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My work on King Kong spread through several sequences, including:
Venture/Water, Ice Pond, NYC Streets, Kong Rampage, and finaly on the Kong Kapture sequence.

My first batch of shots occur when they first land on Skull Island and we cut back to Hayes and Jimmy symbolically discussing 'Heart of Darkness'. Performed around 12-14 shots that included selecting and assembling ocean elements to throw behind the shots on Jimmy. And when we cut back to Hayes shots, part bluescreen part sky plates, I hand tracked and used Boujou so I could do sky replacements on these, as well as using a Rock Head miniature element tracked in and placed behind Hayes, the one the Venture crashed up against. All these shots required tons of attention to the edges, ie pain in the ass. I also did a few other sky replacement shots similar to this paticular sequence.

Earlier in the movie, I did a couple of fun shots when Ann finds herself infront of the Burlesque, pondering what to do, she crumples up the business card that brought her there and walks away. NYC was built and exists in CG, namley for the Empire State Building sequence, but the first/ground/street level portion did not exist in 3D, a huge set was built for these city street shots, but anything above would be a 3D city set extension. The establishing shot's plate included a couple cars, the marquee, city folk walking around infront of a medium section of greenscreen, with tons of steam rising infront and behind everything. This proved to be pain removing the screen and keeping steam detail. I did the selects for the sky, intigrated the CG building extensions, as well as additional massive people and cars, added tons of steam interaction, and matched the look of the blinking lights on the marquee to the CG extension, timing and falloff onto the CG building. Same deal for the shot as she walks away from us, except this one required a lot roto lovin'. The Rampage sequence where Kong busts through the theatre onto the NYC streets and chases Jack in the taxi cab was getting into gear when I arrived at Weta. I did a couple of shots when Jack first gets into the Taxi and asks the driver to drive, but the driver gets out and runs... these shots required green screen pulls for city extensions, windshield schmutz restoring, neon sign and light intigration, massive cars and people, and some elements peppered in, steam and cars kicking up stuff.

My first shot with Kong in it, was, well... just his Arm and Hand reaching into to the trolly car at some poor city folk stuck inside. I had 3 of these shots actually, each of which had no backgrounds for them, for what you would see through the windows on the sides and the back. Also they all had some chaotic camera moves because kong has his arm inside and is sliding the trolly around and lets it down as he makes eye contact with Jack. I used what I could from the TD placing a camera in the CG city, but it mainly served as reference for what I would build by hand using reference material of the sorounding set, and the Mayfair building. The reference was shot in the day, so I mixed it for night, added windows with lights on, glowing marquee's, street reflections, steam, massive cars and people. The ground and streets were also assembled using reference photos, using Cyco, I was able to assemble all these BG elements and attatch them to the shot camera. I also animated most of the BG camera moves for what we should see as for the background moving against the FG. Also added camera shake and large hits from kong and the trolly hitting the ground. It basically ended up being a wack mobile of elements that worked for only what you could see outside the windows, if the FG was removed it looked crazy! Also did light interaction iside the tram from the outside streets, CG broken glass replaced the solid dirty windows of the trolly, and I did some comp tricks to get detail and reflections into the windows and the cracks.

One of the sequences that started up toward the end, was the Kong Capture sequence, I was able to get a handful of these shots, and proved to be my favorite shots on the show, It dealt with numerous miniature native wall plates, that eventually were assembled into a tileset using Nuke, and then rendered out for each shots camera. And KONG was in them, that was awesome! I worked on 3 shots from the jungle side, and 3 shots from the sunset/ocean side of the wall. The 3 shots from the jungle side started with Kong in the air landing on the wall, then kicking down the bamboo spears with his leg, and then punching the door with his fist. The first shot started with Kong leaving the jungle, so a miniature plate was shot moving past trees on the camera left and right, same camera shot the natives wall passes, beauty, key, and fill. There was a bridge over the crevase, I added 2d mist elements, CG Bamboo, and 2 Digital Doubles of Jack and Ann running across the bridge underneath the bamboo spears to saftey on the other side. I added some leaves falling from Kong in the air and when he lands pepperd in some contact debris of rocks and dust from where his foot and hands contact the wall parts. Put the wall over a tracked in sunset sky, and some CG spikes that ran across the top of the wall... yeah like these would keep Kong from climbing over, ;)

The next shot consisted of the same as Kong smashes the CG Bamboo breaking, I added dust falling from the smash, and mixed a few other elements in for effect.

