By Oliver Webb
Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga chronicles a 15-year span of pre-and post-Civil War expansion and settlement of the old American west. Ingenuity Studios delivered a total of 256 VFX shots for the film, led by VFX Supervisor J.P. Jaramillo.
How did you first get involved with Horizon: An American Saga?
J.P: The team from Ingenuity Studios got involved at the outset, a few months before Executive VFX Supervisor Grant Miller, VFX Producer Rebecca Smith and I met Kevin Costner in person at his Santa Barbara residence. During this initial meeting, Costner shared his vision for the saga, a project he's been putting together for decades. The personal connection to the project was evident, and a large part of the meeting was Costner really bringing us into this world, these characters, and establishing his expectations for the movies.
What initial conversations did you have about the look of the film? What were the expectations?
J.P: In these early conversations, it was clear that Kevin Costner wanted large-scale, seamless visual effects that elevated the storytelling. There was an emphasis on realism and making the environments and elements (like the river, canyon, and fire) blend seamlessly with the practical footage. You are watching a Western inspired by so many classics, a majority of which came out during a time where computer generated graphics for film did not exist. Watching this film and picking up any use of CG imagery was not an option. The team had to align with Costner's vision, as well as J. Michael Muro's cinematography, while maintaining the historical authenticity of the time period and delivering these substantial alterations to the natural terrain.
Did you look at any creative references?
J.P: Much of the environment work was inspired by historical and natural landscapes, with the primary challenge being to transform a river valley located in Utah into a convincing slice of Arizona or what was then New Mexico Territory. The VFX team also worked to match the intense mood of Westerns, especially for pivotal action sequences like the horse chases and the Apache raid. A lot of inspiration was in the footage itself, keeping the spirit and breadth of the natural landscapes and phenomena already captured by the camera, including things like the silhouette of canyon walls, rain and water during a storm, and angry fires from a village in flames.
Could you discuss your approach to the Apache raid sequence?
J.P: Only around 10% of the smoke and fire you see in the sequence is practical. Ingenuity Studios added a large amount of CG fire and smoke to enhance the danger and intensity, even adding CG crowd characters that run alongside and at times interact with crowd extras in the footage. The team used custom 3D smoke and fire simulations for the biggest elements of the scene - namely the large Dance Hall structure, the exploding tent, and some other key structures. The structures themselves were also digitally recreated, allowing us to model all the interactions of light and motion between the pyro and the burning building.
The smaller, more background fire and smoke were 2D elements, with some matte paintings under the flames to further sell the destruction. Hundreds of embers rain down from the sky using a 3D particle system that was tuned to each shot. None of these effects are particularly challenging in isolation, but when combined almost all departments of visual effects were involved and in close collaboration, including CG crowd and animals, CFX, FX and pyro, smoke, 3D embers, the light emitting from those elements onto the set, and of course, the CG river flowing and reflecting everything just described. As a result, we created quite a few rewarding shots that most audience members won’t notice were mostly visual effects.
How did you approach the environment work? What was the most challenging environment?
J.P: The environment work was a crucial aspect of the visual effects for Horizon: An American Saga. Ingenuity Studios had to take the Utah landscape, where the film was shot, and drop in a river that existed in Arizona right next to the eponymous town. This transformation involved significant digital manipulation of the natural landscape to give the town of Horizon a tangible visual and geographic anchor in the river, from which many critical events of this film and future films take place.
The largest piece was the creation of a fully 3D, 6-mile-long river and accompanying terrain, rocks, and foliage. For principle photography, a small pond was dug as a stand-in, but Ingenuity Studios transformed this feature into a large river that spanned across 90 shots, and quite a bit more shots in the second film. The environment team had to become intimately familiar with the shooting location, learning all the major geographical landmarks in all cardinal directions, to know exactly where this large river would land in every shot. The river was an integral part of the film's setting, requiring it to be depicted from various distances and angles, at different times of day and night, and under varied weather conditions, including a rainstorm that caused the river's current to pick up with turbulent sections. This was also something Kevin Costner was very particular about, the geography of the river, where particular cutbanks and beachy sections needed to be. He has this whole saga in his head, and called out future moments of the story and how they relate to this river, and so we needed to dial in all those specific areas in our CG model.
He was also very particular about the water. In addition to needing to look photorealistic, with accurate reflective and refractive properties, it needed to interact seamlessly with other elements, including people, CG horses, and objects in the water. The flow of the water, the speed, and which sections of the river had whitewater were all features Costner had a specific vision for, and we needed to ensure that vision made it into the final frames of the film.
One of the last steps were some alterations done to the practical canyon cliffs surrounding the valley where photography took place. Some of the canyons and mountains had these features we called ‘mittens’, which were a dead giveaway of our Utah shooting location. Our digital matte painting team took over the task of not just erasing these features, but reshaping entire sections of cliffs and mountains, including carving a brand new canyon through some mountains to the North to accommodate our CG river, and to better situate the location in New Mexico Territory.
What was the most challenging shot/sequence in the film to complete?
J.P: There were several challenging sequences in the film, each with its own unique set of complexities. One particularly difficult sequence was the transformation of a broad daylight horse chase into a night-time, moonlit scene. The original footage was captured during the day, but the scene had to be convincingly transformed into a dark, dramatic night chase. This required extensive work in adjusting the lighting of the landscape to match the vision of Cinematographer J. Michael Muro, while also enhancing the dynamic sky to provide a striking backdrop for the chase. This involved creating a moonlit sky with moving clouds that added tension and drama to the sequence. Balancing natural-looking moonlight with the shadows of the chase, while maintaining visibility of the action was pretty tricky but we are pretty proud of the result.
Another challenging shot involved a CG horse being shot and falling to its death, with a rider catapulting off the horse. This required precise animation and physics simulations to make the fall and the rider's movements look believable. This, plus all of the other action going on during the scene ended up being one of those ‘all hands on deck’ shots that took some time to get looking right.
The burning dance hall sequence during the Apache raid was also a significant challenge. Since no practical fire was used during filming due to high winds on set, the entire fire and smoke simulation had to be created digitally. This required recreating light interactions between the CG fire and the surrounding environment and characters, making the added elements blend in as if they were shot on the day.
What creature work did the film entail?
J.P: The VFX team worked on several CG animals, including a fully CG horse for the chase scene, a CG horse falling to its death, and various CG insects like flies, ants, and scorpions, one of which gets squished by a shoe with an accompanying 3D simulation of its body goo and entrails. This involved a lot of the creature work I feel glad isn’t shot practically anymore, particularly things involving dangerous stunts or death, which often harmed people and animals before the widespread adoption of VFX.
How was the workload distributed amongst your team?
J.P: The workload was distributed across multiple supervisors and departments within Ingenuity Studios. The team had large numbers in compositing and CG teams, with further work being done by specialists on the matte painting, assets, creatures, FX, animation, paint, roto, and tracking/matchmove teams. Specific leads were responsible for different aspects of the project, such as compositing supervisors David Marulanda and Javier Markic, FX leads Paul Baran and William Stehlik, CG leads Nicholas Turner and Lev Hakobyan, tracking lead Rebecca McKee, and VFX Producer Rebecca Smith. It was a wonderful experience working with these folks on something like Horizon, solving problems and creating some cool work that ultimately you don’t really see, but feel.