THE WAR OF THE WORLDS BY H. G. WELLS, The Making of.

A behind the scenes look at the making of Pendragon Pictures'

"The Classic WAR of the WORLDS"

through a collection of Art, Design and Personal Experiences.

WAR OF THE WORLDS

Making of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds.

WAR OF THE WORLDS WAR OF THE WORLDS

THE

AUTHENTIC

TO THE BOOK

TIMOTHY HINES ADAPTATION

JAPANESE LANGUAGE VERSION OF

THE

AUTHENTIC

TO THE BOOK

TIMOTHY HINES ADAPTATION

SOUNDTRACK TO THE

AUTHENTIC

TO THE BOOK

TIMOTHY HINES ADAPTATION

BY JAMIE HALL

T h e M a k i n g o f

The Classic

Actress Kat Morgan having fun with the Fighting Machine miniature between takes.

CANNONS SPLIT SCREEN: Actors trained in the proper firing procedure of the Victorian 14-pounder cannon replica performed actions on one side of the screen, then re-dressed and moved to the opposite side of the screen. A simple split-screen mask combined the two.

COAL BIN: The Writer hides in a coal bin in the collapsed house as a Martian Handler tentacle blindly searches for him. Actor Anthony Piana as The Writer was filmed in a collapsed house set. The invading tentacle was realized in CGI and comped and masked off.

GET INTO THE WATER: As the crowd in Shepperton is struck by a heat-ray, The Writer (Anthony Piana) realizes it may be safer in the canal waters. He screams for the crowd to join him on his dash to safety. Actors in Victorian costume and live horse were filmed against masonite Greenscreen panels in Carnation and Arlington, Washington, with the sun back lighting and diffuse sunlight bounced onto the cast and Greenscreens.

The Victorian Shepperton was created in CGI. The heat-ray effects were created with CGI particle effects and composited with practical smoke.

DEAD MARTIANS LONDON: The mighty warrior Martians are felled by the humblest bacteria, which is harmless to humans. The 1/6th scale Fighting Machine was photographed in front of Greenscreen and comped into plates shot in London. The dying Martians were created and rendered as animation in Maya.

MANY CANNONS: For the battle on Horsell Common, soldiers and a British 14-pounder cannon replica was filmed against Greenscreen panels and comped multiple times into a plate shot on Horsell Common, England and enhanced in Photoshop. The cannons firing was filmed practical against black velvet along with cannon smoke filmed separately. CGI particle effects created additional fog and smoke inundating the battle scene. Additional destroyed and burning cannons realized in CGI were added to the background along with additional live-action soldiers filmed in front of Greenscreen. John Gallo simulated the cannon recoil.

MARTIANS: Carefully following H.G. Wells' description of the Martians, CGI artists created the ugly brutes in Maya with over ninety layers of texture mapping. The Martian's ear, centrally located in the middle of the top of its head, open and closed with each breath, and the eyes had inner membranes that blinked independently much like a cat.

The setting was photoshopped plates from Horsell Common in England. The cylinder from which the Martians emerged, were rendered separately in CGI. Lens flares and smoke and dust were applied to blend the elements together.

OGILVY AT THE PIT: Astronomer Ogilvy (Jack Clay) approaches the pit where the first cylinder crashed down on Horsell Common. A sand pit in a rock quarry in Sammamish, Washington doubled for the Horsell Common crater.

After filming finished the sand pit was flooded out and lost its crater-like shape and, as a result, is no longer in existence. The red hot but cooling cylinder was rendered in CGI. The flames were shot practically and comped in.

Though there were natural heat waves in the air as the scenes were filmed during one of the hottest summers on record, wave warp was added to demonstrate the intense heat radiating from the other-worldly space craft. The true heat waves in the live action footage proved to be problematic in tracking shots for compositing. Shadows were created using a solid mask and their direction matched to the live-action.

OGILVY DENNING EXPLOSION: Astronomers Ogilvy (Jack Clay) and Denning (Ezra Hamill) witness the first cylinder impact. Cast members in Victorian costume were filmed in Sammamish, Washington. The live-action footage was masked off and a background plate from the area of Woking England was laid into the upper portion of the frame. The explosion was a practical element shot against black velvet and composited in.

WOMAN EATEN: A captured woman being prepped for consumption by the Martians was filmed Greenscreen with a live actress. The actress' clothing was torn on screen with wires and her profuse sweating was created by spraying her with glistening mineral oil. The background and foreground elements of the Handling Machine were realized in CGI. The rock wall plate was created in CGI and doctored in Photoshop. The electric lightning bonds imprisoning the woman were created with advanced lightening plug-in.