The last shot on the jungle side was from the otherside of the doorway looking through at Kong and the jungle behind him. I needed to tile and take jungle plates from a series of shots to build the bg, and added the mist and CG bridge. The door was CG and animated to Kong smashing it with his fist, I added some wood chunks, falling bits and dust, and exploding dust when he punches the door. This shot was very fun to work on, it happens way too fast and is over in the blink of an eye, but loved it.

The next ones are after Kong had burst through the doors, and a number of sailors have grapling hooks all around him. The 3 in paticular start with Kong rearing back and lifting up 2 sailors in the FG, springing them up into the air and landing behind and bouncing off Kong's back. CG ropes and hooks, CG Kong of course, FG sailors were shot on stage, then I did a digital double swap in the air to the CG sailors. I needed to extend the native wall plate on the sides and down below where Kong sat using bits from other plates, then tracked in with Cyco. Jungle and Sky elements live behind the wall. This shot needed a lot of shadow work to sit Kong between the debris of the remaining door bits, added some chloraphorm smokey element, and lots of frame by frame lovin to many parts of this shot. This one was fun.

There is also a wider live action shot of Jimmy and Carl in the FG, with Kong flinging tons of sailors up and in the air, FG element of the actors and half of the real wall that was built, and I did a split into the miniature wall. Digital Doubles flying, cg ropes and hooks, kong, sky, jungle, roto, etc. I handed this off to another comper because I was leaving, so I didn't final the shot, but I took it 95% of the way.

Lastly, one of my favorite shots, is a whip pan of Kong reaching back grabing the ropes and swinging sailors across and in front of camera and off to the left flying through the air and hitting a temple, sliding, rolling, etc. This was a big shot, I needed to patch up both sides of the miniature wall matching to the camera move, causing it to correctly flow into the distance. Patching bits of sky that would asthetically work for both sides of the shot. CG spikes were comped in atop the wall. There were also 3 live action plates of sailers having the ropes tugged from their hands and falling down, working with the selects, I timed and animated these actors to Kong's animation, to then be handed of to the real animators to animate digital doubles that I could change over with... We ended up using the 2d animation of the sailor plates and as the camera turns having the digital doubles fly in frame, it worked I just needed to massage my 2d sailor animation as he never really flies anywhere. I added dust hits when the digital doubles hit the temple and ground. Whats shown in the cut, you won't see it though... The six shots I did in this sequence go by way to fast, and most are cut short of the original shot length, :(

Back to the NYC streets, after Kong falls to his death, and everyone is around the beast, press taking pictures and such, there is a shot of Carl Denim making his way through a couple of reporters, a reaction shot looking at Carl. CG building set extension, and tons of roto, most of which was taking care of by a kick ass roto artist, but I definatley did my share.

A couple of days before I was set to leave, they through an Ice Pond shot at me, when Kong and Ann are having their moment on the ice... Kong slides across the ice and turns his shoulder, hits a snow bank and snow goes into the air, I did the reaction shot looking up at the sky where kong has his mits around Ann, and she is waving her arms to block the snow... the shot was just Ann over a blue screen, with a blue screen kong's hand around her, so there was a CG Kong hand, Ann's pull, the hair was a bit tricky, and the sky behind them. I was chosen to find the right snow elements to fit the sourounding shots and work with her performance, a few had tried but didn't get it, so I got some in there, and it worked well, but still wasn't quite it. I left before it finaled, but was happy to see the final version was pretty much exactly the same as I left it, I think one more snow element was added. 3 months of work, with only seconds to show for it...

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