ILM and Millfilm together?

Harry Potter 2 and K19 widowmaker- both the work of ILM and Millfilm-

ILM is of course the company that produced the FX of SW, Millfilm is a UK FX house run by FX artists who did the Salkind Superman movies- they won the AA for Gladiator last year-

any inside info on why the 2 FX houses now work together? Millfilm and ILM also worked together on Harry potter and the philosophers stone, Hudson Hawk (ILM did the opticals, Millfilm- then named magic camera- did the models) and Labyrinth (ILM did matte paintings while Millfilm (then known as Optical film effects ltd.) did matte paintings and optcials-

One thing that can be said now- HP and K19 are gonna be two visually astounding pictures

 

Lots of movies use more than one FX house. ILM is arguably the masters of digital effects, but who would argue against Stan Winston Studios when it comes to special creature effects and animatronics, or Jim Henson Productions when it comes to puppets, or Rick Baker's company for makeup?
Imagine if Stan Winston had worked on any of the Star Wars movies... wow!

 

Just coincidence. There aren't that many companies that can do the kind of work required for film. As rdsiam say many films have multiple companies working on them. It all depends on how the film is setup. Certain directors/producers might like working in a particular place, but in general studios like to spread the work around (the don't put all yopur eggs in one basket mentality). So the studio puts the FX work for bidding and then several houses might get selected. Even ILM has to do bids very often, just the nature of the business. As someone else noted to me, ILM also worked in a lot of projects lately with their pals at Matte World Digital.

 

ILM did the FX on Harry Potter?!? Good god!!!

They so sucked! Especially the Quidditch-match... it looked terrible! Not talking about every time a real actor was replaced by a CG-double... EEEKS!!!

Though I liked the Centaur... aah, whatever!

 

The Quidditch scenes were done by Imageworks as were most of the FX. ILM did Lord Voldermont mainly. You know when the turban gets removed, the ash guy and wispy look. I think also the one in the forest at night. But they are the main providers for Potter 2. Jim Mitchell and Bill George will supervise.

 

Millfilm are providing ALL of the miniature effects on HP2, supervised by Jose Grannell, the apprentice of miniature effects legend Derek Meddings!!!!!!!!

Millfilm also provided ALL of the miniatures for part 1 too, ALL of which were seamless and unnoticable.

 

OK, I've got to admit that the miniatures on HP looked great. I liked the castle very much, but most of the CG work and especially most blue-screen scenes looked terrible.

There were of course exceptions, like the Centaur, Fluffy and of course Voldemort and his death-sequence.

What did ILM besides Voldemort?

 

Kirkout,

any Millfilm/ILM info?

 

The Potter films shoot in the UK, so it makes sense (and is probably a legal requirement) to keep some of the vfx work there.

Not aware of any other connection with ILM and MillFilm, and I doubt there is any ScottBros/Lucas connection besides the fact they all used cameras.

I heard ILM did the snake for the first one, which was the best thing in the show IMO (like many of you, I found the broomstick stuff bad - unacceptably bad - I wound up closing my eyes for part of the time).

 

ILM did a CG Python (though there was also a mechanical one for a few shots), they did the ghosts that appear on the hallway and that shot with Near Headless Nick (John Cleese) showing his "trick" and of course worked on Voldermort's stuff in the finale.

There will probably be a closer connection this time around for the fact that now ILM is the main provider and Jim Mitchell is the overall supervisor, so he'll have to interact with all the facilities involved. He went to England since last year to supervise the shoot. If they keep similar things, Mill film might also provide quite a bit of the pre-viz for the show, at least they did a ton of it for the first one.

 

I'm glad ILM isn't associated with the Quidditch match (horribly done imo). And that shot of the boy in Harry Potter on his runaway broom that goes out of control, when he falls off of it and catches onto the top of a building -- that was awful CGI. Though I never expected us to get human CGI that perfectly yet, it still reminded me of Woody from Toy Story.

And remember Lord of the Rings when Gandalf and everyone else are running away from Balrog (sp?) -- that was so obviously CGI. I've seen smoother movements on a Playstation game.

 

To say ILM did the 'best work on the show' is a tad biased.

There is MOUNTAINS of flawless model work, mattes, digital manipulating and CGI in Harry Potter.

All of the Quidditch cartoony CG in the film was provided ENTIRELY by the hopefully defunct-by-next-year PHONY imageworks. God help Spiderman..

Wanna know the good news though?

ILM, Millfilm, Mill Models, Cinesite Europe, CFC Framestore and Moving Picture Company (who ALL worked on part 1) have returned to do part 2, and ILM has replaced PHONY as the main provider!

YAY!!! YEE-HAW!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Well, he did say it was his opinion didn't he. You miht have other favorite shots/sequences/elemsnts from it.

And isn't it biased to say that Imageworks is "phony". They did tons of quality work, not only on Potter but also many other projects (like all the Zemeckis/Ralston projects). I think Spiderman will be more than OK and also Stuart Little 2. And I don't think it'll be defunct anytime soon, they actually now have an animation division that'll work on Astro Boy.

But yeah, Potter 2 will be something to look forward to.

 

Two words: Jim Mitchell. He rules!!

Ben Snow is pretty good also.

I'm glad at least one of those two is on SW:AOTC.

I wonder why Scott Squires isn't on Ep2.

 

Maybe there was something in the Time Machine that interested him.