Creative studio SPLICE® completed incredibly unique visual effects on the feature film “The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia,” which was released theatrically earlier this year. This spring also saw the film, the second in the “Haunting in Connecticut” trilogy, released on DVD, Blu-Ray, and Digital Download.
To view a trailer from the film, GO HERE.
Building on the terror from the first film, “The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia” follows a young family as they move into an historic home in Georgia, only to learn they are not the house’s only inhabitants. Soon they find themselves in the presence of a secret rising from underground and threatening to bring down anyone in its path.
Director Tom Elkins turned to Splice for five very unique visual effects shots for the film. These were particularly challenging shots that the Director wanted Splice to handle specifically. Visual Effects Artist Ben Watne collaborated closely with Elkins on the creation of a shot where a cockroach walks across an actor’s face. The original, live-action plate wasn’t working, so the Splice team created a 3D cockroach that was “pinned” to the live-action cockroach to give it realistic movement. Splice VFX Artist Kipp Crawford created a photo-real tarantula for the film.
“My collaboration with Splice was rewarding and successful on every level,” says Director Tom Elkins. “Our movie needed a creative partner for some key visual effects in the movie, and the Splice team rose to the occasion and exceeded our expectations. We were looking for someone with a more personal, boutique approach, which is sometimes hard to find in Los Angeles. In working with Splice, we get the benefit of the talent and capabilities of any top L.A. VFX house, but with amazing customer service. Quite simply, Splice provided some of the best work in our film, elevating key scenes with world-class visual effects, and doing so with a wonderfully collaborative, can-do attitude and approach. We couldn’t have done it without them!”
According to Splice‘s Ben Watne, the project was unique: “I thrive on any great challenge,” says the Editor/VFX Artist. “And this one was relatively difficult, creating creatures digitally that couldn’t be shot via live-action. So we were forced as a team to really think outside the box to create these extremely important shots for the film’s story.”
Watne notes that the Splice visual effects team relied on a technical arsenal that included: SideFX Houdini, Maxon Cinema 4D, The Foundry modo and Nuke, and SSonTech Syntheyes. “We used Houdini to create procedural maggots, and also to project footage of cockroaches onto proxy geometry,” details Watne. “The ability to use expressions and extra parameters in our Houdini shaders let us use a single piece of cockroach live-action footage to create multiple roaches that all moved and behaved differently.”
Watne and the Splice team also used Cinema 4D’s rigging and animation to animate a spider crawling out of a character’s mouth. Modo was used for texture work and sculpting on the spider. “Syntheyes was our tracking package for the shots that needed 3D tracking,” adds Watne. “Nuke was our compositing application on the film.”
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