SIEGING THE MOMENT

Three different locations had to be combined to produce the Desert Garrison Attack. The wider galloping Shadow Warriors shots and the mountains behind the Desert Garrison were inspired by the Rangipo Desert in New Zealand, the sand dunes and foothills came from the Kumtag Desert in China, and a partial garrison set was constructed at Kumeu Film Studios. “Across the board skies had to be replaced,” states Image Engine VFX supervisor Christian Irles. “We also had to even out the colour of the ground and roto the riders. Because the sequence is quite dynamic we could easily use at different moments certain shots to hide where we were transitioning from one plate to another.”

Böri Khan (Jason Scott Lee) and the Shadow Warriors leap from their horses and run up the wall of the garrison. “That was the hardest shot,” admits Irles. “The actors were standing on wheeled platforms and then jump, being held in the air by the wires, and land on the wall. The practical wall was at a 30 or 45-degree angle. We match moved the plates, tracked the platforms because we had to replace them with our CG horses, and tracked the characters as a face replacement was needed for the stunt double of Böri Khan. We made sure that the horses and camera were travelling at the speed in which the horses had been running for the previous shots. At the moment that the actors jump, we slowly rotated the world so by the time they reach the practical wall, the ground is at 90 degrees and they go on.”