Cambridge-based VFX studio, Vine FX, delivered over 1,350 shots including environment extensions, driving shots, and action sequences.
A terrorist attack hits the streets of Paris and MI6 protection officer, Vincent Taleb, finds himself thrown into the middle of a sinister plot. The Paris Has Fallen TV series is based on the Has Fallen movie franchise and brings the same intense action as the blockbusters, focusing on the protection of the French Minister of Defence from an unravelling terrorist scheme.
Shows like Paris Has Fallen are replete with nail-biting action and drama. For visual effects studio, Vine FX, the challenge was one of complexity and quantity.
This is one of the biggest projects we’ve taken on. It’s a gripping story that’s filled with incredible sequences, some great CG, and plenty of visual effects work. The team here did a great job to blend all of that together so it’s genuinely hard to tell where live action ends and VFX begins.
Laura Usaite, Managing Director of Vine FX
Paris Has Fallen features the largest VFX shot count to date for Vine FX. This cinematic world is brought to life through a seamless blend of distinctive 2D and 3D elements, including environment extensions, aeroplanes, dynamic driving sequences, and explosive action. The enhancement of practical set builds with custom Parisian environment extensions played a vital role in shaping the show’s unique aesthetic, balancing both realism and visual excitement. Amidst it all are intense shootouts and clashes where VFX elevates the drama to new heights.
The art of CG
What makes complex sequences more manageable is good reference material.
There’s a scene where the characters run across a roof and jump into a hovering helicopter. The production team had done a great job building a rig with a partial helicopter on a green screen stage. It gave us a good frame of reference when it came to replacing the rigged vehicle with a fully CG one.
Newton
Several shots needed almost entirely rebuilding during post-production, so the Vine FX team had its work cut out. A specific shot that used a full CG rebuild was when a terrorist walks through a corridor, punches out a window and prepares to fire a shot across the embassy courtyard square. While this may sound simple, the shots had to be very specific as the sequence itself was filmed on a green screen stage and the exterior elements were filmed on location, meaning the matching of angles had to be seamless.
The angle of the corridor shot didn’t match the exterior plate. We opted to rebuild the embassy courtyard in CG and composite the environment behind with matte paintings so we could realise the geography of the story. It’s one of those innocuous sequences that has a lot more visual effects work than an audience might realise.
Maxwell
The show is full of complex camera moves. What makes the shots incredibly successful is how we integrate with the live action footage.
Laura Usaite, Managing Director of Vine FX
For sequences filmed outside, including leaps from buildings, there was no simple green screen to remove. The team at Vine FX rebuilt buildings in CG, adding DMP and city details in the background to recreate Paris authentically.
Action on the streets
There are nearly 200 driving shots in Paris Has Fallen, all filmed against green screens. This, normally, would require either stock assets or extensive camera rigging to film live-action plates. Vine FX recommended mounting a 360-degree field-of-view camera to a low-level car to give maximum flexibility during post-production, enabling reframing to match green screenshots as needed.
We developed a method of filming backplates across Paris with a 360-degree camera. It meant that we could take a new, innovative approach that proved to be incredibly successful – especially when handling a huge volume of driving shots.
Laura Usaite, Managing Director of Vine FX
One of the added benefits was that, because of the 360-degree view, we immediately had reference material for reflections. It made the integration of green screen action and real-world backgrounds much more believable, helping to really anchor everything in place. We then built a template inside Nuke to iterate across multiple sequences.
Alexander
Paris Has Fallen demanded artistic mastery from every department to bring its gripping drama to life. While great visual effects work is often invisible to the audience, it’s important to acknowledge the dedication and countless hours invested in creating seamless sequences where the line between reality and visual effects is indistinguishable.
That’s a true testament to the artistry and skill of the Vine FX team.
Alexander
Watch Vine FX’s Paris Has Fallen showreel below. For more information, visit vinefx.com.
