Digital Content Producer has a step-by-step description of how the folks behind “Hotel for Dogs” were able to rebuild a burned hotel with Digital Effects, and still hit their deadline.
Murphy’s Law predicts that if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. It’s often invoked by moviemakers, and one snafu really complicated the visual-effects assignment on the DreamWorks/Paramount hit comedy Hotel for Dogs. Before Director Thor Freudenthal could get a key shot that he wanted of the hotel itself, a fire on the famed Universal Studios back lot destroyed the practical set. Visual Effects Supervisor Ray McIntyre Jr., of Los Angeles-based Pixel Magic, was watching the evening news and recalls hearing of the event. “I definitely knew that the fire had changed the scope of our shot,” he says.
With careful camerawork, some LightWave modeling and After Effects magic, you’ld never know it had caught fire.
