THE APPROACH - THE DESTRUCTION - AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT - THE FINAL ATTACK
DOWNLOAD THE INDEPENDENCE DAY MONTAGE - ID4 HOME PAGE
THE APPROACH - THE DESTRUCTION - AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT - THE FINAL ATTACK
DOWNLOAD THE INDEPENDENCE DAY MONTAGE - ID4 HOME PAGE
The film begins with a shot of the Apollo 11 plaque resting on the moon's surface as the alien Mothership appears. Its massive size apparently shakes the lunar surface (I thought space was a vacuum!) as it passes the moon and heads towards earth, revealed in a very pretty tilt-up shot. Miniature effects supervisor Mike Joyce and his crew created the miniature lunar landscape. The scene was composited with a beautiful shot of the earth, created from a series of 2D photographs mapped onto a 3D earth. The 500 mile wide Mothership was created in miniature, with a scaled length of 12 feet. The fleet of Destroyers appear from the mothership in dramatic fashion, in a shot composited by Pacific Ocean Post (pictured below).
As the Destroyers approach the earth, atmospheric distortions appear all over the world. The fiery cloud formations were created with a combination of low- and high-tech techniques. Atmospheric distortion shots were created for motion control photography out of cotton fiber, along with cloud tank footage, and 2D and 3D animation. The AWAC spy plane sent by the President to fly into the cloud was shot in-camera with a miniature plane, a backdrop, and practical smoke and fog.
In this shot, composited by Pacific Ocean Post, the Destroyers are actually
motion control models four feet in length. The special digital crew, created
especially for ID4, created the earth element.An enormous 12 foot model of a Destroyer, created by ID4's model shop, was implemented for many approach shots. The internal lighting on the huge ship was provided by 10,000 fiber optic strands. The Destroyers cast huge shadows over the land, creating strikingly disturbing shots of shadows creeping over American landmarks. Some of the monuments, including the Lincoln Memorial, the Statue of Liberty, the White House and the Washington Monument, were created in miniature for the shadow shots. The wider shots of shadows creeping over the cities were created digitally by Tricia Ashford's ID4 digital unit. Their ingenious technique was to create CG scenes that matched the perspective of the wide shots, and move a CG model of the destroyer over a flat plane. The shadow created from this procedure was used as the shadow element composited with the production footage plate.
Atmospheric distortions appear over
the California desert.
A Destroyer reveals itself above New
York City. The shot utlizes both miniature and
digital techniques.
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THE APPROACH - THE DESTRUCTION - AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT - THE FINAL ATTACK
DOWNLOAD THE INDEPENDENCE DAY MONTAGE - ID4 HOME PAGE
