I recently had a chance to have a quick chat with Chris Harvey, VFX Supervisor & Head of 3D at Frantic Films, about some of the recent work they did on the feature film “Watchmen” from Warner Bros. Pictures. I’m always impressed with the high quality work this group does and often on such an incredibly short turn around. Their extensive experience has enabled them to take on some of the most difficult visual effects from the incredibly detailed particle shots with billions of particles, to the most challenging fluid effects, to complex generative crystal effects, and to the “if you can imagine it” they can probably do it. From the sound of things “Watchman” was no different than any of this. Below is a quick chat I had with Chris about “Watchman”.



Q: What would you say is the primary reason for selecting 3ds Max as the main animation, modeling, and effects tool for previz on Watchman?

Chris: Max has always been our main staple tool in 3D....Watchmen was no different. One of the reasons for it being so useful on previz is that it really is a swiss-army knife and can do whatever we want and it can do it fast. Specifically on Watchmen its procedural nature came in particularly useful. We actually employed the use of ThinkingParticles to design complicated effects that we could tweak and art-direct as the previz process is so incredibly iterative, and iterative in the sense that they want to see multiple versions, ideas, set-ups within a single day.

Q: I’m sure there were many challenges the team faced while working on the project, what was the biggest technical challenge your team faced and how did you overcome it?

Chris: Technical challenge...well one of the biggest challenges on this project was actually having two separate requirements, for 2 different departments....which in the end actually meant we had two separate teams. Essentially we had one team working specifically for VFX and the director in an artistic approach..where the only goal was to make things cool and design killer shots. The second team was working strictly on a very technical level mapping out green screen hangings, sun positions for location shoots, camera rigs and how that affects the sets around them, etc...

Q: Any other cool projects in the works that you could tease us with?

Chris: All I can say about this is "summer blockbuster time" wink wink :)

Thank you again Chris for taking the time to share with us a little glimpse into the project! It’s great to see Frantic Films continuing to conquer some of the most challenging shots in the biz.

For those interested in additional information about the amazing work Frantic Films did on the film "Watchman" please click here.



additional links:

Official Warner Bros. site

Howstuffworks "Inside "Watchman""

Frantic Films VFX Does Previz for 'Watchmen'