Popular Mechanics (South Africa)
Best Amalgamated Island
WONDER WOMAN
To create Wonder Woman’s legendary island home of Themyscira (A), two-time Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer and director Patty Jenkins didn’t want to simply copy what was in the comic books. “We know that their island is Mediterraneanesque. Apart from that, it’s a novel creation,” Westenhofer says. One that came about thanks to a helicopter, some high-tech photographic analysis and a few other things.
Most of the spectacular terrain and beautiful beaches are from Italy’s Amalfi Coast (B). For the city itself, Jenkins chose Matera, Italy’s oldest town. “People have been living there for close to 10 000 years,” Westenhofer says. “For a while they lived in limestone caves, and at some point they started building structures on top of those caves. You climb up the hill, and the roof of one structure becomes the road. Everything in the foreground was practical. We added the background digitally to create the cliffs and extensions of the buildings (C).”
“The mountains are from stills taken in various locations in Asia-vietnam, China, and others. The limestone arches are from China. They’re gigantic and they look like they defy gravity,” Westenhofer says. This composite effect was achieved by a process called photogrammetry: “Basically, we take a helicopter pass and shoot still photographs, every second or so. We have software that analyses that series of images from each location and lines them all up to form a 3D model. Then you re-project the photography back onto your original location. It’s as photo-real as one can possibly get because it really is based upon what we’re capturing in the camera.”
“Jenkins wanted something that looked idyllic,” Westenhofer says. “She wanted it to feel as if these women had been there for a long time, and that they are harmonious with the world.” So the structures all look like they’re built into the land.