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Thursday, 9 December 2004 | Levent OZLER
CaféFX Creates a Catastrophic Climax for Blade
Weapons of Vampire Destruction, CaféFX Creates a Catastrophic Climax for Blade Trinity
SANTA MARIA, CA December 8 - We've all seen enough books, movies, and television shows to know how to kill a vampire (should that problem ever arise). Try garlic, crucifixes or the trusty stake through the heart. And, while these methods have proven effective, perhaps they've become a bit antiquated. At least, the producers of Blade: Trinity, the third movie based on the Marvel comic’s series, felt it was time to bring the practice into the 21st century. So vampires meet biological warfare with CaféFX (www.cafefx.com) bringing their dreams of contemporary bloodsucker eradication into reality.
In the show-stopping climactic sequence, the lead vampire (nicknamed "The Beast") is pierced by a virus-tipped arrow shot by Abigail Whistler (actress Jessica Biel). The virus bonds with the Beast's blood cells and is expelled through his mouth. The airborne "Daystar" virus is inhaled by several fellow vampires, all of whom suffer a less than pretty demise.
"This huge sequence was originally to be done in one take. We called it the 'Rope' of vampire movies," laughs Everett Burrell, visual effects supervisor at CaféFX. "It eventually got cut into three separate shots, but they were all incredibly long for effects shots, making this quite an undertaking."
Burrell and his team started practically. "Since we had to show the viral cells overtaking healthy ones, we viewed miles of medical footage to get an idea of what the process actually looks like. And, since the shot was to begin inside the main vampire and work it's way out, we also gave ourselves an anatomy lesson. The goal was to create something fantastic, but based in the realistic, to forcefully drive the story."
As the virus becomes airborne and infects other vampires, the shot often zooms in and out from plain sight, to a macro view displaying the virus' effect on it's victims. "This was a way for the filmmakers to visually demonstrate what was happening to the vampires, literally killing them from the inside out," explains Burrell. "We wanted to work it in realistically and naturally, to not interrupt the fluidity of the shot. We developed what we called the 'chain link' effect, much like filming a baseball game through a chain link fence. When you're zoom beyond the fence, it becomes invisible. However, when you pull back, suddenly the fence reappears.”
“We applied this technique to the viral cells. Zoomed in, you see them working and moving, pulled back, it's like a mist floating through the air, and the surrounding action takes focus. We made heavy use of the X-Dof plug-in for Lightwave, which diminishes the depth of field when going macro, which is how true macro looks. Again, it's taking something visually fantastic, and applying a realistic, practical look and feel," said Burrell.
And then the vampire's deaths follow, their veins bugling, eyes graying, skin cracking. "Again, we stated from a real-world perspective," explained Burrell. "We looked at victims of infections, such as Ebola, to get an idea of what it does to a body, and created a cinematic version. No practical makeup was done on-set so we had to hand motion-map every actor to transform them. In many ways, I had to draw on my experiences in practical makeup to achieve realistic effects. In fact, you could call these deaths my homage to Dick Smith's work in Scanners. But, whereas he had to work purely practically, we were working fully CG. Neither are easy," he adds.
Using a toolbox filled with Lighwave, Messiah, and After Effects, the CaféFX team also utilized some of its own software. "These were huge shots, with literally thousands of details," explained Burrell. "In communication with the client, we made full use of our own program, called CaféSnych, designed by CaféFX programmer Paul Hudson. This allowed us to send Quicktimes of what we'd come up with, and have the client send them back with frames and details highlighted, altered, deleted, whatever. This smoothed our communications considerably. With typical effects shots running just dozens of frames, it's not hard to figure out what a client is talking about when they want a change. But, these shots were over 300 frames. In those cases, you really want specifics."
After the smoke cleared, and the sequence was completed, director David Goyer, impressed with the results, sent Burrell a thank you card. "That may have been the first time that's ever happened," said Burrell. "He thanked us for creating a 'truly haunting and creepy' sequence. Which, is great, and was the intention, although sometimes you lose sight of that, hunched over computers."
Visual Effects by CafeFX Inc.
Facility Effects Supervisor David Ebner
Executive Producer Jeff Barnes
Digital Effects Supervisor Everett Burrell
Visual Effects Producer Vicki Galloway Weimer
Visual Effects Coordinator Phillip Moses
Lead Animators Greg Jonkajtys
Gabriel Vargas
Danny Braet
Compositing Supervisor Akira Orikasa
Compositors Votch Levi
Mike Fischer
Character Rigger Domenic DiGiorgio
Rotoscoping Toby Newell
Nic Spier
Joseph Hoback
Matchmovers Jeremy Cho
Cory Redmond
Manuel H. Guizar
3D Tracking Victor Grant
Art Director Glenn Hiramats
Data I/O Jack Wells
Larry Thomas
VFX Editor Desi R. Ortiz
Production Assistants Kathi Galloway
Rhonda Thompson
Accounting Sharron Sever
CaféFX, a division of the ComputerCafe Group, is headquartered in Santa Maria, CA, and has a studio in Santa Monica, CA. The company was founded as ComputerCafé in 1993 by Jeff Barnes and David Ebner to produce broadcast promotions and television ID packages. Today CafeFX works on major motion pictures Spy Catain and the World of Tomorrow, Master and Commander, LXG, The Core, Spy Kids 2 & 3, Panic Room, The One, Armageddon, Flubber) for the leadin Studios, while its Santa Monica-based commercial and music video division, The Syndicate creates commercials for national advertisers including: Nissan, Adidas, United Airlines, California Milk Advisory Board, Kinerase, Microsoft), broadcast projects (CBS, HBO, NBC) and music videos for top bands such as Green Day, Dave Matthews, Incubus and J.Lo. Both the Santa Maria and the Santa Monica studio are outfitted with the latest effects, design, compositing and rendering technologies, including Discreet Logic Flame, Commotion, Lightwave, Digital Fusion, Photoshop and After Effects.
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