The Walt Disney pictures logo was one of the most complicated shots I've worked on. A 6 month project that had me working closely with Weta's Art Director Michael Pangrazio, manipulating the various CG and 2D elements into something that matched the concept artwork he created for the logo.
During the production of this shot I supervised all the compositing tasks, which involved frequent collaboration with the other artists to find the best way to realize the different lighting effects needed for the shot and how to break elements down for layering and control purposes. The only composting tasks I didn't complete were the star at the head of the shot and the firework effects. The sky was a matte painting mapped onto a cylinder in Nuke. Our TDs rendered the terrain (a projected painting of terrain and villages rendered through Renderman and Nuke), water, foliage, clouds and trees.
A particular challenge for this shot was determining a way to produce 2.35 and more traditional 1.78 / 1.33 deliverables from a single composite. Cropping a 1.33 master comp to 2.35 wasn't possible as this would chop off the top of the castle. Likewise If the shot was framed for 2.35 and the matted opened up for the 1.33 version there would be lots of dead space above and below the castle. A compromise was settled to create an oversized 3K composite and then scale and matte the image down for the 4 delivered ratios (2.35, 1.33,1.78,1.85)
A particular challenge for this shot was determining a way to produce 2.35 and more traditional 1.78 / 1.33 deliverables from a single composite. Cropping a 1.33 master comp to 2.35 wasn't possible as this would chop off the top of the castle. Likewise If the shot was framed for 2.35 and the matted opened up for the 1.33 version there would be lots of dead space above and below the castle. A compromise was settled to create an oversized 3K composite and then scale and matte the image down for the 4 delivered ratios (2.35, 1.33,1.78,1.85)
Major technical challenges on this shot became the size of the various shake scripts used the render the shot, managing the number of frames (720) along with the associated render time. Along with the technical were the may creative challenges. Whilst there was approved concept art covering certain key frames, many of the angles in between had to be discovered and refined, often transitioning from one particular colour treatment to anot
The logo debuted on the front of "Pirates of the Caribbean 2", with a darker colour treatment than is typical for the logo. Sometime after the debut, we revisted the logo to make an extended version for the film "Enchanted". The length of the shot doubled with the camera zooming into the window above the castle gates to reveal a Sleeping Beauty style storybook with pop-up artwork. Again I looked after the compositing efforts on the extended edition of the shot.
All images and footage © Walt Disney
All images and footage © Walt Disney
