Sony's Vizual Solutions: pieces together Tupac film - Post News

Post, Jan, 2004

NEW YORK--Sony Music Studios' Vizual Solutions division recently spent two years putting together Tupac Resurrection, a 45-minute feature film from MTV Films and Paramount Pictures that takes a look at the life of the assassinated rap star. The film consists of thousands of static images, including handwritten poetry, magazine headlines, newspaper clippings and family photos. The team was challenged with creating a cohesive feel among the broad spectrum of elements whose aspect ratios varied.

Lauren Lazin directed the film and worked closely with the Vizual Solutions team to help shape the story. Visual design creative director Fred Salkind created the opening title sequence and also suggested giving 3D perspectives to the flat elements. Lead designer and animator Aaron Kent composited over 100 multlayered builds that help tell the story Managing the vast number of files was a particular challenge.

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Designers/animators David Rogers and Steven Yeung also worked on the film's collages, and it was Yeung who was responsible for creating the original font that is based on Tupac's actual handwriting. The type treatment was used to ID people and places throughout the film.

The team used Adobe After Effects and Discreet's Smoke and Inferno tools to execute the visuals. Visual design producer Stephanie Masarsky over-saw the team and helped to streamline the workflow.

Sony Music Studios (www.sonymusic.com) re-recording engineer Sue Pelino and sound editor Christopher Koch spent a year putting together the film's audio narrative. The track was derived from more than 40 different interviews of Tupac and helps to tell the story in his own words. Pelino notes that the sound team was dedicated to giving the track a very smooth sound, suggesting the snippets all came from the same interview.

In addition to the dialogue, Pelino handled sound design, music and effects, as well as the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. Final stems were brought to Sound One in New York where engineer Dominic Tavella did some fine tuning and created the print master.

The film hit theaters in November.