The Butterfly's Dream.
Working in association with Bordeaux based Light VFX, we were tasked with creating fully digital assets and digital set extensions for use within a multitude of shots for the award winning feature film The Butterfly's Dream.
The largest Asset we created for this project was a digital replica of a 1940's cruise liner. The physical ship which is moored on the banks of the Bosphorus in Istanbul, was used as a set. Several sequences required the ship to be a relatively new fully functioning vessel to be shown at sea. Due to the state of repair of the physical vessel this was not possible so the alternative was to create a digital replacement for these sequences. This presented several challenges particularly where the ship is seen at full steam at sea. We accomplished these shots using our CG asset and creating a digital sea plane, our talented team of compositors then took several live action sequences of boat wakes which were shot over the Bosphorus and integrated them with the CG elements creating several seamless final sequences of the vessel at sea.
One of the primary sequences in the film required the main characters to pass through the port of Istanbul. This was shot in the existing area of port where the physical ship was moored, unfortunately the surrounding buildings were far too modern to be included. To solve this problem, green screens were used to block these areas out of the shots so they could be replaced with a digital set extension and DMP (digital matte painting) which was more in keeping with the time period.
We then created many digital assets including vehicles and props as well as digital characters to move around the set to give it the appearance of the bustling port of Istanbul in the 1940's.
The final sequenced we were tasked with initially began as a small modification to remove several elements from the live action plates. However as the shots it was felt that the location looked to derelict to represent the hospital that it was meant to depict.
At this point we built a digital asset to replace the existing building and trees that were in close proximity to it. Our talented team of compositors then integrated the new elements into the live action plates.
