Producer Joel Silver and Director X Call on the LA Studio to Tackle 100+ Shots Designed toUp the Impact of the Raw Violence in Sony’s Reboot of the Iconic ‘70’s Film

VFX Legion created over 100 digital effects for ‘Superfly,’ Sony’s highly anticipated remake of the iconic ‘70’s Blaxploitation film. The deadline was only five weeks away, and the visual effects for key action sequences had yet to be assigned when producer Joel Silver and Director X brought the LA studio onboard.

Legion’s team was tasked with producing a complex mix of shots designed to heighten the visual impact and visceral feel of the violence in the film’s two pivotal shootout scenes.

Founder, CD and senior visual effects supervisor, James David Hattin, and VFX producer, Nate Smalley, stepped into the project during an edit session where they were brought up to speed by Silver, ('The Matrix' Trilogy, 'Lethal Weapon' series, 'Die Hard,' 'Predator,') director, music-video auteur, Director X, a.k.a. Julien Christian Lutz, ('Across The Line,' Mister Tachyon; Usher, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Drake, Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj) and rapper, producer, Future.

“Joel Silver is a very hands-on producer, renowned for his work in the action film genre,” says Hattin. “He had a very particular vision of how he wanted the visual effects to augment the footage.

The mix of visual effects that Legion produced for the two main shootout sequences in ‘Superfly’ magnify the intensity of the carnage during these face-offs and brings home the ferocity and violence at the core of the film.

“Joel wanted to capture the ‘big’ feel of the 1999 'Matrix' film,” says Hattin. “To take the shoot-out scenes to that extreme, we created thousands of digital particles flying from bullet hits and blasts of debris that tore the drywall to shreds.”

Legion’s Houdini artist, Eric Ebling, created numerous simulations of debris from the walls that blended with the look and texture of the practical footage. These caches were lit and rendered in Redshift, and integrated into the scenes. Muzzle flashes were digitally created to heighten the impact of the violence in a number of scenes.

A number fires were shot on-set that ended up being used as starting points for the much larger and more dramatic CG blazes that Legion’s team designed.

The visual effects that VFX Legion created were all about amplifying the impact of the violence captured with practical footage and Intensifying the spectacle of the film to achieve the look that the director and producer envisioned.

VFX Legion is a Burbank-based company specializing in providing episodic television shows and feature films with high-quality visual effects that get the most out of every budget.(http://www.vfxlegion.com)