moon and stars elements to match

the plate. The headlights of the car were created using optical effects in Maya. The actors

were photographed on a green screen and graded day for night.

Underworld: Evolution

The first shot is the signature shot of the film and at least four senior compositors

contributed to it. I composited the 3d helicoptor propellor and indeed handled the

Susan Weeks Reel Breakdown page 3

propellor for many of the shots in the film. It featured prominently in the Talon sequence.

I did all of the compositing for the 3d propellor, creature talons, the 3d and practical

severed hands as well as all of the blood effects in this entire sequence.

Stealth

In these three shots of the Kara Ejects sequence done at Animal Logic in Australia, the

Jessica Biel-Kara character hurtling to the ground is the only real live action element in the

scene. The clouds, the ground plane, the falling debris, atmosphere, smoke and particle bits

are all CGI. As one of the lead compositors on Kara Ejects, I set the overall look and tone of

the sequence with the first shot featured here. The second shot required months of

rendering and compositing to achieve the effect of the character falling through the

atmosphere chased by flaming stealth bomber debris. All three shots were shot on a

revolving gimbol in a green screen stage at Fox Studios and composited with the CGI

elements using Shake. The composites were huge and certainly tested everyone’s abilities

as well as the robustness of the AL facility.

Thunderbirds

In the first two shots, Alan and Fermat are photographed on a greenscreen set with T1. The

catwalk beneath their feet and the silo beyond it are CGI elements. A color curve produced

the glowing green goo effect.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Dobby Team: Aside from the usual 3D character compositing needs, Dobby often required

special attention, particularly his little stained pillowcase. Breaks in the 3D cloth

simulations were repaired by tracking in patches and rotoscoping shadows. We added little

burlap threads to enhance the impression of the cloth’s reality.

In the bedroom scene, the glowing, wet look of Dobby's tears was achieved by tracking a

tiny lens flare into the end of each tear.

All of Dobby’s scenes needed much light and shadow work. In the shot in which he hits

himself with the lamp, the lighting effects on the wall were done with roto mattes and

gradations.

Star Wars II - Attack of the Clones

In the steam vent sequence, I was given the opportunity to create the environment around

the spaceship and composited all of the shots in this sequence. The landing platform is a

miniature, all of the steam elements are practical, the characters are photographed on a

bluescreen stage while the ship is a CGI element.

The droid factory sequence involved highly detailed background environments composited

with the CGI Genosian creatures and blue screen live action plates.

The last Clone War shot is almost entirely CGI elements. Almost everything in those shots is

CGI with the exception of the background smoke and pyro explosions.

Pearl Harbor

The first attack on air field combined many practical and CGI elements. The flying planes

and the exploding planes on the ground are CGI. All the explosions and smoke elements

are practical. The muzzle flashes on the flying airplanes were created by painting

individual frames of flame elements which were then animated procedurally.

The main explosion on the Oklahoma battleship contains many different elements. The

smoke is a mixture of CGI and practical elements as are the water and all of the debris. I

used Elastic Reality to put the stunt sailors on the deck of the boat and in the water. The

sailors in the far background, the rear part of the ship and the falling tower are CGI.

The Perfect Storm

Most of the shots in the Mistral rescue sequence were photographed in a bluescreen tank

and later enhanced with practical splashes and water elements outside the windows and

water trickles on the windows. The ocean in The Perfect Storm was a CGI character that

needed a lot of loving care with the composite because it was so difficult for the Technical

Directors to create. The first and last shots are completely CGI.

Star Wars I - The Phantom Menace

All of these shots in the Tattooine and Pod race sequneces were photographed on a

bluescreen to which highly detailed background composites or completely CGI backgrounds

were added. I was often assigned close-up shots because of my skills extracting hair mattes

from a bluescreen.

Galaxy Quest

The CGI pod landing in the dusty background was composited with a sky matte painting

while the engine vapor and swirling dust are practical elements.

The main spaceship elements in this first battle sequence were miniature models

photographed with a motion control camera. They were fabulous and we used all of our 2D

compositing tricks to make them fully come alive.

The Omega sequence was composed of a combination of bluescreen photography and CGI

"omega" effects.” I was lead compositor on this sequence, performing all of the compositing

and 2d tasks including bluescreen extraction and warp effects.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park II

In the days before ILM's comptime software, finessing of the composite was done mostly

with frame by frame paintwork using Matador. I did all of these shots in the Roundup

sequence in this manner, carefully painting dust and grass over the dinosaurs as well as

color balancing everything into these shots. Essentially, they were all fine-tuned with paint.

I also did all of the rotoscoping and target removals for this sequence. In the shot, where

the jeep is hit by the Friar Tuck dino, the timing of the stunt didn’t work properly as it was

photographed. I painted out the edges of the jeep and retimed the jeep hit, painting back in

the broken glass and everything else that needed to be reworked.

In this raptors on the rooftop shot, I painted and rotoscoped all of the mattes for Julianne

Moore as the raptors fight around her.