Written by Tom Deehan on Nov 23, 2015. Posted in General Interest

Understanding how previsualisation got Spectre off the ground

IO Entertainment, the sole previsualisation company to work on Spectre have made a press release detailing the experience of working on such a high profile project and how their expertise were utilised in the film’s pre-production stages.

Working across the production, we pieced together how it could be achieved and what staging, choreography, equipment and set-builds were needed.

With offices located in Pinewood Studios, IO were tasked primarily with recreating a number of scenes in 3D to better understand the logistics of filming. These scenes included the Day of the Dead opening, the Zocalo Square aerial battle, the escape from Oberhauser's lair; and the film’s concluding chase scene at the River Thames.

Brad Blackbourn, Company Director of IO Entertainment explains: “Spectre's seamless opening sequence was a massive technical and logistical challenge. Working across the production, we pieced together how it could be achieved and what staging, choreography, equipment and set-builds were needed... for the complex aerial fight sequence over the Zocalo, the production needed to find a way for stunts to be performed on location with a helicopter looping, rolling and flipping just metres above the 16th century cathedral and the National Palace, dodging a 100ft-high flagpole and then swooping below roof height in the narrow side streets.

He continues: “after choreographing the complete aerial sequence with the stunt and SFX supervisors, we shot aerial and ground-based coverage from dozens of virtual cameras with several different lenses, to isolate the ideal angles. From the selects we prepared maps accurate to within 12 inches of all required camera locations for the local production crew to acquire access permissions."

IO has explained that there are three stages of previsualisation that can help any production; pitch, creative, and post. These stages allow for pitching an idea, identifying key aspects of a scene, and understanding how post-production tools can be applied respectively.