Robert Stadd, visual effects supervisor on Public Enemies, found himself in a quandary when it came to the opening scene where John Dillinger breaks into prison to bust out his friends. Unfortunately, in the background would be a shot of an adjacent building but there was no information on the camera arrangement or distance away to the building. The solution? Build a large tiled image that could be zoomed or warped as necessary.
In the final composite, the tiled background has been inserted into the shot. Note the size of the background is larger than in the reference photo, and it was in a different position. Only by using a high-resolution, tiled background could we ensure that it would work in the shot, from a grain size and position standpoint. Approximately eight pictures were used to tile the background, creating a file that was roughly 200MB.
He also covers some helpful tips on creating your own tiled images, such as manual controls for exposure and white balance and maintaining a 30% overlap.
