TV Series
Paris Has Fallen
Vine FX
A terrorist attack hits the streets of Paris and MI6 protection officer, Vincent Taleb, finds himself thrown into the middle of a sinister plot. The Paris Has Fallen TV series is based on the Has Fallen movie franchise and brings the same intense action as the blockbusters, focusing on the protection of the French Minister of Defence from an unravelling terrorist scheme.
Paris Has Fallen features the largest VFX shot count to date for Vine FX (1,350 shots). This cinematic world was brought to life through a seamless blend of distinctive 2D and 3D elements, including environment extensions, aeroplanes, dynamic driving sequences, and explosive action. The enhancement of practical set builds with custom Parisian environment extensions played a vital role in shaping the show’s unique aesthetic, balancing both realism and visual excitement. Amidst it all are intense shootouts and clashes where VFX elevates the drama to new heights.
The art of CG
What makes complex sequences more manageable is good reference material. There’s a scene where the characters run across a roof and jump into a hovering helicopter. The production team did a great job building a rig with a partial helicopter on a green screen stage. It also gave the team a good frame of reference when it came to replacing the rigged vehicle with a fully CG one. Several shots needed almost entirely rebuilding during post-production, so the Vine FX team had its work cut out. A specific shot that used a full CG rebuild was when a terrorist walks through a corridor, punches out a window and prepares to fire a shot across the embassy courtyard square. While this may sound simple, the shots had to be very specific as the sequence itself was filmed on a green screen stage and the exterior elements were filmed on location, meaning the matching of angles had to be seamless. The angle of the corridor shot didn’t match the exterior plate, so the team opted to rebuild the embassy courtyard in CG and composite the environment behind with matte paintings so it showcased the geography of the story. It’s one of those innocuous sequences that has a lot more visual effects work than an audience might realise. The show is full of complex camera moves and what makes the shots incredibly successful is how the live action footage is integrated. For sequences filmed outside, including leaps from buildings, there was no simple green screen to remove. The team at Vine FX rebuilt buildings in CG, adding DMP and city details in the background to recreate Paris authentically.
Action on the streets
A method was developed of filming backplates across Paris with a 360-degree camera. This innovative approach proved to be incredibly successful – especially when handling a huge volume of driving shots.There are nearly 200 driving shots in Paris Has Fallen, all filmed against green screens. This, normally, would require either stock assets or extensive camera rigging to film live-action plates. Vine FX recommended mounting a 360-degree field-of-view camera to a low-level car to give maximum flexibility during post-production, enabling reframing to match green screenshots as needed. This method provided additional benefits because of the 360-degree view, there was immediate reference material for reflections. It also made the integration of green screen action and real-world backgrounds much more believable, helping to really anchor everything in place. A template was then built inside Nuke to iterate across multiple sequences.
Paris Has Fallen demanded artistic mastery from every department to bring its gripping drama to life. While great visual effects work is often invisible to the audience, it’s important to acknowledge the dedication and countless hours invested in creating seamless sequences where the line between reality and visual effects is indistinguishable.
CREW
Michael Illingworth
Pedrom Dadgostar
Maxwell Alexander
Laura Usatie
Tully Mead
Gabi Kaziukonyte
Camille Gerstenhaber
Aidan Free
Harry Byford
Ollie Cowan
Jake Newton
Matt Mckinney
Marco Merletti
Caglor Comez
Mattias Lullini
Ben Wells
Doug Winder
Ole-Aleksander-Nordby
Vahik Asoyan
Pan Vafeidis
Charlotte Larive
Alesja Surubkina
Suresh Ramasamy
Arda Evin
Albert Mailyan
Stefan Rachev
Vadims Mironovs
Joe Batten
Bharathi Anthonysamy
Dario Bonito
Elise Smulova
Kathrin Schoeftenhuber
Jessica Hayes
Albena Ivanova
Preet Katta
Mitch Crease
Robin Walsh
Ashwini Prabhu
Caroline Rouge
John Dolman
Harry Symonds
Kevin Fitzgerald
SOFTWARE
Nuke, Houdini,