"Kingdom In Twilight", The Twin Kings Fight (2004). Our heroes size up the Saxon Horde army marching down the hillside opposite. Gosh - there's a lot of them...

So - this is the Twin Kings sequence. Basically two big-ass armies square off against each other looking for a fight. Then the Hero Siegfried goes across to the Saxon side and challenges the evil Twin Kings to a duel. After a long scrap, he defeats them both and the Saxon horde kneels in homage to their new ruler...

For the longest time we were in the dark about how many shots were actually going to be required for this sequence as the cut went back and forth. Then finally we determined a sequence that was approx 167 shots, and 160 of those required armies in them. Okay...

Well, basically myself and lead compositor Ben Grossmann cooked up a type of dial system about where the armies were located. This tied into a huge 360 degree matte painting that Ben created. I then made a 3d landscape to sit in front of this matte painting on which was placed the Saxon and Burgund armies. Using the tools that I had developed (on the back of my Mayhem work) it was straightforward to position the armies get them to perform whatever activites were needed (marching into position, halting, cheering, kneeling, etc.) These various activities were rendered out as a series of passes for the compositors to use according to the cut.

The upshot of all this? 160 shots bashed out and completed in less than 3 weeks and armies galore! luverly ...