Manchester-based creative studio, REALTIME, joined the Sky & Peacock Original limited series Lockerbie: A Search for Truth as VFX Partner. The five-part limited event series, starring Academy Award®, BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG Award-winning Colin Firth, is based on the search for justice by Dr Jim Swire following the 1988 Lockerbie disaster.
“Care has been taken every step of the way; the approach to the Visual Effects is a prime example.” Colin Wratten, Producer.
Led by VFX Supervisor Sue Land, REALTIME supported the production in portraying the scope of the disaster through several big sequences in the opening episodes, including the foreboding ‘coffee cup’ sequence. In this sequence, the audience sees a teaspoon landing on the roof of a police car as they drink their coffee, signalling the start of the plane’s descent over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. Around seventy-five percent of the series’ visual effects were crafted for episode one.
“It was so important that the show was incredibly collaborative. The key sequences are very, very emotive.” Otto Bathurst, Lead Director.
The team used their proprietary virtual production tool to help visualise the surrounding area of Lockerbie and General Muammar Gaddafi’s palace in Morocco in pre-production and while shooting on set, feeding that data back to the VFX teams in postproduction. The tool was developed alongside the show, with funding from Greater Manchester’s Media City Immersive Technologies Innovation Hub.
Says Jonathan Rawlinson, Head of Film and Episodic at REALTIME, “It was our first time working with Carnival Films and they were incredibly supportive and collaborative. We felt involved every step of the way in bringing Dr Jim Swire’s story to the small screen.”
