What role did Scanline VFX play in the production of Back in Action?
Our teams in Munich and London tackled a few high octane sequences, one of which was a boat and bike chase along the River Thames. Other contributions ranged from London environment creation to intricate CG work featuring water interaction, shattering glass, explosions, and more.
How many shots did you work on for the production?
235
How long did the process take?
From April 2023 to June 2024.
How big was the team that was involved?
During our 14-month time on the project, our crew fluctuated from a nimble group of 4 to around 30 at our peak.
Please describe the technology and techniques used on the project and what they did.
Digidoubles of the main actors and a goon were used to replace stunts and crash dummies in live action plates that were either too dangerous or impossible to shoot. CG vehicles including boats, helicopters and a bike for the chase sequence along the Thames were used to add them to shots or augment real vehicles.
Environment work was done to bring different shooting locations together in the chase sequence; CG building for the Thames Barrier to add or augment it in shots; 3D and 2.5D environment setups for the London skyline for the boat chase; fire, smoke and explosion simulations for the collision of the boat with the Thames Barrier; water simulations for the Thames and interaction with it for the chase sequence; DMP and comp work for creating a London skyline with a controlled blackout and various 2D comp effects to enhance or alter stunts and practical fx bullet hits, muzzle flashes, wire and rig removals.
Some of the scenes you worked on involved recreating the Thames Barrier – how do you do that? Was a trip to London involved?
We used a photogrammetry model as a base, which we created with plates shot from drones and boats provided by the production, as well as publicly available measurement information. Due to strict security regulations the amount of footage and measurements was limited as it was not possible to do a lidar scan at the location. The photogrammetry was our base to refine the model to the level of detail needed for the shots in the sequence.
How hard is it to recreate water using visual effects – and how has that changed in the past 5-10 years?
Water is one of our specialties. The team has a lot of experience with water as well as fire, smoke and any kind of explosions and destruction simulations. For fluids and atmospherics we used Scanline’s award-winning fluid simulation software Flowline. Since its initial development, it has been constantly improved and refined, workflows have evolved over time, and new approaches and tricks have been developed. The work itself has not fundamentally changed, but iterations can be done a lot faster and the complexity and quality of the simulations has improved quite significantly over time.
Did AI play any role?
No generative AI was used.
What was the biggest challenge of working on the film?
Bringing all the different elements for the chase sequence along the Thames together into one big invisible effect sequence.
What were your biggest achievements?
Seamlessly bringing together and altering multiple locations and types of plates for the boat chase sequence. Doing this in a very efficient and cost effective way, using multiple techniques, dependent on the type of footage we received. Live action plates were shot in various locations with very different setups, i.e. actors and stunts in a water tank, or boats on gimbals in front of bluescreen, driving boats and stunts at the river docks and at various spots in London on the Thames. We had to fully or partially replace stunts, add CG boats or augment existing ones, add a cg Thames and water interaction for the boats and actors, create an environment for the chase that would combine different locations in London along the Thames including the Thames Barrier in a way that it works in the timing and the location changes of the movie. A mixture of 3D buildings, 2.5D setups with projections of plates, stitched plates and digital matte paintings were used to achieve an in the end invisible environment replacement.
All images used courtesy of Netflix.
