Press Release

CafeFX blends reality and fantasy in a series of
3D effects for the main titles and several key sequences in ShopGirl, a
romantic comedy starring Claire Danes and Steve Martin, based on Martin's
bestselling novella. The motion picture, directed by Anand Tucker and
distributed by Touchstone Pictures, opens today.
Danes plays the title character, Mirabelle, an aspiring artist who earns her
living selling gloves and accessories in a Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue.
When she finds herself falling for a rich, divorced older man (Martin), she
must decide between her new suitor and her struggling-musician boyfriend
(Jason Schwartzman).
ShopGirl reunited CafeFX with visual effects supervisor Erik Henry, with
whom they had teamed on Gothika, Battlefield Earth and Dracula 2000,
for a series of photorealistic visual effects that transcend time and space
to smoothly link people and places.
The opening titles begin with a night aerial over Los Angeles, then the
camera swoops down to a freeway at dawn, a Beverly Hills street and a woman
was opening the door to Saks as the workday begins. Viewers follow the
camera inside the store where they are treated to an unusual perspective of
the cosmetic counter and peer through a large perfume bottle at the customer
makeovers underway.

CafeFX's effects supervisor David Ebner was on hand for the green-screen
shoot at the make-up counter, which was done with a motion controlled
snorkel lens for extreme close-ups. "But, because certain objects
interfered with the camera move and because the camera lens was bigger than
some of the objects being photographed we had to recreate them in 3D."
Fly-through Photoreal 3D lipsticks:
Ebner crafted new photoreal lipsticks in Lightwave 3D enabling the virtual
camera to veer between rows of tubes reminiscent of flying down the deep,
narrow trenches in "Star Wars." He also created a large perfume bottle
filled with liquid and employed lensing and distortion effects to bend the
imagery that we see through the bottle's glass.
CafeFX devised seamless transitions – moving in tight on the handbag as the
woman opens the store, going up close on the neck of a customer getting a
makeover’ to transition from scene to scene. A transition from the customer
makeovers to the bottom of a bannister begins a sequence of vertical moves
that takes viewers from the main floor up a series of mezzanine levels to
find Claire Danes at work.
"We linked the levels together in one smooth motion by replacing the real
ceilings with 3D ceilings that whose lighting and mouldings match the
store's real ceilings," says Ebner. "At the third level the camera travels
over the mezzanine railing to glass counter where Mirabelle sells
accessories." The titles, which are supered over the imagery, dissolve on
and off during the entire opening sequence.
Ebner used Digital Fusion to composite elements, stitch scenes together and
color time them. Toby Newell handled the cosmetic counter rotoscoping,
while artists Akira Orikasa and Mike Fischer created 3D elements.
In another sequence CafeFX created a romantic shot bordering on the edge of
fantasy. Martin's wealthy character is flying his private plane and
thinking of seeing Danes. The camera pushes into his window and out to a
full-screen night sky filled with clouds, shooting stars, an aurora borealis
and a constellation in the subtle shape of a woman lying on her side. When
the camera pulls back, viewers find themselves in Danes's bathroom where
she's in the tub gazing up at the same sky. "It's a voyage from his plane
to her house," says Ebner. "The shot is almost 42 seconds long, 1000
frames, and it's really slow and elegant."
Digital matte painter Robert Stromberg, who worked with CafeFX on Sky
Captain and the World of Tomorrow, designed the look of the night sky,
which was a mixture of 3D and paint. Ebner used Lightwave to craft the
animated aurora borealis as well as the shooting and twinkling stars. He
and Jeff Goldman tapped Digital Fusion for compositing the 3D elements with
the live action; Ebner also used Digital Fusion for extensive color timing
transitions from the plane to the night sky to the bathroom. Toby Newell
removed tracking marks from the live-action shots.
CafeFX provided an additional view out of Martin's plane for a daytime
flight sequence. For this scene, Ebner composited time-lapse footage of a
sky with clouds outside the plane's window.
Vicki Galloway Weimer executive produced the project for CafeFX.