VFX supervisor John Paul Docherty and company Doc & A Soc created
complex composites for action movie ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’,
using Blackmagic Design’s Fusion Studio.
Fusion Studio Joins ‘Kingsman: Secret Service' for Complex Compositing |
VFX supervisorJohn Paul Docherty, with his company Doc & A Soc in London, created complex visual effects for the recent action movie‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’, in particular using Blackmagic Design’sFusion Studionode-based software. John worked as a vendor on the film, a comic book adaptation, compositing more than 100 shots in Fusion Studio. |
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He and digital matte painterJim Bowerscreated 360° environments for various sequences in the film ‘Kingsman’, including a huge hangar filled with a vast fleet of aircraft and secret service staff, a first glimpse into the true scale of the Kingsman organization that dominates the story. |
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Compositing for majorexplosion effectswas also carried out in Fusion Studio. John createdglass shatteringeffects, which were combined with mattes of building exteriors and overlaid on live pyrotechnic footage shot with high speed cameras. “In the explosion sequence we were working with four shots filmed with high speed cameras at Levesden. I then rendered these in, together with the glass shattering effects I’d created. We dealt with multiple image formats and lots of lens distortion, as well as fairly dramatic colour space and resolution differences, before we could effectively composite in the office and taxi elements.” |
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Due to conflicting schedules, overall VFX supervisorSteve Begghad to move onto another production before ‘Kingsman’ was completed, so John was asked to take over as one of two additional visual effects supervisors, splitting the remaining VFX workload withJohn Bruno. In this capacity John covered shots ranging from full CG and environmental simulation to cosmetic retouches, fixes and pyrotechnical work. |
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“Another good example is a very long shot in which the villain, Valentine, is revealing his evil plan to the Kingsman leader, Arthur. The actors were shot on different days with different camera moves and no motion control. Consequently, the workflow involved lots of tracked patches, respeeds and reanimated elements as well as heavy colour matching. We could use Fusion to handle this kind of work pretty easily,” John said. www.blackmagicdesign.com |