Professional Motion Picture Production and Distribution NEWS

Effects studio Caf�FX helped design the mysterious fantasy world of Eric Small�s directorial debut, �The Dust Factory,� which opens today. Small�s indie produced film is being distributed by MGM.

�The Dust Factory� is an adventure about the love and friendship between two teenagers who help each other through a difficult time in their lives.

It�s the story of Ryan Flynn (Ryan Kelley), a wondrous young boy who hasn�t spoken since witnessing his father�s death at the age of nine. Now thirteen, Ryan has a near fatal accident when he falls from a bridge and is magically transported to a fantasy realm known as The Dust Factory (a place that mirrors his fear of mortality). In this strange yet familiar world, Ryan meets Melanie (Hayden Panettiere), a precocious young beauty, who steals his heart. Together they embark on a journey where they face their fears and develop a friendship built on trust and love. Ultimately, Ryan faces the challenge of finding his way home.

Caf�FX�s Erik Henry was used as the on-set visual effects supervisor, while David Ebner supervised digital effects for some 50 shots, in addition to the main title sequence.

A number of key effects were involved the �The Dust Factory� vortex, a whirlpool filled with a tar-like material. In one shot, as the boy reaches for a girl the floor cracks open, tentacles wrap around her and pull her down into the vortex, while another tentacle grabs the boy and drags him along. The scene was shot on a practical floor, with a circular hole lined with greenscreen material. Caf�FX rotoscoped the actors and replaced the floor with CG flooring that breaks into jagged-edged cracks.

The tarry substance was created with LightWave 3D geometry; mesh model with displacement tools made the gooey looking material ripple like water. It was textured with reflection maps and image maps. LightWave Hyper Voxels rendered parts of the model to give the tar a viscous appearance.

After the boy is pulled into the vortex, Caf�FX tracked the original camera motion looking up from the inky �sea� to capture the couple submerged in the tarry liquid. The camera spins around and the boy and girl fly out the other side of the vortex to surface in The Dust Factory�s ice-rink. There, in another CG sequence, the black goop slips off their bodies to be absorbed into the ice.

Hyper Voxels rendering, which excels at smoke-like shading, were applied to shots in which the boy and girl were transported from place to place. A misty fog bank overtakes them and erases them from one location only to make them magically reappear somewhere else.

In one notable shot, the boy enters The Dust Factory via an underwater route as bubbles swirl around him. A particle system and special shaders were used to create the CG bubble mass that integrates perfectly into the shot and a match-moved head was employed to receive the cast shadows.

The shots were composited at Caf�FX, with eyeon Digital Fusion, which works well with film-resolution material.

Caf�FX animator Minoru Sasaki created �The Dust Factory� main title sequence, which was designed by Ron Honn, in which the camera pans a CG moon as moondust trails off in its wake to form he title in a starry sky. The stars align and move into frame as the credits form out of the stuff of stars.

The title sequence ends with the night sky transforming into the ceiling of the boy�s bedroom, which has painted stars. The camera pans down on the boy and the telescope that he keeps by his window.