Final Scene Test!

By far, some of the most complicated scenes for this movie will be the opening and closing scenes. They require the camera to fly over New York City and sweep in on certain points. In the opening scene the camera sweeps in over an alley and descends on Max, Gibson and Willow. In the final scene the camera flies over the city and sweeps around the Chrysler Building where our heroes are sitting on one of the famous gargoyles.

The opening scene has more obstacles so I decided to do a test for the closing scene. Doing that will help me figure out some of the more complicated parts of the opening scene.

That said, the closing scene has it’s own complications. I’ve searched to the very end of the internet trying to find any video footage taken over New York City. The only thing I can figure is that helicopters are no longer allowed to fly over the city as current footage was very rare and the ones I could find seemed to stay over the rivers and are shot toward the skyline.

In the end, I went back to what seems to have worked the best over all these tests, still images. This test footage is far from perfect but it may end up being the best I can do with the equipment I have and as I’ve said time and time again, I’m not ILM.

This test footage has it’s problems, but for the most part I’ve learned what I needed to learn. Most of this test uses still photos. The Chrysler Building is a Google 3D model that I was actually able to work with. Xam and Power Dog are still photos but like all the other tests, editing them as stills or actual video uses the same techniques so for testing purposes, a still photo is just fine.

So, here is the test footage. This is a test for the last scene of the movie but don’t worry, it won’t spoil the movie in any way. I even added some credits to give you an idea of what the final scene will look like.

Enjoy!