Run All Night
DIRECTOR : Jaume Collet-Serra
PRODUCTION : Warner Bros
VFX SUPERVISOR : Pierre Buffin / Remy Normand / Olivier Cauwet
VFX PRODUCER : Nicolas Delval
MAKING OF : Charles Labriet
NUMBER OF SHOTS : 18
Production notes
RUN ALL NIGHT
Director : Jaume Collet-Serra
Production : Warner Bros
Year : 2015
Number of VFX shots done : 18
VFX Supervisor : Pierre Buffin
VFX additional Supervisors : Remy Normand, Olivier Cauwet
VFX Producer : Nicolas Delval
VFX Line Producers : Patrice Cormier, Kristina Prilukova
TRANSITIONS (6 SHOTS)
The initial concept of the transition shots was to present two distant and simultaneous
actions happening in two different locations. The camera is starting at one place and moving to
another location far away. During this move the action is frozen until we arrive at the second
location then the action unfreezes and returns to real-time.
In order to create the transition shots, BUF rebuilt the entire neighborhoods of New York
City in full CG. Every shot had to connect with live plate elements at the beginning
and at the end.
We recreated all the environments on the camera path with camera projections. We used
helicopter filmed footage as well as ground-level photos to keep a cohesion from the beginning
until the end of the shot. During the shooting in NYC, we were not authorized to shoot mid-
height material, that is why we shot materials from ground-level and from helicopter only.
We also added some CG elements in order to enrich the environments: a train, some trees and cars.
The main constraint we were facing was the significant distance the camera had to travel
within a limited timeframe. In order to keep an interesting rhythm and speed, we designed the
environments several times and tried different camera movements during the animatic
phasis. Once we agreed on a global speed, we adjusted the environments in order to have a
realistic layout.
We added a treatment over these shots to have a better film look and less digital feeling.
ARRAY / MORPH SEQUENCE (8 SHOTS)
The opening sequence included eight array shots. These shots consisted of going from
one photo to another by using a mix of morphing and 3D. We mostly used morphing for close-
up shots and for the characters on wider shots. We sometimes used 3D to enhance the shot and
added CG reflections, trees, background elements and dust/particles.
One important thing was to keep the motion blur which was in the original photos. For the 3D elements, we added the motion blur by re-creating the movement
it should have.
A post-treatment was added on top of these shots to match the film look of the
sequence: more defocus and grainy.
GUNFIRE SEQUENCE (4 SHOTS)
In the shootout sequence, the camera travels from one place to another from the point
of view of a bullet.
In the first shot, we see a weapon firing in slow motion: we added 3D smoke and fire to
match the provided reference. We also relighted the shot to match the firing.
The second shot was the travel of the bullet from the shooter to the targeted character's
head. The camera goes through the forest following the CG bullet. At the
end of this shot, the bullet touches the head and we see some CG blood sprays.
The third shot follows the bullet shot where we see the blood spray lasting a bit more as
the character falls.
The last shot shows the dead character: we added blood on the ground.