Watchmen
Set in an alternate history where masked vigilantes are treated as outlaws and must embrace the nostalgia, Detective Angela Abar investigates the reemergence of a white supremacist terrorist group inspired by the long-deceased moral absolutist Rorschach.
2019
ILP primarily worked on a big sequence in episode 101, where we built the iconic Owl ship and an airplane. Subsequently, we shot down the plane with a flamethrower and crashed the Owl ship on a field. The work was both inside and outside the ship, and the crash through trees and digging up specific dirt mounds to match on set was a noteworthy task.
We were also in charge of a sequence in episode 109 where Adrian Veidt (Jeremy Irons) is fighting his game warden surrounded by his clones and eventually takes off in a spaceship through the bubble of atmosphere on the moon Europa. This sequence gave a proper challenge to replace all faces of Veidt’s entire staff to be indeed clones of the same actor/actress.
The face replacements were achieved through meticulous plate element comps, occasionally combined with fully animated and rendered CG heads. While using real footage to replace the whole head proved to be the best and most efficient option to maintain likeness for all the clones, varying lighting conditions, angles, and camera moves all added to this challenging task.
ILP also built Veidt’s spaceship as well as the moon environment as seen from outer space.
Breakdown
Project credits
VFX Supervisor: Bobo Skipper
Executive Producer: Måns Björklund
Production Manager: Kajsa Kurtén
VFX Coordinator: Rebecca Forsmark
Associate VFX Supervisor: Martin Hernblad
Animation Supervisor: Kristian Ström
Build Supervisor: Adrian Tsang
Compositing Supervisor: Niklas Nyqvist
Light Supervisor: Per Bergsten
Artists:
Kathya Dahlbeck
Fiona Dromard
Ilona Koutonen
Elin Lavén
Aman Bhanot
Biljana Temelkova
Loka Vegborn
Maxime Marline
Patrik Wedinger
Richard Thorsson
Will Elsdale
Adrian Tsang
Philip Engström
Niklas Ström
Kenny Vähäkari
Chris Hardman
Patrik Wedinger
Valter Svenstedt
Richard Thorsson
Hamed Bank