city on fire
Creating a Murder Mystery on a Massive Scale
The fiction series, based on Hallberg’s 2015 novel, focuses on the aftermath of the murder of a New York University student, during the 4th of July celebrations in 2003. Working on Apple TV's "City on Fire" and it's great producers, enabled us to really stretch our creative legs, and deliver over 300 VFX shots of enormous variety at breakneck speed. Shooting during February and March and needed to convey a summer mood, so significant amounts of environmental VFX such as re-leafing of streets, Cental Park, skies, weather and day-for night were needed. Additionally, many architectural removals and augmentaions were necessary to take viewers back to around 2003. Other VFX were also performed such as Pyro FX, blood and beauty work, smoke, snow, water, de-aging, and blending in fanastic hand-drawn animation into live action scenes.. Let’s not forget recreating a more-simpler time for communication, flip-phones, iMacs, TVs, and the early internet all had to be reworked from scatch!
Greening-Up - Creating Summertime in New York
As the story is set in July, but filmed in early 2022, we needed to undertake the massive task of “Greening Up” of New York with countless varieties of photo-realistic animated CGI trees and other foliage. The CGI trees, constructed and animated using a combination of Speedtree and 3DS Max, were 3D tracked and inserted into complicated camera moves, match wind direction, light direction, rain, street illumination, and appear undectable close to character interaction. Editorial flashbacks meant seasonal changes needed the feeling of fall and winter snow.
Burning Down the House!
The scend was originally shot without any fire or interactive light. The final burning down of the art studio has a killer throwing flammable digital liquid against a wall of paper, which ignites, engulfing the room in flames. The entire scene used 100 % CGI fire, smoke, heat and the gradual destruction of the building.
It's Lights out in New York resulting in a once in a lifetime view of the Milky Way over the city. We re-constructed a 12K Milky Way sky plate from NASA photography and added millions of twinkling stars. The the original footage was shot day for night and required the removal of all city lights and shadows before the actors and environments could be re-lilluminated using flashlights and candles.
Handrawn animations plays a big part in one of character's drug-fueled experiences. We needed to convincingly blend live action and the illustrated to help make it feel immersive. This meant breaking down the live action plate and finding a balance of color and illumination, together with subtle distortions to make it feel immersive and naturally blended..
Because 2003 is still a mostly electronic world and not fully digital, we needed to realistically bringing back to life old tech TV's. phones and computers.
