Post-production work for Sony Pictures Animation‘s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, the much anticipated sequel to the 2009 hit, was completed by Sony Pictures Digital Productions (SPDP) on the Sony Pictures lot in Culver City. SPDP talent oversaw sound editorial, sound mixing, color grading and editorial finishing for the animated movie, working alongside their counterparts from Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI) and Sony Pictures Animation , who created the film’s final animation. It’s the latest project to utilize an integrated workflow linking production, animation, visual effects and post production operations on the Sony lot. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 released nationwide in 2D and 3D on September 27th.
“Artists and technical experts from within Sony Pictures Digital Producutions came together to create a gorgeous, fun-filled, comedy adventure that is a worthy successor to the original Cloudy,” says Bob Osher, President, Sony Pictures Digital Productions. “Availing themselves of the latest technology and working together in a collaborative environment, they have raised the bar for creative imagination and technical execution. I’m thrilled audiences worldwide can now enjoy the results.”
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is larger in scope than its predecessor, featuring many of the same memorable characters while also introducing new visual elements including the fantastic food-animal creatures—foodimals—ranging from “cantalopes” and “flamangos” to intimidating “cheespiders”. Several new locations have also been added such as a colorful bioluminescence plant filled forest, a syrup and pancake breakfast bog and a salsa river with pico de gallo foliage as well as the urban metropolis of San Franjose, brought spectacularly to life by teams of artists at Sony Pictures Imageworks and Sony Pictures Animation.
SPI’s effects artists faced formidable challenges in creating some of the tasty environments. The effects team employed cutting edge particle generating software to simulate a variety of phenomena particular to the imaginary world of Swallow Falls, including a lake filled with coconut milk and a bog of maple syrup.
“The artists who do that stuff are the ‘mad scientists,’ the brightest of the bright,” explains Pete Travers, Sony Pictures Imageworks‘ Visual Effects Supervisor. “They have to understand the mathematics of the problem, but they also need an artistic eye.” Travers points to a sequence where the heroes are traveling down a river in a police vehicle and encounter rapids. Simulating the chaotic motion of the water, Travers notes, “required an incredible amount of calculation, bouncing molecules, tension and fluid cohesion, and all of it needs to be taken into account.”
The foodimals were a central preoccupation of the film’s sound artists. Supervising Sound Editor Geoffrey Rubay and his team helped to evoke the inimitable personalities of the creatures through a myriad of inventive vocalizations and sound effects. Nearly, all of those sounds were produced from organic (rather than digital) sources. In fact, recordists and Foley artists employed real food—lettuce, celery, watermelons and so on—to produce many of the sounds heard in the film.
Attaching sounds produced by fruits and vegetables to the foodimal characters made them appear more lifelike. “We use sounds from the real world because they’re familiar,” Rubay explains. “When you hear them, your brain recognizes that it’s heard that sound before and concludes that what it’s looking at must be real.”
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