Ben 10: Alien Swarm is the second live-action film from Cartoon Network based on their immensely popular animated series franchise Ben 10. This time around the network wanted to push the limits and deliver an intense thrill ride for the audience.
The film is directed and executive-produced by Alex Winter, who also directed Cartoon Network’s first Ben 10 live-action movie, Ben 10: Race Against Time, which scored over 13 million viewers during its Thanksgiving weekend premiere in 2007.
“The original Ben 10 series was really geared towards younger kids and our first live-action film, Ben 10: Race Against Time, reflected that sensibility,” Winter recalls. “The new animated series, Ben 10: Alien Force, is aimed at an older audience. So we really wanted to bring a more grounded reality to this film. There’s also a lot more action and thus, more visual effects.”
In fact, with nearly 600 shots, the scope of Alien Swarm’s visual effects work was roughly triple the 2007 film, Race Against Time. Leading the charge was the project’s overall Visual Effects Supervisor, Evan Jacobs, who also served as VFX supervisor on Ben10: Race Against Time. “This time around we had many, many more shots and a great deal more complexity as well,” Jacobs said.
To tackle the challenges posed by the film, Jacobs decided to spread the work across several visual effects vendors; Zoic Studios in Culver City, Atlanta-based Turner Studios, Ghost VFX in Demark and Super78 in Hollywood.
“The producers approached us very early on to design the hero aliens that Ben transforms into as well as the villainous Queen and her chips,” Super78’s Creative Director, Brent Young said. “From working on the first film we saw how much the fans know these characters and there are things they expect to see. Still, Alex really wanted to stay away from anything cartoony so we worked hard to find that balance.”
Source Cartoon Network
Leave a Reply