Hitler – The Rise of Evil / 2003

Director / Christian Duguay
Producer / John Ryan
Vfx sup. Upp Prague / David Vana
Flame composition / P.Nemec
Cgi / Upp Cgi depart.
Post. House / UPP (www.upp.cz)

One of my first Film projects. Full compositions and mate paint work. Which I done for Upp post house in Prague. It is 13 years a go, in 2002! Well, the time is running. hmm,. We done lots of multiplication shots, like for all historic Films to-day. But between them, lots of interesting shots also, like second scene in reel.

Where I remember, we having 5 or 6 different takes, layers of german soldiers, standing in lines. But all of these takes, without motion control system, on camera. Camera was just on jimmy jeep. So I have past, lots of tracking, stabilisation and deformation process, during the comp. of this shot. The go, was create the first gathering of Hitler soldiers, on Odeonplatz square in Munich. Obviously, Its really difficult to shoot this kind scenes in real, for production.

After all of that stabilisation and roto – soldiers. I was painting the Feldherrnhalle building and around houses, streets. And than, little 3d move from 2d track. ( in that time, we don’t really used 3d track like these days 😉 On the end, this shot is working well in the cut. I just want to point out, none of the shots, in this reel, did Used Motion control camera!
I remember, I have most fun, with Tannenberg monument scene. Which is the last scene and shot in this movie.

Story behind Tannenberg: In August 1933 the Nazis held a massive demonstration at the memorial to commemorate the anniversary of the battle. The Polish government allowed 1,500 cars to transit through the Polish Corridor. Among those attending were Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Franz von Papen and Erich Koch, East Prussia’s Nazi governor.

The Building or monument, we created mostly in 3d, little mate paint for textures. Then all landscape elements, are combination of photos / mate paint. The rest, like cars, people, soldiers, dogs and so on, I animated after, from photos or green screen elements. Waving people on tribune, are made from particle deformation. On final, little smoke, grade and atmosphere shadows on ground, job done.