Rosewood was the retelling of the massacre of a black township that took place in Florida during the 1920's. The production wanted a scene where a train carrying the survivors would pass through the smoking wreckage of their town.

A facsimile of the town of Rosewood had been built in a remote rural area in central Florida, with a section of track for the steam locomotive to run upon. This became an effects shot when the train had to be wrapped and shipped to another production six weeks before the town set was scheduled to be torched. This is the kind of "invisible" effect that is fun to pull off.

I first shot the engine traveling through the town set, which was still intact. We shot this element at magic hour. Six weeks later, I returned to set, found the camera position and shot the burned set.

Since the train was blocked by buildings in the "A" element, I reconstructed a passenger car from stills, which was panned behind the engine. I also added matte painting touches along the track bed, in areas of the foliage and sections of buildings where they had been hidden by foreground bldgs in the "A" element. Using a "supersampling" application, the train and it's smoke plume were pulled from the "A" element and were matted into the "B" element of the burned town.