The construction of the "hero" miniature of the the fighting machine in progress.

SOLDIERS, CANNON, SKULL: British soldiers firing into the pit on Horsell Common were filmed in front of a Greenscreen with a practical, full-scale 1898 14-pounder British cannon replica. A grip lying on the ground replicated the cannon's recoil. Even though the light was fading for this shot and the cast members wore dark green uniforms, a nice matte was pulled. The foreground skull and destroyed cannon were realized in CGI. The flame elements were shot practical in front of black velvet. Dust and smoke and dirt clouds were realized both as practical elements and CGI.

WOW CONCEPT ART HOUSE HIT: Concept art of the house being hit by the meteorite created in Photoshop by director Timothy Hines.

EST LONDON: A live horse, carriage and driver were photographed in Pioneer Square in Seattle, Washington doubling for a Victorian London establishing shot. Filmed separately in front of Greenscreens, cast members in period clothing were comped in along with barrels. The cobblestone street was a Photoshop plate and Photoshop cover plates were used to mask modern cars and signage. The bottom half of the horse and carriage were rotoscoped.

WRITER & ARTILLERYMAN DIG: In the basement of the house on Putney Hill, The Writer (Anthony Piana) and The Artilleryman (James Lathrop) attempt to dig a network of underground escape tunnels. A Greenscreen was used to extend a full-scale set of the basement of the house. The dirt tunnel wall was a separately shot Photoshopped plate. Clean mattes were able to be pulled even though the Artilleryman's uniform was dark green. The costume was soaked in dense tea to shift its hue away from the green spectrum and more toward the red to help in the Greenscreen compositing.

WRITER AT DESK FALLING STAR: The Writer (Anthony Piana) sits at his desk in a replica Victorian house built from blueprints from an actual house in England. The sequence was shot in the daytime with HMI lights, using the sun as backlight. The windows were masked off in After Effects and the Woking countryside plate from England layered in behind. The falling star was a tracked Photoshop element with a lens flare laid in. The modern-day baseboard vents beneath the window were covered with a photo plate.

MINIATURE HOUSE: The miniature house in which a meteorite cylinder crashes down on top of was created in 1/12th scale and was constructed from cast resin and scored at the break lines. Various lichens and moss were used for ground cover. The breakaway fence was created in soft wood.

METEOR TOWARD HOUSE: A 1/12th scale miniature breakaway house was composited into Photoshop plates from an English countryside setting in which the meteor crashes down and cuts through the Earth on its way toward the final house The Writer (Anthony Piana) and Curate (John Kaufmann) had taken refuge in.

The spinning meteor was rendered in CGI, flames were added using pyrotechnics filmed against black velvet and combined with CGI flames created with CGI particle effects. The foreground dust and smoke were filmed as practical elements in front of Greenscreens. The plumes rising into the air behind the skidding meteorite were realized with CGI particle effects.

FIGHTER LEGS TOWARD CANNON: In this widely published shot featuring a Fighting Machine walking right through defending British soldiers as though they were blades of grass, cast members were filmed in front of Greenscreens and comped with Photoshopped plates from Horsell Common, England, and CGI Fighting Machine legs. The night sky was photographed separately. Moving cloud and smoke layers, as well as cannon blasts were filmed practically in front of black velvet and comped in.

FIGHTER SMOKES WHITE HOUSE: CGI and a photoshopped British House were combined in a sequence in which The Writer (Anthony Piana) hides with the Curate (John Kaufmann) in an abandoned house, only to find themselves besieged by a Fighting Machine that sprays poisoned black smoke around the house in a Martian-style human fumigation process. Only the upper half of the fighting machine was conceived as a 1/6th scale puppet. The lower legs, feet and tentacles were realized in CGI. For this sequence, the legs and house were pre-comped together, then sandwiched between foreground and background elements of a British field. The smoke was realized with CGI particle effects.

HALF LIANNA: Near the climax of the story The Writer stumbles upon a vivisected woman that strikingly resembles his wife, whom he is searching for. An actress was positioned directly on masonite Greenscreen and comped in to the mud flats background, photographed in England. The lower portion of her body was removed in Photoshop.

FIGHTING MACHINE: A Fighting Machine reveals itself on Horsell Common. The 1/6th scale Fighting Machine was photographed on a specially built rig against Greenscreens on a soundstage. Professional puppeteers, wearing "Frog Suits" manipulated the puppets actions. The Fighting Machine required two puppeteers for each leg and a separate puppeteer for the head. The tentacles and deployed heat-ray arm were realized in CGI and, along with the Horsell Common background plate shot in England, were composited in After Effects. The heat-ray was created as a Photoshop lens flare combined with Particle Illusion Effects.