Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box was a surrealistic biography of the famous Illusionists which was filmed in stereoscopic IMAX. Metrolight Studios did a large amount of the FX work, roughly 5 minutes worth. Our budget was very modest, as was the timeline, about 2 1/2 months from start to finish.

I was placed in charge of Metrolight's team. I supervised the on stage plate photography, which was entirely green screen except for a few small pieces of practical set. The rest of the imagery was to be created in Maya and Photoshop. I also supervised the creation of the digital environments, and the compositing.

One of the outstanding characteristics of this fim was the way scenes transitioned. The Magic Shoppe scene is a perfect example. We start with a tracking "down shot" of Siegfried cycling through an "Escheresque" version of the medieval center of Munich, and then...well, watch the clip. The building facades are based on actual bldgs in Munich as that was a stipulation of Siegfried's. I developed a look that simulated an old faded illustration, as requested by our client, L-Squared. Most of the facades were painted by David Bailey, and I did some touch up and added all of the roof and pavement paintings. The matte painting of the Magic Shoppe was painted by me. There are over 150 texture maps in this scene.

Rosenhiem Village, Siegfried's childhood home, was painted by Michelle Moen, with some sweetening and final touch up by me. There are about 130 separate texture maps in this scene.

The Vegas sequence required recreating a number of marquees from various S&R shows. I painted all of these, their reflections, the neon palms, and pretty much everything else, except for the Automaton itself.