It was a really fun project with a mixture of CG elements, matte paintings, FX elements, and 2D elements like dust, sand, fire and smoke. We didn’t have the luxury of time, so we were working fast. We would usually have two or three shots to final each week.
It was really satisfying to turn around shots quickly and move onto new ones. We were working to a high standard but there wasn’t time to get fixated on shots and noodle them to death.
Towards the end of the project the deadline extended by a couple of weeks, but a lot of the artists had already moved to other projects or companies. Four of us kept on to finish the last shots. I picked up a big hero shot of the exploding Alpha Mimic that had previously been assigned to one of the compositors who left. It was a really fun shot finish the project on. As it was a one-off shot there was a lot of figuring it out as we went along and lots of communication between me and the lighter.
The best thing about the whole project was that I thought the final movie was great! It was the best movie that I had worked on since I had got to Vancouver.
Just as we were wrapping up on the project there was a company wide “monthlies” presentation where they showed work in progress from all the current projects. They played us a complete 12 minute sequence of our work, from when the troops left Heathrow, to the end of the first battle on the beach. When the sequence ended the whole office gasped and everyone just wanted to watch the rest of the movie. I’d never seen a reaction like that from a group of people who’d been working on the project for months.
You can read more about my time at Sony here.
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