Producers Tap Company’s Comic Book VFX Experience for Super-Powered Homage

Santa Monica, CA (April 1, 2008) – Entity FX, an award-winning visual effects company in Santa Monica, California, and Vancouver, British Columbia, has completed visual effects for “Superhero Movie.� Leveraging its experience creating visual effects for comicbook- and graphic novel-based properties including the hit television series “Smallville,� Entity FX turned around more than 126 visual effects shots for the motion picture comedy in about three weeks.

“Superhero Movie� (Dimension Films) follows the story of an emerging superhuman known as The Dragonfly. Produced by the makers of “Scary Movie� and “The Naked Gun,� it provides a comic nod to many superhero moments of the present and past.

Work done by Entity FX ranged from 3D exploding heads to laser and “white-out� eye effects a la the “X-Men� franchise. Entity FX also handled an array of greenscreen comps, animated screen graphics and energy, debris and smoke effects. The team’s most challenging assignment, however, was producing effects in their entirety for the movie’s Human Torch.

“Entity FX did a great job with the Human Torch shots,â€? commented Alison O’Brien, visual effect producer on the project. “Considering they had only two weeks to work on them, we made use of every available minute, literally.â€?

“In an extremely short amount of time, we were tasked to create a effect similar to the CG fire seen in ‘The Fantastic Four,’� added Entity FX’s David Alexander, vfx supervisor for the sequence. “After doing a 3D matchmove, we used Entity FX’s custom CG fire scripts to automatically generate flames and embers emitting from the character. This allowed us to quickly tweak the parameters shot by shot.�

Fire effects were primarily done using sprites with some additional streak and ember elements rendered out of Autodesk Maya. Per the client’s request, artists also made sure the actor’s performance visibly registered through the flames.

“Entity FX has a long history translating comicbook styling and ‘language’ into visual effects,� said Trent Smith, Senior Producer, Entity FX. “We’ve done x-ray vision, heat vision, superspeeds, stop-times, flying, leaping, forcefields, glowing Kryptonite, you name it. So it’s a subject matter in which we always feel at home.�

Entity FX previously collaborated with the producers of “Superhero Movie� on “Scary Movie 4.�

About Entity FX
Entity FX is an award-winning visual effects studio specializing in feature film, television and commercials. With facilities in Santa Monica, California, and Vancouver, British Columbia, Entity FX delivers creativity on the demands of today’s production with a range of services in pre-visualization, on-set supervision, virtual backgrounds, matte painting, environmental effects, compositing, CG animation, specialty photography and more.

Entity FX has contributed visual effects to a range of motion pictures including Into the Wild, Rush Hour 3, The Air I Breathe, Miami Vice, Spider-Man 2, The Aviator, Scary Movie 4, Herbie: Fully Loaded and many others. Credits in television include Smallville, Pushing Daisies, Fight Science, Sport Science, Crime 360 and numerous other television pilots, specials and shows. For more information, visit www.entityfx.com or call (310) 899-9779 (Santa Monica) or (604) 646-2400 (Vancouver).