David Fincher’s newest film A Girl With a Dragon Tattoo is full of surprises. If you haven’t seen it, please take a moment and watch it. It’s a great film with some big visual effects sequences and some small ones too. None of which should have surprised you, since they all should have been invisible.
I was working at a52 in Santa Monica, Ca, when I was asked if I could help out with some of those invisible effects. I was hired to work on some shots requiring monitor composites for a cellphone, laptop and TV screens. Each object had its unique challenges requiring separate keys, hue suppression and tracks.
The movie was shot in 4k and all the compositing needed to be done at this resolution. This meant even the slightest movement of the laptop, cell phone or TV screen was picked up by the camera. The majority of my time was spent finessing my tracks, both 2d and 3d. Other problems in 4k included edge chatter that was caused by the large grain/noise in the shots.
Before and After
Here is an example of what one of the shots looked like. The original plate, along with the final result of my composite. Some of the challenges on this shot were the animated defocus as well as the tracking of the bouncing laptop corners.
If you’re interested in seeing more of my work on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Please check out my demo reel. I have several shots there showing my work.
This was a really exciting project to work on. The anticipation could be felt in the studio and since there were not very many visual effects shots, not a lot of artist got to touch the film. I’m also a fan of David Fincher and knowing he was reviewing my shots directly, sometimes minutes after my supervisor approved them, made it all the better.