cineSync in the Hood!

Tuesday, 28 December 2010

Ridley Scott's big budget re-telling of the legend of Robin Hood was a massive undertaking for all involved. With the DVD release of the film, VFX Talk interviewed Richard Stammers, VFX Supervisor of MPC in London about the making of the VFX and how the pipeline worked - including the challenges of remote collaboration.

From VFX Talk:

"I’d be with Ridley throughout the shoot when we were filming any visual effect shots. If he had any particular request or I had any questions he’d often do a quick sketch, based on the framing of a shot we were doing. I would also show him development work throughout the shoot too. This was mostly concept stills, so we could get approval of layouts or to clarify a brief before we got into the time consuming work.

"Once the shooting had completed in the UK, Ridley and the editorial team returned to LA to cut the film. Allen Maris, the vfx producer, went too and I remained in the UK to oversee MPC’s day to-day work. We’d regularly send work for review; in fact this was a daily routine in the last few months of post. We’d specify if things were to be reviewed in the cut or just for discussion –but there were no set stages of approval we would adhere too. If we had a shot, which showed the layout of the French Armada, we’d send it so it could be reviewed in the cut, but we couldn’t wait for approval on each and every shot, there wasn’t time in the schedule. I would have to approve the stages so the teams could continue to the next step...

"Ridley was in LA for post-production so we saw very little of him. We regularly sent work in progress to editorial and he and Pietro Scalia (the editor) would review shots in the cut. We also used cineSync with the VFX producer Allen Maris, who was based in LA with the editorial team. These sessions tended to be more interactive as we could sketch notes on shots as we reviewed them. Ridley came to London twice in post, each time for a week. We screened every shot as digital 2k whether it was work in progress or for final approval. These were very productive visits as he was focused purely on the vfx work."

It's an extensive and very informative interview and well worth a read - you can check it out in its full glory at VFX Talk.