As our first project as Destroy All Monsters we were asked to provide all the pre-viz and post-viz on New Lines adaptatation of Phillip Pullmans novel. We spent a year and a half on the project with the team growing from two to seven artists and ending up providing pre-vis and post-viz for dozens of sequences. The hard work of the whole VFX team has been recognised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who awarded the best Visual Effects Oscar to Michael Fink, visual effects supervisor, Bill Westenhofer (Rhythm & Hues), Ben Morris (Framestore-CFC) and Trevor Wood (special effects). The Visual Effects team were also awarded the BAFTA for best Visual Effects in a motion picture.

Working out of the production offices in London, at the end of 2007 Destroy All Monsters took on some of the post viz work on this VFX heavy movie. Following this, in the last few weeks of the films post production period, we set up in the VFX offices of the project and delivered over eighty final shots.

Just prior to setting up Destroy All Monsters, Pawl helped out on the pre-viz efforts for 10,000 BC, working closely with VFX supervisor Karen Goulekas. Once principle photography had wrapped, Karen borrowed a few Destroy All Monsters staff members to boost her dedicated in house compositing team. Working with Shake, our staff worked out of the films production offices to complete a number of final shots.

Based within the art department of Production Designer Guy Dyas, Richard Perry used pre-viz to bring Director Shekhar Kapurs’ vision of a Spanish galleon fleet to life.

Using pre-viz as a conceptual device, the workflow organically progressed through to storyboards and then to sequence completion.

Richard oversaw the asset hand over to post production facility MPC, closely working with Visual Effects Supervisor Richard Stammers.

Previz artist Richard Perry worked closely with Oscar wining Director Anthony Minghella and Production Designer Alex McDowell to provide an architectural visualisation of a fictitious development plan of the Kings Cross area of London.

The pre-visualisation proved such a success that it was included in the feature, with Richard travelling to UPP in Prague to supervise final rendering and compositing to 2k resolution.

Before setting up Destroy All Monsters, our team worked on this, the fourth cinematic outing for Harry Potter. Based at Leavesden Studios, we worked with VFX Supervisor Jimmy Mitchell and Director Mike Newell to complete pre-viz for almost every visual effect based shot in the entire movie. Two sequences, both of which are tasks given to Harry to complete, stand out as being particularly pre-viz heavy. Both of these can be viewed on the showreel section of the site. Taking the supervising pre-viz artists role for the third time on a Harry Potter film, our creative director, Pawl Fulker supervised a team of 5 artists, using Softimage XSI software and a variety of 2D applications.

For the third Harry Potter film, Pawl handled much of the pre-viz, in house for Warner Brothers at Leavesden Studios. Visual Effects supervisors Tim Burke and Roger Guyett were at the helm of the VFX effort and directing duties were handled by maverick Alfonso Cuaron. Alfonso has a very particular way of handling film-making, preferring long constantly evolving shots which would be almost impossible without pre-viz. Pawl took on many of these shots from the early planning stages, through the shoot, right up until the elements were handed to the post production vendors. A couple of really good examples can be seen on the technical pre-viz reel on our showreels page. We also sprinkled some of our pre-viz magic on the sequences in which Harry confronts the dementors and the Quidditch game. Software used on this project was Softimage3D, Maya and After Effects.

Whilst working for Cinesite, Pawl headed up the pre-viz team on Tomb Raider2 – the cradle of life. Working at Pinewood, with VFX super Steve Begg, Pawl and his team of artists, working on Maya and Shake helped develop an artistic direction for a major sequence in the film.

The Chamber of Secrets was an intensive project, in terms of visual effects. The pre-viz duties were shared between just three artists, with Pawl Fulker taking on third of the work. The Quidditch game formed a major part of the film and was a major sequence in terms of pre-viz. Visual effects supervisor, Jim Mitchell required an extremely accurate representation of the whole sequence before shooting commenced. Pawl played a large part in getting the sequence through pre-viz and onto the shooting stages.

For Harry’s first foray into the world of cinema, Pawl took the supervisory pre-viz artists role. On loan from Mill Film, Pawl and his team worked directly for the production. Academy Award winning VFX supervisor, Rob Legato was heading up the visual effects effort. He required much of the film to be realized in pre-viz and then shot using motion control cameras, to match the visualizations almost exactly. The tight production schedule meant that Pawl and his team were often pre-vizing shots one day, which would be shot as motion control shots the very next day. It was a tricky show in terms of logistics, but Rob got he wanted on shoot days, thanks to the pre-viz.

For Pawl’s first job for Mill Film, he took the lead of a large matchmove team for Cats and Dogs. The film required all manner of animals to talk, the faces of which all of which had to be accurately tracked, then augmented in 3D. Pawl, lead the team using commercially available and in-house software, through the task of tracking most of the canine characters.

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