30 years of this masterpiece. Something I wrote for the special Speed issue of befores & afters magazine.
I saw Jan de Bont’s Speed in cinemas when I was 15 years old. It’s just a movie, and sometimes a very silly movie, but it changed my life. I became obsessed with how the action scenes in the film were photographed. I became obsessed with the sound design. And I became obsessed with the visual effects.
Thinking back, it’s not clear whether I took in then that Speed featured so many practical effects and miniatures, alongside a raft of ‘new’ digital visual effects. My mind was still spinning from seeing Jurassic Park only the year before, and I doubt my mid-teenage brain had picked up how quickly everything was changing in the effects landscape.
Only later when I saw DVD featurettes for Speed, and discovered the amazing Cinefex magazine, which covered the VFX of the film, did I realize the extent of the work overseen by visual effects supervisor Boyd Shermis.
And what work it was, from the miniature elevators from Grant McCune Design, to the miniature trains from Sessums Engineering, to the digital effects work led by Sony Pictures Imageworks and aided by VIFX. Then, of course, there was the spectacular special effects supervised by John Frazier.
Indeed, once I eventually got into visual effects journalism, it was always a dream of mine to speak to members of the Speed effects team. I managed to do just that for a series of online articles at beforesandafters.com for the film’s 25th anniversary. Those are the reproduced articles you’ve just read through in this special Speed issue of befores & afters magazine.
I am really lucky to include in this issue some incredible on-the-set photographs from Speed’s visual effects director of photography David Drzewiecki and from Imageworks CG supervisor Ron Brinkmann, which really help communicate the artistry behind the work.
I wanted to thank them for sharing these images and talking to me about their time on the movie. And of course I want to thank the other interviewees: Frank Foster, John Frazier, Rachel Nicoll and Boyd Shermis. It was such a pleasure hearing stories directly from those involved in the greatest action film ever made.
A PRIMER ON THE VFX OF SPEED
If you’ve read all the stories in the special Speed issue of befores & afters, then you’ll already have a good overall idea of the extent of the practical and digital effects work in the film. But I thought here might also be a fun place to publish an overview I once wrote (for myself, really) about the visual effects of Speed.
It’s never been published before and it certainly repeats things you may have just read, but this special issue seemed to be the right place for it. The piece mostly covers the digital work involved (much of the practical bus work, and the train miniature effects, are covered in the stories you’ve just read).
Unfortunately, I don’t have very specific imagery to showcase the digital VFX work other than what you’ve just browsed through. I’d recommend re-watching the film before/after/while reading this article, and also checking out as much of the DVD featurettes and commentary tracks about Speed as you can find. For so many reasons, they are some of the best ‘behind the scenes’ on a home entertainment release that have ever been made, in my opinion (Charles de Lauzirika produced them).
Before you jump into this piece, it might also be worth noting that Speed was shortlisted for consideration for the Visual Effects Oscar at the 67th Annual Academy Awards by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This meant Speed was part of the VFX Bake-off, an incredible event in which representatives from the shortlisted films present to the Academy on how they made the visual effects in their respective movies. Presenting on the day—February 9th, 1995—were Boyd Shermis, John Frazier, Ron Brinkmann (Imageworks) and Richard Hollander (VIFX).
The other six films shortlisted were The Mask (nominated), True Lies (nominated), The Lion King, Forrest Gump (winner), Interview with the Vampire and The Hudsucker Proxy. Looking through that list, it’s an incredible moment in the VFX timeline—a vast amount of practical special effects and miniature work was still on display, alongside a growing number of CG sequences and digital compositing. Speed certainly came at a time of great change in the industry.
So, here is my brief overview of the VFX of Speed. I always thought the film was beautifully split into different ‘modes of transport’: the elevator, the bus and the train. That’s also how I have written this piece.
THE ELEVATOR
Grant McCune Design built a 46 story miniature elevator shaft for Speed, to be filmed via motion control and used for the opening titles and for some scenes during the rescue. It would be laid on its side and stretch for 85 feet. The final construction made use of 400 miniature fluorescent tubes (which of course all had to match what had been built at full-scale). Eight bays or shafts inside the miniature were made, and so was even a working elevator car and counter-weight.
