As a key FX provider for the Warner Bros. summer blockbuster Superman Returns, Frantic Films has become a big part of the Man of Steel’s new universe. However, the Winnipeg production and post shop’s work on the film is actually in support of the latest nefarious scheme from Superman’s arch-nemesis.

‘We’re kind of Lex Luthor’s best friend, because most of the FX we’ve produced help take Superman’s super powers away,’ says Ken Zorniak, COO of Frantic, which recently placed 31st on Profit magazine’s annual ranking of Canada’s fastest-growing companies.

In the film, directed by Bryan Singer and starring Brandon Routh as Superman, Luthor (Kevin Spacey) steals crystals from the Fortress of Solitude, Superman’s remote hideaway. The powerful crystals, which come from Superman’s home planet of Krypton, have the ability to expand and create new land masses, and the megalomaniac Luthor plans to use them to create his own continent, which will in turn put much of North America under water. To keep Superman at bay, Luthor laces the crystals with kryptonite, the one substance that renders our hero powerless.

It was the task of Frantic, which has made a name for itself working on big-budget Hollywood films such as Swordfish and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, to bring these crystals to life.

This required software tools with superhuman ability, including Frantic’s proprietary Flood, which simulates fluid movement, its Krakatoa particle-generation and -rendering software, and Spore, a high-density particle-rendering program created by Richard ‘Doc’ Baily, who passed away in the spring. The film’s post work also required Autodesk’s 3ds Max and Maya, Adobe After Effects, and eyeon Software’s Digital Fusion 4 and 5.

‘To keep a consistency of design and behavior, we hired [company president] Chris Bond and Frantic Films to create a crystal growth pipeline that would be distributed to the other visual effects studios involved in crystal effects,’ says Mark Stetson, Superman Returns’ VFX supervisor, referring to the likes of L.A.’s Rhythm & Hues Studio and London’s Framestore CFC.

To show kryptonite being produced inside the crystals, Frantic worked with Baily, using the algorithms from Spore to create those and many other crystal FX shots in the film.

‘The crystals literally come to life when activated, growing right before your eyes,’ says Zorniak. To make this growth both natural and believable, Frantic focused on creating ever-changing reflections and refraction within the crystals themselves.

‘We had to ensure that the crystals grew organically, with all the reflections and physical characteristics that you would expect,’ Zorniak adds.

Frantic was also heavily involved in the film’s many ocean scenes. Flood software again came to the rescue for creating believable sequences both above and below the waves. The shop wrote a subset of Flood, called Surf, for the wide, general shots of the ocean’s surface.

It also had to alter underwater scenes so that the audience could discern what was happening at a distance. To do so, Zorniak explains, ‘we wrote a custom underwater shader to manipulate the volumetric density of water.’

Frantic was involved in creating not only water, but fire as well. Its Krakatoa program was used with Spore to show the explosion of an alien sun early in the film.

‘We only had five weeks to get this sequence together,’ Zorniak recalls. ‘We took Doc’s Spore design and look for the sun and corona elements, then fed it into our particle software to create the star implosion. The next step was the giant explosion, and that was close to a billion particles generated in Krakatoa that we put on top of that.’

VFX supervisor Stetson was impressed with the results, offering, ‘We were very happy with Frantic’s work on the film, both in their crystal and kryptonite development, and in the sequences they finished themselves.’ He adds, ‘It is a sad thing that Doc Baily didn’t live to see the beautiful integration of his Spore effects into Superman Returns.’

With the movie as an impressive showcase – it took in US$84 million at the North American box office in its first five days after opening June 28 – Frantic is now looking to establish itself as an FX software manufacturer in addition to a service provider.

‘We’ve got 12 people in development working on VFX software, alongside our artists who do our production work,’ Zorniak says.

Frantic will be demonstrating Flood at this year’s SIGGRAPH graphic design show, July 30 to Aug. 3 in Boston.

www.franticfilms.com

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