When Ben Stiller needed crashing helicopters, explosion debris, bullet hits and CG planes for war scenes in the DreamWorks adventure comedy Tropic Thunder, he turned to Vancouver’s CIS Visual Effects Group, which handled most of the complex special effects work in the summer box-office hit.

‘The work was quite challenging,’ says CIS visual effects supervisor Mark Breakspear, noting that there are subtle differences in creating visual effects for comedies than for dramas.

Tropic Thunder, which opened Aug. 13, stars Stiller, who also co-wrote and directed the film, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. as a group of self-absorbed actors who set out to make the biggest war movie ever, while they unwittingly encounter real bad guys in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

The movie grossed $4.8 million in Canada after nine days in theaters, while its overall take in North America stood at US$67 million as of Aug. 25.

Breakspear says the Vancouver team got involved while Stiller was still shooting in Kauai, Hawaii. The shop focused on complicated war scenes including the mistaken explosion of a cocaine factory, the Flaming Dragon Compound sequence and the opening Hot Landing Zone scene. They also completed 20 additional shots for the movie’s DVD release.

Meanwhile, CIS Hollywood came on board to create the Scorcher sequence – a 90-second CG spoof that explains Stiller’s character.

Thunder’s overall visual effects supervisor Michael Fink says he thought the movie would be a ‘breath of fresh air’ after the complexity of the fantastical imagery in his last project, The Golden Compass.

‘As I got involved, I discovered this was just as challenging a visual effects project as that had been. The only difference being that if we did a good job, no one would ever notice,’ he says. ‘The teams at the CIS facilities handled some of the most challenging work, and thoroughly contributed to the successful look of the movie.’

CIS expanded its services when parent Deluxe Entertainment acquired the post-production operations of Vancouver’s Rainmaker earlier this year. CIS Vancouver recently completed work on other titles including the upcoming Angels & Demons, starring Tom Hanks, and the recent The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.