Imageworks’ 3D video system was utilized to previs the opening titles as the camera follows the length of the elevator shaft, with the titles wiping on and off. Pre-planning the move helped with choosing lens, timing and angles. In the end, the move would be 4,465 frames long (just over three minutes), and required a 22 hour motion control pass. It was filmed with a VistaFlex camera.
Miniature elevator shots that matched to the live-action were crafted to feel as if the camera was moving freely within the shaft (as if it was being shot for real). These were filmed 8 perf VistaVision with 8 perf Nikkor lenses on a snorkel tube with a motion controlled pitching lens.
At one point, once the elevator passengers have been saved, the elevator car falls through the shaft, followed by the window washing winch which had been holding it momentarily in place. This shot involved a motion control shoot with the miniature elevator car, while the winch and cable were Imageworks 3D elements built in Alias and rendered in RenderMan (a CG winch was required for it to be seen dropping, rather than a miniature, since the elevator model had been built on its side). A few sections of the digital winch were even bent and twisted to match what had happened earlier in the scene with the live-action prop. A hand-animated light flash sold the final crash as the car and winch hit the bottom.
A bluescreen shot of Jack (Reeves) was required for a moment in which he is on top of the elevator car while it begins to rise to the top level. Cables were filmed separately against greenscreen. These two elements were matched to a background plate of the miniature elevator shaft filmed with motion control.
THE BUS
The ‘gap in the freeway’ is a plot point that is first revealed visually in a lengthy helicopter POV shot featuring visual effects by VIFX. Here, the camera is above the bus and follows it along the freeway to zoom in on the gap in the unfinished freeway. This required a significant tracking effort of 329 frames, plus the building of CG construction site pieces, waving flags and even a flock of birds ‘flying’ through the gap.
Another VIFX shot saw the studio handle a handheld POV of the gap through the windshield of the bus. Here, the real road was removed and a digital one inserted, along with elements to replicate the gap.
The challenge here was that the digital road removal and extra elements had to be seen through a ‘dirty’ bus window (including wipers), and within that handheld setting, which introduced the need for precision tracking and for matching blur.
For the jump, Frazier’s team orchestrated a real bus jump. Imageworks removed the foreground and added in the construction environment via a matte painting, and introduced a small pan/tilt move to the shot.
Then, for the landing, we see the bus, having launched off a ramp, coming down on the road. Again, the foreground road was digitally removed by Imageworks and a portion of the road with bits and pieces of concrete and rebar, etc, were matte painted to appear as part of the gap. Also, again, the dust and debris crossing over the matte painting, and the animated shadow of the bus, were elements that had to be massaged for the final shots.
THE TRAIN
The subway train, which ultimately becomes a train wreck, required a mix of live-action, miniatures and digital compositing. Miniature train cars built by Sessums Engineering were made in 1/8 scale (15 feet long) and filmed for the sequence overseen by VFX DOP David Drzeweicki.
Their first appearance comes in the scenes of construction workers running for cover as the train heads out of control. Imageworks combined the worker live action plate with the miniature plates. Front projection techniques were used in order to deal with the highly reflective surface of the trains. A headlight pass also came in handy to replicate a lens-flare effect. Imageworks carried out digital compositing, while also creating necessary interactive lighting, shadows and sparks.
Miniature environments were also built to stand-in for the ‘under construction’ subway station, again with miniature train cars filmed motion control to pass through them.
Then, the most dynamic of the train shots involved the plowing of the miniature train cars through miniature environments, which ultimately leads to the carriages breaking apart and jumping the tracks, then heading up a ramp to the street above. These ‘freewheeling’ trains could reach speeds up to 14 miles per hour and were shot with multiple cameras.
Finally, the break through of the train car onto Hollywood Blvd. was enabled with a life-size car replica rigged by Frazier and co. Matte painted elements of the streetscape and construction zone were composited with the final crash live action to complete the last scenes of the film.
