Rainmaker provided more than 300 shots for Will Ferrells Blades of Glory using eyeon Softwares fusion as a big part of the production pipeline. In this interview, Rainmakers Mark Breakspear, Mathew Krentz, and Christine Petrov discuss the companys pipeline for the movie, as well as some techniques used with the software.

Question: What specific skills do you think Rainmaker possess that made them the perfect choice to work on Blades of Glory?
Mark Breakspear: I think we understood what the filmmakers were trying to do from the very start. We shared a common belief that this wasnt going to work unless we showed Will Ferrell and Jon Heder skating in a way that left you wondering if it was really them. We didnt want to do any lock-offs, and we wanted to see the faces of the actors up close while they performed the amazing moves.
The passion was built on a solid belief that we had the right people to do the job. We knew it was going to take some ground-up invention to achieve some of the shots, but we knew that the people/software combination that we have here was up to the task.

Question: What was the outline of the specific project? (Who was the client, what were the requirements?)
Mark Breakspear: The client was DreamWorks/Paramount. The directors were two directors mostly known for their excellent commercial work, most recently the ?Geico Cavemen? commercials. The requirements going in were that we were going to have to augment our main cast so that they looked as though they could skate at an Olympic level. We also knew that the stadiums were going to have to be entirely CG, as well as the people to fill them. Wed done some interesting crowd work on a previous DreamWorks feature and that was the initial starting point.

Facial performances were motion-captured — along with film-resolution textures — as actors watched their skate doubles perform.

Using scans of plaster casts, the filmed textures, and the motion-capture data, animated face meshes were created.

Question: What makes up your pipeline? (What specific tools were used and why? How did Fusion fit into the overall production pipeline?)
Mathew Krentz: For our face replacements, we used Matchmover Pro to track the face animation of the actors, Maya to match move the doubles, light and texture the heads and Fusion to comp. Our crowds were all done using Massive to create the simulations and then comped in Fusion.
Mark Breakspear: Fusion appeared throughout the pipe, appearing to remove the facial tracking markers, stablize plates. Every CG artist also had Fusion for them to test their CG and in some cases set up precomps for the 2D team.
For me personally, the best use of Fusion was during the shoot. Mathew came down to set and literally compd shots right there as we shot them. He only had the camera feed to use, but knowing that you had all the elements needed and that you could show the directors a great temp comp an hour after it had been shot was obviously amazingly useful.

Applying tracking points. Matchmover Pro was used to track the face animation of the actors (C) 2007 DreamWorks LLC. All Rights Reserved. Images courtesy of Rainmaker.

The anatomy zones. (C) 2007 DreamWorks LLC. All Rights Reserved. Images courtesy of Rainmaker.