Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Paramount Pictures Director: Kerry Conran Pixel Liberation Front was behind the 88 shots of the British Royal Navy Flying fortress that materializes out of the clouds to protect the hero characters as they take off on their adventure. After Sky Captain (Jude Law) and Polly (Gwyneth Paltrow) land on the fortress captained by Frankie (Angelina Jolie), it comes under attack from ocean-launched missiles, and a squadron of Manta planes and Sky Captain must respond. The ship was designed by Production Designer Kevin Conran and features attributes of ocean liners, aircraft carriers, as well as various flying machines. WOT gave PLF the responsibility of completing a sequence that was in animatic form. PLF was given 3D models and textures of finished P40 and Manta Planes as well as deck vehicles. The fortress itself had been started by the modelers at WOT. PLF then up-rezed and completed the model, texture-mapped it, and lit it for the sequence all in XSI. In addition, a team of animators took the animatic animation to final, adding secondary animation, effects, and details to bring the Fortress to life. PLF utilized BatchServe as its render queue software as well. The sequence provided many challenges to PLF. The chief challenge amongst them was to integrate into a production that had an established look in a relatively short period of time (three months). Working closely with the production, PLF required a team of 24 individuals to achieve this goal. In addition, all the final composting was handled by outside vendors (Pacific Title and Gray Matter FX). This collaboration required constant clear communication and an open dialogue to smoothly transition from raw 3D elements to final treated shots. The shots varied from tight close-ups on the deck of the fortress to great vistas with hundreds of motion-captured crewmen actively manning the fortress for battle. The sequence also featured some of the only shots in the film that have completely exposed outdoor lighting. This posed the greatest challenge in establishing scale and detail in the fortress.