Barbie
Our VFX Josephine Noh breaks down the Mattel Headquarters
The technical aspects of the chase scene between Barbie and the executives, notably the cubicle set extensions and CG reflections that made Mattel the cold, dull, and inescapable office of everyone’s nightmares. We created over 150 CG cubicles based on their scan of the practical cubicle on set. There were around 16 practical cubicles on set when they shot those scenes, and then we would just extend it with 150 CG cubicles, extending the walls and the ceiling. Then we faded it all to black to make it more dreary.
Not only were there reflections for the windows themselves, but the whole board room is very shiny, so then the reflections of the windows were on the floor, the table, so we had to do secondary and tertiary reflections of the room itself, so there was the office, and we had to rebuild it all in CG. Then we would just try to match as close as we could, and then we would do it in layers. We had one layer for the windows, one for the floor, and one again for the table.