MPC create epic environments and complex crowds for Exodus
From acclaimed director Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Prometheus) comes the epic adventure “Exodus: Gods and Kings,” the story of one man’s daring courage to take on the might of an empire. Using state of the art visual effects and 3D immersion, Scott brings new life to the story of the defiant leader Moses (Christian Bale) as he rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses (Joel Edgerton), setting 400,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its terrifying cycle of deadly plagues.
Lead by VFX Supervisor Jessica Norman and CG Supervisor Max Wood, MPC’s team completed more than 500 shots for Exodus: Gods and Kings. The varied work included huge crowds, massive environments and complex FX work across 10 different scenes posing a challenge of biblical proportions.
The Battle of Kadesh
For the battle scene early in the movie, MPC extended the practical set, adding a mountain environment to surround the camp as well as extending the crowd digitally. The crowd work included chariots, horse & riders and foot soldiers fighting and colliding. The mountain extension was based on photography from Wadi Rum, a valley in Jordan.
MPC worked with motion capture specialists Audiomotion Studios for the challenge of capturing horses and chariots. Like everything on the movie, this was an epic shoot in terms of scale and complexity. Capturing eight horses often paired for the chariot shots with multiple stunt performers on each chariot meant capturing 400 markers moving at considerable speed. With only a few centimetres between the horses it was a challenge to reconstruct the data. The capture volume covered a total area of 4,300 sq. feet (400 sq. meters) The blocking out of the scene and all of the digital crowd work was completed at MPC’s London studio with all other work carried out in the Montreal office including cloth and lighting of the crowds, lead by Montreal based VFX Supervisor Arundi Asregado.
Women, men, livestock and horses
MPC built 3 armies; Hittites, Egyptian and Hebrew. These armies were used a number of times throughout the movie. MPC also supplied the other vendors with these assets and supplemented their environments with our digital crowd. As well as armies, the builds also included Egyptian civilians, livestock, hero horses and digi-doubles of Moses and Ramses. All builds were based on photography and scans of the actors and extras.
Mountain Collapse
During this sequence, the Hebrew crowd, followed by an Egyptian army cross a mountain, choose a narrow and treacherous road to reach the Red Sea. The scene was shot across three different locations, Cofete mountain, “Stunt road” and the Sierra Nevada. MPC’s environment created the mountain sides of Cofete steeper and the road narrower. The mountain walls needed to be extended up, down and into the distance in the “stunt road” shots. Wider aerial shots were shot at Sierra Nevada. Stunt performances shot at “stunt road” were intercut with digital crowds and doubles as the Egyptian army advance. For the falling characters, horses and chariots, MPCs crowd tool ALICE was used together with PAPI, MPCs rigid body solver. Animation added detailing on top of the dynamic solve. The mountain build was based on photogrammetry from aerial photography of Cofete mountain. KALI, MPCs proprietary destruction tool, was used to crack and collapse the mountain with ALICE agents and FX and live action dust elements were added.
The Red Sea
The Red sea sequence was shot across 4 different beaches on Fuerteventura. The scene includes a combination of live action plates with environment and crowd extensions as well as full CG shots.
The draining of the Red Sea in front of the Hebrews eyes was done by combing FX generated surfaces with many live action elements shot at river locations in Vancouver and London. For some camera angles SFX created the disturbed surface using jet-skis that were placed out of camera. MPC added 300,000 CG crowd birds giving the sequence an extra feel of frenzy and drama Director Ridley Scott wanted operatic and performing skies throughout the scene, ramping up the drama to the point where the wave approaches on the horizon. The environment, compositing and roto teams worked together to create and combine the CG dark skies with particularly sunny backlit live action FG actors and extras.
The wave
The look and movement of the wave was defined early on by Ridley Scott’s sketches and concept art from the production team. To create and art direct the 160ft tall wave MPC started off with an animation rig that defined the shape, position and speed of the wave. MPC worked with Scanline FX and their Flowline water simulation software to create churning water travelling in front of the wave and breaking water on the waves lip. The wave finally hits Ramses and Moses and they are pulled under the water. Stunt elements were shot for both characters that were placed into MPC’s digital environment and the crashing wave. Live action elements were shot on the underwater stage at Pinewood and combined with digital crowd elements for the underwater shots
Ridley Scott
Twentieth Century Fox
Jessica Norman
