How did they shoot the Las Vegas scene in "Now You See Me"?

How did they shoot the Las Vegas scene in "Now You See Me"? - From above blackboard in wooden frame with white text on center under medical mask against black background

How did they shoot the Las Vegas MGM Grand scene in "Now You See Me" (2013)?

At the beginning of the Las Vegas scene there is a very large auditorium with a rotunda stage and the camera's viewpoint swoops in a circle around the stage, high above the audience. How could they have gotten an aerial 360-degree shot like that?



Best Answer

It's combination of 3 separate cable cam shots with a lot of CGI crowd duplication work.

The FX house was Rodeo FX and they posted YouTube videos of how it was done.

In a major sequence inside the Las Vegas MGM Grand, which was more than a minute long, RODEO FX stitched and morphed three different cable cam plates together to form a 720-degree spinning shot of the MGM Grand. We filled the entire arena with a mix of 2D crowd elements and CG crowd using "off the shelf" systems such as Kinect and PS3 cameras for motion capture and 3D scanning. The shot was also enhanced with lens flares and the addition of giant video screens




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NOW YOU SEE ME - Bank Robbery Scene




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