Soul Surfer

This summer I Redboxed the story of Bethany Hamilton in the movie Soul Surfer. It was a good movie and afterwards I watched the extra specials in the menu because I was curious how they made the actress look like an amputee. After watching the bonus features I learned they used a green sleeve on the actress and keyed out the green. This is like what we were working with in Photoshop except not keying out the background.


After some research online I found that a small company called Engine Room worked on and created all the visual effects for Soul Surfer.

"The visual effects is what made the film," said the movie's director Sean McNamara.

With just 10 employees and nearly 30 outside artists, the company did the lion's share of the 750 visual effects shots in the film for less than $1 million."

"Part of the key to survival, he says, is keeping overhead costs down. The company, which at one point had 40 employees, relies mainly on freelance digital artists who work as independent contractors and are paid a flat rate, rather than by the hour. "It's a very labor intensive business and it's easy to underestimate the costs of labor,'' he says. "It's what sinks companies."

Engine Room also recruits globally through an online registry it launched in 2009 that allows digital artists to post samples of their work. For "Soul Surfer" the company enlisted artists from China to New Zealand and Macedonia, although the bulk of the work was done by freelancers working out of their homes in California, Schmit said."

"During filming, Robb also wore a green sleeve or had her arm painted green, a technique that makes it easier for digital artists to later "remove" her arm when scenes are composited on a computer screen. Once the green arm is removed, however, it leaves behind an empty space. So McNamara had to shoot additional shots of Robb's torso and of background scenes without her in it to fill in the empty spaces.

There was a further complication. Most of the surfing scenes -- captured with cameras mounted on jet skis and surf boards -- were actually performed by Hamilton herself, who acted as her own stunt double. "She said there is 'no one better able to play a one-armed surfer than me,' '' McNamara said.

That introduced another technical challenge for Schmit and his visual effects producer Michael Caplan. Their task was to carefully meld Robb's head onto Hamilton's body, all the more tricky given that Robb was about 9 inches shorter than the 5-foot-11 Hamilton. That was achieved through a combination of digital effects and camera tricks."

- LA Times