Production has just wrapped on Australia’s forthcoming 3D action-thriller movie Bait. Inition’s Asia Pacific office provided consultancy on the production pipeline, camera and monitoring setup, storyboard and production aspects and headed up the 3D department during principal photography.
Markus Stone, Inition’s Asia Pacific Head of Production, and lead Stereographer on the shoot said: “Intensive pre-production planning and choosing the right gear for the job ensured shooting ran smoothly. All the live 3D encoding on set was handled by Inition’s Stereobrain Processor and we were able to shoot up to 40 setups per day, on a wet and logistically challenging set.”
Bait is about a freak tsunami which hits a small town on the Gold Coast, trapping people in a flooded underground supermarket with a pack of man-eating sharks.
The film was shot using two Element Technica Quasar rigs with RED MX Cameras and one Element Technica Neutron with SI-2K cameras for the underwater scenes. The standard configuration was to have one Quasar on the crane, one at water level in a splash box and the Neutron as a separate unit in the studio next door.
Ground-breaking Underwater 3D Filming
One of the more groundbreaking aspects of the production was the use of the world’s first underwater beamsplitter rig. Side-by-side rigs are the typical configuration for underwater shooting because of their compact size which minimises reflection issues.
The use of a beamsplitter rig underwater provided more close-up and dynamic shots. Compressed air was fed into the rigs that were enclosed to provide thermal exchange for the REDS.
Directed by Kimble Rendall (Matrix Reloaded), the film stars some of Australia’s top talent, including Julian Mcmahon (Nip Tuck, Fantastic Four) and Xavier Samuel (Twilight; Eclipse).
Bait will be distributed in Australia by Paramount and is scheduled for an early 2012 release.
