Fight Club Special Effects

Fight Club, a great movie and personal favorite of mine. Many individuals would probably think this movie is not as artistic or appropriate as other feature films in the box office today but, I think otherwise. The principle behind the special effects in this movie is to give an accurate portrayal of how the narrator views the world around him. Pixel Liberation Front was contacted early on for previsualization purposes. Director David Fincher (previously employed at ILM as a cameraman) wanted to use pre-visualization to handle all problem-solving before hitting the stage. The production team decided to split the work up between different companies with different specialties instead of using different companies with the same specialty. Basically they used one company to do all the CG modeling, one for animation and another for compositing. Kevin Tod Haug was the man supervising visual effects for this film, as well as Robin L. D'Arcy as visual effects producer. It was Haug's decision to split the work among companies in order to "never play a facility's weakness." The footage that was "destined" for enhancement was turned over to a company known as Toy Box which dealt mainly with photochemical processing and handling. Fincher wanted to portray a poetic yet senile feel for this movie, he was heard giving instructions to an effects specialist saying "this one's like dropping ten tons of butterflies," in regards to the dramatic glass-ceiling crash in the movie. A second complex and climactic scene of the movie involves an apartment getting blasted to bits by a gas stove being left on. This scene required a "frozen time" effect used today in films such as The Matrix. BUF Incorporated, a company known for pioneering many CG image-based modeling and rendering techniques took command over this complex scene. BUF used a series of choreographed still photographs to reconstruct camera subjects as 3D geometry, then dress the digital models by mapping the original camera stills over them. "To create more detail than was present in the still photographs, BUF rebuilt the linoleum floor, kitchen table and chairs as 3D models, then devised a depth-of-field tool to simulate the shallow focus inherent with macro views." There are many scenes in this film that are very technical in terms of succeeding in displaying an indubitably realistic feel and look. I really love this movie for its special effects and theme. In my opinion watching a film like this one really makes me appreciate advancing technology and the concept of controlled chaos in film.