NEW YORK — Dive (www.divevisual.com) was among a select group of visual effects studios that provided services for director M. Night Shyamalan’s new feature film, After Earth. The film stars Will Smith and his son Jaden as a pair of crash survivors who become stranded on Earth 1,000 years after a series of events forced humans to leave the planet.
Dive’s work on the film included a number of visual effects shots involving set extensions, sky replacements, paint, rotoscoping and compositing. The studio also created 3D elements to enhance the wreckage of the spaceship and the debris field created by the crash. Additional 3D probes were also part of the studio’s contribution to the film.
The DIVE team began their collaboration with Shyamalan early on in the development of the film’s script. Towards completion of the film, the studio provided post-vis services alongside the editors at Shyamalan’s facility just outside of Philadelphia. Dive was challenged with quickly developing 250 temp VFX for the film’s test screening. Many of these set the look for the film.
“M. Night Shyamalan is a great director to collaborate with,” says Dive VFX supervisor Mark O. Forker. “He is very easy going, and we were able to work very closely with him at his studio outside of Philadelphia while the script was being developed. That was a great opportunity for us. Our team is very good at creating material that isn’t completely developed, and I feel we did a great job delivering on the director’s vision.”
Dive called on Nuke, Maya, Mocha, SynthEyes, Softimage, LightWave, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Shotgun Studio, and Scratch Lab during their work on the film.