Bullet Train

DNEG was proud to deliver over 1015 shots for the latest action-packed blockbuster from ‘Deadpool 2’ director David Leitch, taking audiences on a wild, non-stop thrill ride through modern-day Japan. 

Set on a high-speed train, the DNEG Virtual Production team used LED screens to display immersive CG environments, bringing Tokyo and the Japanese countryside to life. With the Shinkansen traveling at 300km/h across the country, the team needed a vast amount of content to illustrate the journey taking place outside of the windows. Our team used a variety of techniques to generate a number of distinct train station environments, with practical background plates capturing different locations in Japan and over 25km of unique CG environments. 

The COVID-19 pandemic restrictions also caused a unique set of challenges during production. With international travel to Japan prohibited at the time, the team relied on local vendor JAID Productions for reference photography of Japan. JAID captured a variety of settings from the streets of Akihabra at night to the ricefields of Maibara at sunrise. 

The DNEG environments team also utilized new techniques using OpenStreetMap data from across Japan to generate huge areas of environment. Using this data they were able to identify the locations of forests, streets and buildings. This allowed the team to create  a variety of environments from dense city suburbs, traditional villages, and mountainous regions surrounding Kyoto, and dress the scenes in a variety of structures based on the style of the areas, including a variety of buildings, rooftops, walls, street props, and gardens.

In addition to environment work, the team created action sequences consisting of FX explosions of cars, CG weapons, snakes, and gore, as well as multiple train crashes and collisions. The film culminates in the train crashing into an oncoming train and is sheared open as if by a can opener. For this scene, the production team built a massive CG station and connecting city to resemble a train utility station on the outskirts of Kyoto. In the dramatic finale, the train bursts out of the end of a station, down a mountain and into a traditional village, as our hero flies through the cabins.

EMBARK ON THE HIGH-SPEED BULLET TRAIN FEATURING BRAD PITT AND SANDRA BULLOCK 

'Bullet Train' | VFX Breakdown

'Bullet Train' | Trailer 

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the bullet train 

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'Bullet Train'

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