The responsibility of saving the world from a resurgent alien threat is thrust upon five teenage outcasts with an attitude. Together they must fulfill their destiny under the guidance of a mysterious alien mentor. Sounds familiar? Yep. It’s the Power Rangers in a brand new contemporary makeover! Directed by Dean Israelite, the film boasts a stellar cast, with Elizabeth Banks taking on the role of Rita Repulsa, Bryan Cranston as Zordon and Bill Hader as Alpha 5.

Multiple Academy Awards winner Digital Domain roped in BOT VFX to help with look enhancement, replacing the green suit stunt doubles with CG characters and prosthetic cleanup on characters.

The Power Rangers’ suits come equipped with wiring called Energy Lines. BOT’s Roto team’s main task was to provide Rotoscopy for all of those lines which were then used to generate glowing and pulsing energy that flowed through each suit. They used 3D tracks to stabilize the camera movement.  They then used 2D tracking and frame by frame manual roto in both Silhouette and Nuke on the more complex shots. With some of the shots being as long as 2000 frames, this was a particularly challenging project. Production Coordinator Anand Ramesh explains, “It seems simple in theory, but most of the shots were complicated by heavy action, what with the characters constantly running, flying, flipping and performing crazy acrobatics.”

Things were equally grueling for the Paint team as well. The major task was to paint out the stunt doubles from the original plates of some of the highest-octane shots. They would later be replaced with CG characters. The work was not straightforward Anand explains, “We had to work on slow motion shots and recreate the background with very limited source to go on.” However, armed with clean plates for objects in different depths, the 3D camera track and set geometry from Digital Domain, the team set out to do what it does best. 2D Supervisor Srikanth Srinivasan elaborates, “Some of the trickier shots included those of the characters Zordon and Rita. Since the actors wore prosthetic suits, the main challenge before the team was to fix the obvious wrinkles and cracks that made the prosthetic makeup look artificial.” This called for meticulous paint work, which wasn’t exactly a straightforward job due to subtle muscle and skin movements. Digging into Nuke’s expansive toolset the team was able to track the subtle movements at pixel level, which helped achieve the desired results.

Finally, three whirlwind months later, BOTs delivered over a hundred shots.

“The kind of work this project entailed, it needed the Roto and Paint teams to work in super-efficient tandem. We wouldn’t have made half the progress we did, if it wasn’t for everyone’s proactive and meticulous planning. That is what made this project a truly rewarding experience”, smiles Srikanth.

If there’s anything that gets the BOT team going with superhuman efficiency, it’s projects like these that bring out the collaborative spirit in everyone. As the Red Ranger would say, “It’s morphin’ time!”

Saban’s Power Rangers will be out on Digital HD June 13th and 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray Combo Pack and DVD on June 27th.

Leaping beyond the confines of a comic book panel can be a tricky task, especially when trying to establish a believable world that movie theatre audiences have never seen.  The ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe took on this challenge with 2016’s Dr. Strange.  Directed by Scott Derrickson, it’s not a story of just another city-saving reluctant hero in a cape (actually, in this story even the cape was a hero).  Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular hero, the film is nothing short of a hallucinatory head-trip.

Luma Pictures was responsible for some of the most difficult VFX shots in the film.  Not surprisingly, Vince Cirelli of Luma Pictures was one of the nominees for Best Visual Effects in a Motion Picture at this year’s Academy Awards.  Vince and his team at Luma leaned on BOT’s expertise and capacity to assist with some complicated and painstaking work to help Luma’s compositors seamlessly integrate CG elements into the live action plates.

BOTs were tasked with assisting on two of the most mind-bending parts of the film, totalling over 150 shots: the opening sequence starring Tilda Swinton (The Ancient One) and Mads Mikkelsen (Kaecilius), and the climactic battle between Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange) and an uncredited Benedict Cumberbatch playing an other-worldly villain (Dormammu). Over the course of 3 months, a team of over 30 BOTs was led by Srikanth S. on the rotoscopy and paint front and Govardhan A.B. on the matchmove front.

The most challenging of the BOTs’ tasks was the removal of complicated stunt rigs and wires.  To help create a level of realism in the unreal world of the story, plates were shot with intricate camera moves along with changing lighting conditions.  Using tools like Foundry’s Nuke, the team used a combination of procedural techniques, frame-by-frame manual painting, and a hybrid approach combining the two.  The artists and the Supervisor relied on their experience to judge case by case, shot by shot, which approaches would be most efficient and effective.

Multiple deadlines and clashing deliveries were met with meticulous planning, scheduling, and collaborating. The team came through in true superhero spirit.

As 3D Supervisor Govardhan A.B. puts it, “The timeline towards the end was very tight. The minutest of details had to be worked on in an extremely short timespan, but the team’s support was phenomenal.”

BOT’s goal was to deliver exceptional work on time and budget. After successfully racing to the finish line, BOT VFX Executive Producer Hetal Jain gushed, “Working with Vince and his team at Luma is always an enriching experience for BOT; we’re glad to be associated with a film that’s an Oscar nominee.”