Christian Filmmakers

The VFX of Ironing Man

by Nathaniel Bluedorn, August 11, 2009. 2772 views

Starting as a fun project to kill some time, the newly released “Ironing Man” trailer parody ended up consuming countless hours of time and effort in post-production.

Back before the official Ironman movie was released by Paramount, a teaser trailer was distributed to increase public excitement about the upcoming blockbuster film. It did more than just that, becoming very popular nationwide. We decided to create a parody of this short video, mimicking it in an almost shot-by-shot manner with an entirely new spin.

After being kidnapped by terrorists, clothing designer Tony Starch builds a high-tech weapon of steel and steam. Realizing his calling as a superhero, he sets out to rid an unsuspecting world of crime and villainy.

Though not immediately apparent, Ironing Man contains over 60 shots, most of which required some sort of digital manipulation. Adobe After Effects was our primary compositing application (augmented by Lightwave 3d and SynthEyes motion tracker), and we did anything from set-extensions and day-to-night conversions, to explosions and muzzle flashes. Very many of the latter shots were filmed against greenscreen and superimposed in different locations to save time. The more obvious effects would be the vehicles blowing up, and the bullet hits, but some of the more subtle ones include sky replacement, image stabilization, and removal of unwanted objects.

I’d have to say my favorite vfx shot involves a scene where “Tony Starch” is escaping from the bunker where he is being held and advancing on the terrorists (who are wildly firing at him). When we looked at one of the wide shots in the sequence, we realized we had way to few extras, making the scene look pretty pathetic. To fix this, we broke out our greenscreen, and my brother and I got into various outfits and pretended to be firing at something. After this, we took the footage and extracted our favorite moments, creating a set of “postcard” cutout soldiers who all looked suspiciously related. Using SynthEyes to get a 3d track of the shot, we placed these soldiers in various locations to create the illusion we had filmed with over twice the number of extras. Add smoke and muzzle flashes, and you’d never know they weren’t even there!

This project would have never gotten off the ground without VFX. With the new and inexpensive software available to Christian filmmakers everywhere, low budgets can definitely be augmented by skillful manipulation of video footage. Almost all of us know that Christian films are synonymous with low quality. Using this sort of technology, we hope to be able to help other filmmakers in the future develop productions that not only honor God in message, but also in appearance.

Ironing Man was a great way for us to experiment and develop our skills, without the pressures of a “professional” film production.

-David Bowman, Thunderstorm Digital

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