THE PRE-VISION
CEO Nic Hatch tells 3D World about the experiences that led him to start Ncam, and how the solution evolved
To understand Ncam’s origins, we need to rewind back to 1999 and production of the first Harry Potter film, when Nic Hatch was working at Mill Film as previs supervisor under Rob Legato. An acclaimed VFX supervisor that had just earned an Oscar for his work on Titanic, Legato was keen to visualise some of the film’s more magical shots through the camera lens. The shot in question saw boats gliding towards Hogwarts as the camera tilts to reveal the enchanting castle for the first time. It was based on a system called Free-d, developed by the BBC and MPC, whereby a witness camera on the main cine camera looked up at unique circular markers (fiducials) mounted in the ceiling trusses and worked out the position and orientation. The Hogwarts previs model was mixed and overlaid with the live action of the boats.
This was Hatch’s first encounter with Simulcam, and he couldn’t let go of the notion that it could be easier. “For Sweeney Todd, I was managing a project to deliver on a similar solution,” he says. “Based on a witness camera attached to the main cine camera and using unique tracking markers placed on the stage walls, it tried to work out the position and orientation of itself. It was okay, but wasn’t robust enough to work in a production environment.”
Hatch then explored various other means of tracking cameras, including laser and sonar-based systems, but nothing would deliver the required flexibility and heft for production.
Then, in 2010, he got a call from Legato. He was headed to the UK to shoot a film, and wanted to be able to view the VFX backgrounds through the lens, in real time, whilst shooting the foreground plates with actors and some physical sets. The film in question was Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, and the task proved immense but hugely successful.
To realise Scorsese’s fantastical vision, the pair devised a less-refined version of Ncam’s current solution, which earned the film a VES Award for Virtual Cinematography and the Oscar for Visual Effects. “The technology was super basic and yet it still got us there,” says Hatch. “Who knew how far it would come?”