As a sign of the times, police officer John McClane (Bruce Willis) takes on cyber terrorists in the fourth installment in the blockbuster Die Hard series. The movie business has also changed a lot since the first film exploded onto screens in 1988, and bringing the franchise deeper into the digital age was accomplished in part by vfx studio Digital Dimension. The company completed nearly 200 effects shots for the 20 Century Fox release, which arrives in theaters today .
Directed by Len Wiseman (Underworld), Live Free or Die Hard has Willis’ iconic character called into action when a group led by Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) takes over the computer grid supporting the entire country’s infrastructure. With help from a young hacker named Matt Farrell (Justin Long), McClane must once again use hits wits and brawn to save the country and the people he loves from disaster.
The movie features a number of big action sequences that would not have been possible in the days of practical stunts. Working with visual effects supervisor Patrick McClung, Digital Dimension’s 2D and 3D teams used a software toolkit that included Eyeon Software’s Digital Fusion, Autodesk 3ds Max and Massive Software’s Massive to help McClane survive an elaborate automobile mash-up in a darkened tunnel and take down a helicopter with a car.
One scene, featured prominently in the film’s trailer, has McClane and Farrell narrowly avoiding being crushed when a car bounces off two other vehicles just over their heads. Digital Dimension composited the actors into footage of a practical car crash, adding CG glass and interactive lighting for realism. For the sequence where McClane launches his cop car up a ramp to destroy a helicopter, the studio combined plates of a stunt man jumping out of a helicopter, the car plowing through a helicopter, and CG rotor blades splitting into a thousand pieces upon impact.
Digital Dimension also built a 250-foot digital tunnel extension in Autodesk’s 3ds Max to make an underpass look like a mile-long freeway during a harrowing car chase and crash, adding CG rubble to a pivotal explosion. In addition, the company used the artificial intelligence-driven Massive software to create 1000 digital people to augment groups of extras that spill out from the U.S. Capitol Building and Treasury. Other shots required extensive rig and stuntman removal, CG cars, smoke effects and Washington DC background plates for scenes shot in Los Angeles.
“Our company has earned a reputation for not only creating quality visual effects, but also being flexible in the face of changing production requirements and
delivery schedule,’ says Digital Dimension exec producer Said Daniel Lombardo. ‘On Live Free or Die Hard, our goal was to support Len Wiseman’s vision of the classic action film style by creating visual effects shots that integrate seamlessly with the live-action stunts.’
Digital Dimension also recently completed work on the HBO movie Bury Me at Wounded Knee and the hit comedies Blades of Glory and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. The award-winning studio with locations in Burbank, Calif. and Montreal, Canada. For more information on the company, go to www.digitaldimension.com.
