Percy Jackson: Hellywood

In late 2009 I got the opportunity to work at Pixomondo on the feature, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief as a digital matte painter. The studio was awarded the shots of the reverse underworld version of Los Angeles. As an internal joke, the famous Hollywood sign changes to ‘Hellywood’ once Percy and friends pass through it, but this is not obvious in the movie.

One of my first duties was finalizing the matte painting for the above shot. The matte painting had been under development by at least three (count ‘em) other artists before I came on board the project. I was handed two pages of type written notes in an 8-point font to address before beginning anything. Most of the notes were in regard to the city and the lighting, but I had to completely redevelop the cliffs for the open chasms. Above is the actual background matte painting I worked on.

One of my specialties seems to be rocky cliffs, which I had to develop for these shots, as the show VFX Sup and Director had as specific look in mind – long jagged vertical faces. I sourced an island in Tasmania which I’ve used in the past (Underworld: Evolution), and everybody was pleased. So my responsibilities for the two shots below were just for the cliffs. The city and sky were developed by a combination of either Thilo Ewers, Richard Lee, or Matt Conway. The matte paintings were projected in 3D by John Lindstein, and rendered out for comp.

See the three finished shots below.