Digital Effects In The Shutter Island

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In most films today, a full-size setting is not always built. Instead, miniature buildings are used to both cut costs or create fantasy scenes. This is exactly what Shutter Island also makes use of. New Deal, a design studio, created more than 120 shots containing miniatures, additional photography and digital effects for the movie. The visual effects supervisor, Matthew Gratzner, together with his team built a 14-foot model lighthouse, the Ashecliffe asylum and the interior stairwell (Hurst, n.d). The final shot in which the lighthouse is shown with the sunset in the background, was accomplished through the use of miniatures and a 1/12 scale model at Malibu beach shot.

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The shot was lined up in camera fixed in the nodal head position. In this scene the whole field moves because the pan pivot point is on the film plane, while all the objects in the scene are static and the foreground and background don’t shift relative to each other. Gratzner explains that since the coast didn’t line up as they wanted it to be, in postproduction they ‘flopped’ the image and used color correction.

The rocks in the foreground were also a miniature. The model was 12’ wide at the base and 14’ tall and the shoot was completed in two days (Hurst, n.d).

Furthermore, the movie makes use of visual effects to make the movie more interesting, dramatic and alive. They are mostly used to show Teddy’s mental and emotional state through metaphors and symbolism. The approach used is matte work through the use of a travelling matte in which the actors were filmed against a green screen first and then these shots were matted into certain backgrounds ranging from a room on fire to a huge cliff by the sea.

In order to achieve these spectacular effects, the works were divided between three main parties. The first one is CafeFX, which offers visual effects production, CG character creation, and 3D animation, and they focused mainly on adding the cliffs, the water and merged the work together. The second one was New Deal Studios, a design studio which focused on building the miniatures, like the lighthouse for example and Ward C. The third one consisted of Rob Legato, a special effects supervisor and Ron Ames, a special effects editor that worked on the basement scenes. The film contains approximately 650 VFX shots (Desowitz, 2010). The visual effects supervisor of Shutter Island was Ben Grossmann from CafeFX. He explains how he was able to create the fantasy scenes through the combination of acting, special computer effects and fake models of the actors.

In one of the scenes where Teddy goes to sleep, we see extensive use of special effects incorporated in his dream. This was one of the most complicated scenes to edit. We see Teddy embracing his wife Dolores. Then we see her slowly getting wet and blood coming out of her stomach, while she tells Teddy that he needs to wake up and let her go. This is a metaphor of Teddy’s consciousness telling him he needs to face the truth by showing the real Dolores, wet from drowning the kids and bleeding because she was shot by Teddy. Suddenly she starts to freeze and slowly turns into ashes. Grossmann explains that at first they had Leo stand there embracing Michelle and when they would call out, the actress would drop down, slipping from his arms. Afterwards, they asked Legacy Effects, a special effects studio, to create a 3D model of Michelle. Then, they used blow torches to set the model on fire and took shots of it crumbling to ashes. This allowed them to have a library of shots in a computer, which they augmented with rigid body and other simulations to spawn dust and debris. They spend a lot of time designing a flaming, searing effect going across the actress’s body, on nuances of every little crack along her face, digital smoke and ash. Another scene where special effects are distinctive, is when Teddy thinks Chuck has fallen over a cliff. Grossmans explains that anything you see of Teddy in the cliff scene is digitally enhanced. The shot is multiple plates of photography in Maine. The shot when Teddy starts to climb down the cliff, is shot on a 15-foot piece of cliff wall and everything else around him is all photographic textures projected onto CG geometry with CG environments (Failes, 2010). They used live footage which was done in Nuke and combined it with footage of waves crashing, CG seagulls and the shoreline.

Shutter Island uses Panavision’s aspect ratio of 2.35:1, also called anamorphic widescreen, and a 65mm, or medium format, footage which creates a 3D life-like look (ShotOnWhat, 2016). The lenses used are middle-focal-length, avoiding any distortions and making the scene look more realistic. Sudhakaran (2015) also states that what makes the 65mm format more life-like are the use of longer focal lengths for wider shots, the faster transition to out-of-focus areas, the unique characteristics of medium format lenses and the higher resolution. The frame, working as a neutral border, is throughout the whole opening scene parallel to the horizon and presents a straight-on angle.