For Immediate Release - Vancouver, BC Canada November 2, 2009 –Award winning visual effects studio
Artifex Studios assisted superhero Defendor (Woody Harrelson) with seamless, invisible effects.
Defendor is an original feature film debut from Canadian writer-director Peter Stebbings and producer Nicholas Tabarrok of Darius Films. It premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival and was one of the few Canadian successes, landing positive reviews as well as international distribution with Sony pictures.
Defendor is a story of a simple man who believes he is a superhero, and combs city streets in search of his arch enemy, Captain Industry. Defendor’s “super powers” come from unconventional tools such as marbles and wasps in a jar.Artifex Studios created the majority of these tools digitally. “CG insects were required in several scenes as swarms, as well as a few ‘hero’ wasps that had specific roles” - says Adam Stern, Visual Effect Supervisor for Artifex.
We modeled detailed wasps, which were keyframe animated in a number of scenes.The studio also created matte paintings of night-time cityscapes with a classically silhouetted Defendor prowling the streets of Hammertown. Scenes requiring simple sign and background replacements were all part of the workload. Subtle effects work was also required in a number of shots, for example a scene showing Kat (Kat Denning’s character) smoking crack. CG smoke was added coming out of her mouth that worked perfectly in the shot.
“Peter and Nicholas were a real pleasure to work with”, added Stern. “We knew going into the project that it was going to require invisible visual effects and some fairly complicated CG work. In total our studio completed close to 100 shots for the movie.”
Artifex creativity is highlighted during the end title sequence, in which a CG wasp wipes us from the last scene directly into the credits, where wasps then guide us through titles. The credits continue with CG marbles and end with CG road flares lighting the way from name to name.
“Working on DEFENDOR with Adam and his team at Artifex was an incredible experience. The guys worked tirelessly to get the look that the director and I were going for exactly right and never compromised a frame in their pursuit of the perfectly executed image. I couldn't be happier with their work or my experience working with them". Nick Tabarrok, Producer
Artifex Studios Ltd. is located in Vancouver, Canada and creates award winning digital effects and 3D animation for film and television. For more information, please contact: Roula Lainas Tel: 604.683.5333, Email:
roula@artifexstudios.com ,
http://www.artifexstudios.com/ 
