The Reaping

DNEG created truly exciting visual effects for Stephen Hopkins’s supernatural thriller, The Reaping, which premiered on the 30th March 2007. When the script of the film, which stars Hilary Swank as a "miracle debunker", called for plagues of swarming locust and rivers of blood in a world of unexplained phenomena, the production turned to DNEG to make this a reality.

'The Reaping' tells the story of Katherine Winter (Swank) a former Christian missionary and a world-renowned expert in disproving religious phenomena, who is called to investigate a small Louisiana town that is suffering from what appear to be Biblical plagues.

Led by Visual Effects Supervisor, Ken McGaugh and Visual Effects Producers, Steve Garrad and Moriah Sparks, DNEG’s main work was on the "locust" and "river of blood" sequences. DNEG created new tools to simplify the scene set-ups and to provide high-level controls for the swarms of locusts, while every shot in the “river of blood” sequence was matched by eye on the light-box to ensure consistency.

In addition to these two major sequences, DNEG also supplied various other effects, such as a detailed matte painting of the monastery in Chile where the film opens, animating full CG disease-ridden cows as well as adding smoke and CG flies to enhance a scene of dead and rotting animatronic cows.