Page 90 - 3D World - October 2017

industry
47 Meters Down

Molloy had to employ a
Frankenstein approach to
sculpting the sharks out
of water, to ensure the
skin looked realistic

vFx inSight
47 METERS DOWn: Duncan McWilliam

Founder
VFX WITh BITE Steve Molloy

Creative director

Outpost VFX tells Tom May how it’s been making Laszio Mandi
a splash with its first big creature feature 3D artist

very summer needs a shark was shot over six weeks in an industrial was responsible for their sculpting and
E movie, and this year’s was 47 estate in a tank in Basildon. So that provided texturing. As well as quickly having to learn
ZBrush, one of his main challenges was
an interesting challenge: how do you make a
Meters Down.
It follows two sisters who tank in Essex feel like you’re at the bottom of finding a good visual reference for their skin
go cage diving in Mexico so the sea in the tropics?” out of the water. “Underwater, they’ve all
they can see sharks up close. But the cable Plus, there was an extra level of stress got a green or a blue tint to them, but above
holding the cage breaks, and it plummets to for the VFX facility, which McWilliam water, it’s very different,” he explains. “So I
the ocean floor. founded in 2013: it decided to become an had to use a combination of a head from this
So it’s a big-budget American equity partner in the movie. Consequently, picture, a tail from there, and so on.”
blockbuster, created in some exotic location? McWilliam took the role of executive And the sculpting wasn’t a one-and-done
Surprisingly, no. In fact, it was mostly filmed producer alongside the Weinsteins, steering job, either. “There was a lot of to-ing and
on a small budget in Basildon, UK. the VFX budget to create the best possible fro-ing between the sculpt and animating,”
“There was some location work on-screen production value. he says. “They could be animating the proxy
done above water in the Dominican model or the raw mesh one, and I could be
Republic,” explains Duncan McWilliam of Sharks first just updating throughout the course of it.”
Bournemouth-based Outpost VFX, who The most important thing to nail was the To complicate things even further,
delivered all 426 CG shots. “But the bulk CG sharks. Creative director Steve Molloy partway through the process it was decided

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