Recently on fxguide we covered Method Studios’ work on the mirror room sequence in Divergent. While that was certainly a stand-out scene, we also wanted to highlight in this bonus fxinsider article some of the other visual effects shots in the film – from creating a war-torn Chicago, to a stunning zip-line trip, to hordes of attacking ravens.
Chicago – taking things away
Exterior views of destroyed Chicago – the result of an unexplained previous war – were mostly handled by Method Studios. “We got to shoot in Chicago,” says overall visual effects supervisor Jim Berney, “and then visual effects-wise a lot of it was taking things away. The more you add to it, the more it can become too painterly. So instead we took away any signs of modern life you have now, meaning there were no driving cars, no advertisements, street lights.”
Method crafted CG turbines, cabling, building pieces and digital vegetation and swamp areas. Scenes set at Navy Pier (involving the Ferris wheel) were ‘enhanced’ to show wear and tear and destruction to the area. The studio also delivered shots of the 130 foot fence that surrounds the city, plus a slightly futuristic elevated train system. This also involved digi-doubles for scenes of some of the characters jumping from the trains onto rooftops.
In order to craft the CG components of the city, production spent time during principal photography LIDAR’ing and surveying key areas. “We would spend days at time around the city with a couple of guys on a man lift,” recalls overall visual effects producer Greg Baxter. “We’d go up and down city blocks taking texture photos and doing LIDAR capturing of the actual geography of the block. Then at Method they would re-build these blocks.”
Riding the zip line
As Tris’ training in the Dauntless faction continues, she’s rewarded with a nighttime zip line journey between – and through – Chicago’s high rise buildings. The final sequence features visual effects by Scanline.
“We previs’d it and shot helicopters with the idea of having a run looking forward or back and then hang Shailene Woodley against bluescreen and do close-up work,” says Berney. “And any time we got in a jam where the bluescreen camera was too wild, we would then use those plates projected onto geometry and build it that way. But when we started cutting the film, the studio wanted to see more of the zip line. So we actually started from scratch. We re-previs’d it with the knowledge that we were going to have to go all-CG. And we grabbed Shailene Woodley at the end of production and re-shot it.”
Scanline then constructed a CG version of Chicago based on the the helicopter plate reference and other imagery. “So, in the end,” recounts Berney, “the top section is a set-piece, then the second she leaves the top we’re all in a CG world. She ends up transitioning to this alley at the end. We did have a Cable Cam for that and had a stunt person zip-lining into a real alley.”
When Ravens attack
Whilst in a simulation designed to face her fears, Tris encounters a flock of attacking ravens. The bird scenes were shot without any practical ravens, with Method delivering the digital creatures.
Catch a glimpse of Method’s CG birds in this TV spot.“On set,” says Method visual effects supervisor Matt Dessero, “we broke out our Canon 5D Mark III and started triangulating and getting witness cameras to work out where Tris was in 3D space. It was something that was difficult, because in a lot of the shots it’s cameras floating on blue sky – very abstract.”
The birds were modeled in Maya and ZBrush, then brought into Houdini where Method had developed a feather system. “The trick here was getting a slight amount of iridescence on the feathers,” notes Dessero. “We got a nice groom to get the moulting feathers and get the underside ones to puff up a little bit. We had controls to puff up the feathers in different poses and we had wings that could flare out.”
[…] Divergent’s digi-environments and creatures […]