Establishing Shot of Scaffolding
This scene takes place in the halfway of the construction, but still, we had to add a lot of stuff to the footage. I did everything such as 3D tracking, modeling, shading, lighting, compositing, etc for this scene. The budget for the green screen set was limited, so the art department could only build a one-quarter portion of the floor circle with only about 90 degrees and a couple of layers inside although the actual scaffolding from the reference photos have so many layers that you can barely see what is inside. Also, they could only build 3 floors instead of 50 floors which are supposed to be based on the story. Therefore we had to do a lot in CG/VFX. We started modeling the scaffolding in 3D according to the art department’s blueprint before the shoot, but the art department could not build the set like the blueprint. Also, the structure of the scaffolding was not proportionally even, so after the shoots, I had to adjust the structure a lot to match the set. Because this was shot with a very wide-angle lens, the lens distortion was causing issues when I tried to track precisely in order to match the CG scaffolding with the one in the footage. In pre-production meetings, I expected that tracking is going to be important for this entire scene, so I asked the camera department to take notes of the information for cameras and lenses in each shot. Also after the shoots, we shot lens grid footage for all of the lenses and cameras that were used during the shoots. Therefore, I used the grid footage to undistort the plate, and I 3D-tracked the plate, did the layout of the CG elements, rendered them, composited them, and finally redistorted the composite to get the lens distortion back. This scene was shot at an abandoned school in the middle of the countryside surrounded by mountains. However, in the story, the chimney and scaffolding are supposed to be on top of the mountain, so I replaced the backgrounds with the sky. Also, I added huts/sheds on the ground in order to create a construction environment.
Limited Budget on GS Set for Art Department
The budget for the green screen set was limited, so we had to do a lot in CG/VFX. Our modeler started modeling the scaffolding in 3D according to the blue print before the shoot, but the art department could not build the set like the blue print. Also, the structure of the scaffolding was not proportionally even, so we had to adjust it
Few References from Historical Photos
There were only a few reference photos because it was built in 1915 in countryside, so we had to improvise to seamlessly match the set. Our scene takes place in the halfway of the construction, but still we had to add a lot of stuff to the footage.
EXTRAS on Green Screen
I set up the camera from two angles (low and lower) so that I can get perspective differences when compositing the extras elements with the CG render
Aru Machi no Takai Entotsu (2018)
This film has many famous actors such as Tatsuya Nakadai (from Akira Kurosawa films), Dai Watanabe (Ken Watanabe’s son), Koji Kikkawa, and so on. The story is about a residents' community and mining company aiming for coexistence and mutual prosperity. The film is based on the actual story of the Hitachi Mine and surrounding residents together confronting the smoke pollution problem. The company tried various measures to disperse and dilute the exhaust smoke, such as building a flue and a large round chimney. Despite such efforts, the damage continued to spread. The Company's founder Fusanosuke Kuhara then proposed building what at the time was the world's tallest smokestack to disperse the smoke over a wide area. The budget and time for the art department were limited, and they had limitations on what they could achieve with props, sets, constructions, designs, buildings, and so on. We had to make them in VFX/CG. The story takes place on a large scale with many things such as the tallest chimney in the world at the time/its scaffoldings, destruction of the scaffoldings, other large chimnies, big smoke pollution, entire copper mining smelting plants, buildings, villages, sceneries such as mountains, cherry blossoms, trees withering and turning brown from the pollution, and so on. Therefore, we created them in VFX and CG. There were only a few reference photos because takes place in 1915 in the countryside, so we had to improvise a lot to make it work. I did VFX Supervising, Lead Compositing, 3D work, etc for this film. We had many pre-production meetings with all the staff before the shoots so that we could make sure everything will go well at the shoots and post-production. I suggested many methods for shooting and doing VFX in each scene and shot. In order to supervise VFX on set, I went to the location huntings and the shootings in Ibaraki which is a couple of hours drive away from Tokyo. I made sure that they would shoot the scenes in the way that everything would go effectively and efficiently in VFX. I suggested the methods, ideas, solutions, etc, explaining what would work best for VFX and the whole project.