Downsizing
Our team's meticulous compositing and CG work helped create a downsized world
359 Shots
216 Crew Members
61 Assets
Project Info
Client
Director
Alexander Payne
Distributor
Paramount Pictures
Overall VFX Supervisor
Lindy De Quattro
Overall VFX Producer
Jeff Atherton
Rodeo FX Crew
VFX Supervisor
Ara Khanikian
VFX Producer
Julie Cardinal
CG Supervisor
Fabrice Vienne
Compositing Supervisor
Julien Hery
Our team helped scale down the world of Downsizing through environment extensions, compositing, digi-doubles, CG environments, water simulations, animations, and more.
For the reunion sequence, our team assembled the elements to show a downsized couple brought in in a transparent carry-box. In the composite, we added back micro jitters and movements and created glass reflections on the box.
More of our compositing work is seen in the first downsized community sequence, where the first volunteers are wheeled out on a gurney. We also composited the Leisureland showroom, replacing the model home with a 3D asset, and we composited the bus ride to Leisureland, with full-size and downsized passengers riding along.
We created CG environments for the ride into Leisureland along with 285 CG assets, including 129 buildings, for the city itself, which our compositing team layered into scenes with custom lawns, vegetation and landscaping.
For the sunset scene, we layered the bonfire with set extensions, redesigning the environment to incorporate the lighting changes. This became a mostly CG shot, retaining just the setting sun. Our artists then had a lot of fun animating the anticlimactic avalanche, adding little details that won over Overall VFX Supervisor, Jamie Price.
“We had planned to do the explosion as a miniature. That was always my strategy. When we got into post, we roughed it in digitally, and the animation [by Rodeo FX] was so good and so funny that we just kept it. All of the dropping of the rock, including one final pebble that punctuates the moment, was choreographed by animators and artists.”