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MillimeterCinesite (Europe) Wins Special Area Award at LEAF 2001 For Band of Brothers
Nov 16, 2001 12:00 PM
LONDON - At the recent LEAF (London Effects and Animation Festival) Awards, Cinesite (Europe) Ltd. won the Special Area Award for its work on HBO's "Band of Brothers"
miniseries. Cinesite Europe was responsible for creating most of the challenging digital effects in "Band of Brothers". Key members of the 3D team on the project were Mike Mulholland and Chas Cash, who variously modelled and animated airplanes, parachutes, and CG soldiers for major sequences in the series. Angus Bickerton ("Animal Farm", "Lost in Space", "The Adventures of Pinocchio") served as visual effects supervisor on the project, while Cinesite’s digital effects supervisors were John Lockwood and Ken Dailey.
One of the most notable animation sequences in Band of Brothers was the Eindhoven parachute drop from episode three, which re-creates the historic WW2 event with a sky full of computer generated parachutes, men, and airplanes. The sequence had been re-created in the earlier war film classic, "A Bridge Too Far," with real planes and parachutists. While it was not feasible to re-create the sequence in live action for the miniseries, that film was a useful reference to Cinesite’s team of creatives, who faced challenges related to the dynamics of the opening and closing parachutes, as well as the luminosity of the chutes as they pass across the sun.
Modeling and animation was completed using Alias Wavefront’s Maya and composited using Cineon. Cinesite created approximately 250 digital shots for the miniseries.
"Band of Brothers" was entirely shot on Kodak Vision camera negative film stock, and and Cinesite completed an all Cinesite/Kodak film process by creating a groundbreaking digital master of the series at its London offices. The 10 one-hour episodes were the data equivalent of about six feature films - a digital master on this scale had never been attempted before.
The series was colored by by colorist Luke Rainey at Cinesite.
Regarding the LEAF award, Colin Brown, CEO of Cinesite Worldwide, said, “This prize, awarded in our hometown by people who recognize the phenomenal quality of work produced by London facilities on major international productions, means a great deal to all of us here at Cinesite Europe.”
Cinesite’s scanning and recording team also did the recording for the winner of the Short Film prize at the awards--"Fifty Percent Gray," from Ardmore Studios/Zanita Films.
For more information about the LEAF awards, go to Web site, www.digmedia.co.uk.
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