Darkness Transitions

The walls of Silent Hill turn from fog world to darkness world. This transformation looks like a disease spreading through the city. Both versions of sets are reconstructed in 3D, tracked on top of each other (two versions of the sets, from principal photography, still photography and added painted textures). Walls are turned into skin, applying cloth dynamics to make them buckle and fall. We also added spurts of blood coming out of the walls. The propagation speed and shape could be adapted to every kind of shot and situation. All the tools used for movies at BUF are proprietary.

Additional fog shots

The church seen from outside is almost always computer generated. We had to customize the church to add some big sirens, which can be heard in the town when darkness falls. All the shots where the crowd comes to the church were shot in a big sugar silo. The practical set included the cemetery in front of the church and the steps leading up to it. We shot without fog and digitally extended the set with the church and the city surrounding it and added fog and ashes.

Red Pyramid attacking Anna

We did these shots with a reduced-size mannequin to help with the scale. We shot with very little blood on set, so we tracked the body and added sprays of computer-generated blood coming out of the skin. We added extra skin with a cloth simulation and computer-generated blood. To make it more realistic, we sprayed blood on the camera lens.

Nurses

We had to work on some of the shots where the nurses are cutting people’s throats, adding computer-graphic blood and retouching pre-cut scars. We also had to apply slight jump cuts to the scene. We did a lot of work on a few key shots to freeze some of the nurses and then jump cut with a quick move and freeze again, which was very tricky as everything was shot in one pass with moving smoke and light.

Rose’s Wound

Added digital makeup scar and black CG goo coming out of her chest and hands using our inhouse particle systems and metaballs shaders.

A Silent Hill dcp inc - davis films production. In association with konami. Producer: Don Carmody. Produced by Samuel Hadida