For The Fast and Furious: F9, The Fast Saga, Proof did previs, techies and postvis on almost every frame of the action blockbuster. The Previs alone accounted for 3,000 shots all hand-animated in Maya. The production went around the clock with the team at Proof in Los Angeles and the Proof team in London working on the film for 83 weeks straight of previs/postvis. Additionally, there was another plus 14 weeks of postvis/finals to complete the film. At 2 hours and 22 minutes, the final film marked the longest Fast & Furious film ever released.
The Proof team worked closely with Alex Vegh, 2nd AD and previs director to achieve the Justin Lin’s vision. Justin Lin returned for this film as the director. He last directed Fast & Furious 6. It was originally set to open in May 2020, but it got pushed back a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic until last year.
The giant armoured truck seen in the final chase sequence in Tbilisi is called ‘the Armadillo’; It stands 14 feet high, weighs 26 tons, and took four months to build. Vehicle supervisor Alex King worked with production designer Jan Roelfs to engineer and custom-built two versions of the Armadillo. King said in the film’s production notes “The Armadillo, or as I’ve always called it, the Mother Trucker, is the biggest on-screen vehicle I’ve ever seen and certainly that I’ve ever built”.
The Visualization Supervisors for the project were George Antzoulides and Dafydd Morris. They were aided by Visualization Producers Patrice Avery and Sian Green. The final visual effects were provided by a set of VFX companies including DNEG and ILM. The final film had 2283 visual effects shots. Peter Chiang was the Production Visual Effects Supervisor, Daniel Baldwin was the Digital Visual Effects Supervisor/on-set Supervisor, and they worked with Benoit De Longlee, Daniel Rauchwerger, Derek Wentworth & Michael Grobe VFX sups: DNEG, and Julian Foddy VFX Sup ILM. Much of the filming was done in Europe in Georgia and the UK in late 2019. Interestingly, the final film was released exactly 20 years after the original The Fast and the Furious.
Proof was founded in 2002 by Ron Frankel, (Immortals, Live Free or Die Hard, Minority Report, Fight Club and many more). The Proof London office was established in 2012 with Partner and Creative Director, Pawl Fulker (Jurassic World Dominion, No Time to Die, Wonder Woman, Sherlock Homes +), and quickly grew to be a leading UK visualization studio. Proof is dedicated to providing quality visualization services for the feature film and immersive entertainment industries. From the earliest stages of development to the final delivery, their artists aim to help clients tell their stories and realize their cinematic visions.
