mj-this-is-itMicheal Jackson’s last performance “This Is It” is coming to theater’s and webcasts worldwide, featuring some fantastic visual effects created by I.E. Effects.  Combining stereoscopic 3D with on-set props was going to create a fantastic interactive extravaganza for audience members, and they did their best to honor this in the final movie.  In a discussion with DigitalContentProducer, they discuss some of the more difficult shots such as the recreation of Thriller.

“The ghosts were shot separately on a greenscreen stage using a large stand-in for the chandelier. We then tracked the CG chandelier to the set prop and added dynamics, so that all the crystals on the chandelier would behave properly,” said Kaminar. “Ordinarily that’s challenging enough, but when you add the fact that it’s stereoscopic, it becomes exponentially more complicated.”

Adding to the complexity of the shot, the two-camera rig was positioned on the end of a moving crane, panning, tilting and zooming. “The chandelier stand-in was rocking and moving around so the tracking was pretty complex. To deal with this, we worked out a pipeline for efficient manual tracking and matchmoving that worked very well,” said Kaminar.

In addition to this, they recreated Vincent Price’s famous dialogue with a CG head reading back the lines, combining facial motion capture and lip synching.

via I.E. Effects Delivers VFX for Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” | The Briefing Room.