New York Times Article Mentions The Work We Did On Feature Film, “Immortals”
Most of the article is dedicated to the very challenging ‘exploding heads’ sequence we did at Barxseven:
“One action sequence notable for a creative use of violence involves a god clashing viciously with humans. Though forbidden to interfere with mortal fights, Ares (Daniel Sharman) breaks the rule to rescue Theseus from Hyperion’s legions. He takes his hammer and moves quickly from soldier to soldier, smashing their heads before they have time to react. The action is slowed down, creating a burst of color that looks almost like a flower blooming, if that flower were made of brains and cartilage.
“`I wondered, how do you make a world in which gods and humans can fight?’ Tarsem Singh,the film’s director, said. ‘You have to make your own rules.’
“He proceeded on the theory that the gods’ version of real time would move so fast that humans would be virtually stationary. In battling a god, humans wouldn’t stand a chance.
“`’There are multiple elements in this sequence,’ the visual-effects supervisor, Raymond Gieringer, said. `We had to separate each one of them out to be able to have Ares in our version of real time while everybody else was in slow motion.’
“That slow motion applies to the complex explosion of the heads in the scene. To achieve this Mr. Gieringer worked with the Montreal effects company BarXseven. They spent months creating the simulations for the head explosions, building a biologically accurate re-creation of the bone, cartilage and gore involved.
“Despite the carnage the effect is as artful as it is graphic.”
