It’s always really enlightening to see visual effects breakdowns and witness just how much creative and technical work goes into key visual effects shots. Here’s a great example from MPC, showing a generous selection of the 550+ visual shots the company completed for Disney’s The Lone Ranger. The vfx covered in the film ranges from full cg canyons, caves and Comanche attacks to cg trains, horses, birds, arrows, fire and scorpions.

MPC’s team was led by vfx supervisor Gary Brozenich and producer Oliver Money and was completed at both MPC Vancouver and MPC London. The London team created a group of cg scorpions that emerge from the ground and crawl onto the faces of Tonto and Lone Ranger before being licked by a cg muzzled Silver.

The scorpions are full cg throughout the shots built and animated by the team, and any time Silver laps at them his head and mouth are cg. The creatures were created through high-end Shader work and development, and used MPC’s proprietary hair and fur simulation software.
 
The team also completed horse and rider simulations and full cg cave interiors.

MPC’s VFX Supervisor Gary Brozenich on working with Director Gore Verbinski

“The Lone Ranger needed to bring the epic scope of the classic cowboy film but made with the tools and perspective of a modern filmmaker," says MPC’s vfx supervisor Gary Brozenich. "It allowed us to go bigger and bring greater spectacle than its predecessors, taking the possibilities vfx brings and pushing the visual as far as they could be, but without tipping into anything fantastical that may take you out of what is a very rooted and aesthetically earthy film.”

Staff Reporter

Share this story