Behind the Scenes With Breaking Dawn Visual Effects

Remember back when Bill Condon said there were more green screen shots in Breaking Dawn than in Avatar? Here’s a look at why. I have to say on some of the shots I never would have guessed that a green screen was in play.

600 shots in 3 months is pretty impressive. How did you do that?
George Macri – VFX Producer // We had a solid team of artists with clearly defined tasks that were tracked by the Production Management team on a daily basis.

Have you created some automatic procedure to key and composite the backgrounds?
George Macri – VFX Producer // Everything was done using Nuke’s built-in keyers.

What was the biggest challenge on this project and how did you achieve it?
Jeff Campbell – VFX Supervisor // Estimating the spatial relationships and distances of objects and actors to the glass in the windows.

Eric Doiron – Compositing Supervisor // Those expansive outdoor views were entirely green screen comps. The real challenge was getting the reflections right. We often cheated the reflections because sometimes what was physically correct didn’t always work best for the composition.

Check out more on Art of VFX It can be a little technical, but the pictures are amazing. Well worth the read!