Underworld Evolution CGI

If you have ever watched an action movie or fantasy movie, you have probably heard people taking about how anything can be done with CGI. But how many times have you stopped to consider what was actually real and what was computer graphics? In today's movies, the line between reality and computer animation is more blurred than ever and that's why I enjoyed watching this short film about the movie Underworld Evolution. It's always crazy to me to see how creative camera angles and complex stunt rigging can be combined with computer graphics to produce these shots we are so used to seeing on the big screen.

Underworld Evolution - Behind The Scenes from Jeff Castelluccio on Vimeo.

Patrick Hall's picture

Patrick Hall is a founder of Fstoppers.com and a photographer based out of Charleston, South Carolina.

Log in or register to post comments
6 Comments

Very interesting, great link. Thanks alot.

That's a good mixture of real effects and CGI, but less than I thought. Good to know not everything is composited.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

For the 1977 Disney film "Pete's Dragon" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete's_Dragon they composited live action and hand drawn animation. Pete was flown on a wire and the dragon was added later. They used miniatures for the waves crashing over the lighthouse.

Miniatures were used extensively for both StarTrek and Star Wars, but it was old technology by then. The new thing was sophisticated motion control.

The other day everyone was impressed by the use of CGI to re-create colonial America, Nothing new here, Matte Paintings were done by hand in the days before inexpensive computers.

Compositing was done by Optical Printers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_printer before it was done by computers.

Damn that wire thingy is fun looking

What is that attached to the lens at 2:39? I know what it is for, but i don't know what is it called and where can i get one.

It's a directors finder. Used by the director to look through the lens without having to have it attached to a camera. Arri builds one, so does Panavision Here are a couple of thrid praty finders http://www.cavision.com/viewfinders/cine.htm and http://www.filmcamerakit.com/html/viewfinders.htm Not Inexpensive!

Here's a version that uses variable masks instead of using a real lens http://www.directorsviewfinders.com/