Sharp Cookies Creates Stunning 4D Blackpool Tower Film

Sharp Cookies has produced a stunning 4D Experience film for the Blackpool Tower, which has just been re-opened following a £20m refurbishment.
The project was written, produced and post produced by the Sharp Cookies team, under the direction of Michael Hall and includes exciting large screen 3D visuals and 7.1 surround sound, as well as physical effects such as snow, rain, wind, smell and a vibrating floor, to name a few.

The client is Merlin Entertainments Group Ltd, who operate the tower for Blackpool Council, and is the owner of many famous entertainment brands such as Tussauds, Alton Towers, Sea Life and The London Eye.
Craig Sciba is Merlin's Creative Director and Project Designer for the entire Tower project. He explained: “The brief was to create a sophisticated yet fun 4D film that captures the essence of Blackpool and the northern coastline through aerial views and creative storytelling. We wanted to take the success of the London Eye 4D film and build upon it to create a more enhanced 4D visitor experience.”
Sharp Cookies responded to the brief with a story about a boy and his family on a day-trip to Blackpool. The boy is obsessed with flight and has an imagination to match. This hero character provides a narrative thread through which the audience can tour the flavours and sites of Blackpool. The imaginative references to flight are a reflection of the experience visitors enjoy at the tower-top, which now contains a “Sky-Walk”; a wide area of glass floor and an adjoining glass wall. Key 3D moments were scripted into the story from the outset, in order to create an exciting 4D experience.
Michael Hall, Co-founder of Sharp Cookies and Director of the 4D film, discussed some key challenges that faced the production team: “Being second only to Disney world-wide, Merlin's expectation for quality is beyond negotiation. Apart from the underlying challenge of creating a piece of world-class entertainment, the refurbishment works being carried out in Blackpool meant that we could not film the tower, the building it rises from, the promenade or the trams as they were all covered in scaffolding or being re-modelled. Needless to say though, these locations should be the centre-piece of any film about Blackpool and the Tower.”
On winning the contract in January 2011, Sharp Cookies put a team together to rise to the challenge and realise the script. It was decided to break the production into four key areas, being a green screen shoot in London, internal location shoot in Blackpool, an aerial filming session and finally a substantial CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) contribution to create the tower and promenade assets that could not be filmed due to on-going refurbishment. All of this was to be done in stereo 3D.
The chosen shooting format was a pair of RED MX cameras, mounted on an Element Technica Quasar rig. David Cox, Co-founder of Sharp Cookies and the Stereographer and Post Production Supervisor for the project explained: “We chose to shoot on zoom lenses rather than primes, as this would speed up the shooting process by avoiding unnecessary lens changes. However, we could only do this because we were post producing on Mistika which would rapidly correct any framing issues that could arise from slightly different zoom amounts on the left and right cameras.” The camera shooting package was supplied by Onsight and production logistic services by Anglo Filming.
The production commenced with a 7-day green screen shoot in West London where a full scale section of the Blackpool Tower was created along with a full-sized antique shop that was later set against the Blackpool sea-front in post production. The tower section was used to shoot a historical part of the film which depicts the construction of the tower. Actors dressed as 1880's construction workers were filmed on the set against green screen. Sky, clouds, fog, smoke and flying hot-rivets were later added in post production.
The next phase of production was to re-locate the unit to Blackpool to film in the world-famous Tower Ball Room and Tower Circus over two days. A seamless dance sequence was created in the ball room which took the audience back to the present day from the historical section, by merging dance routines and costumes from the 1920's, through the war years and beyond. The circus provided an exciting section featuring jugglers, clowns, acrobats and trapeze artists.
Since no external shots of the tower or promenade could be filmed due to refurbishment, Sharp Cookies contracted Splitt of London to construct a number of key scenes using CGI. This includes the dramatic opening sequence that has the camera falling from the sky straight down onto the tower top, which juts straight out into the audience. A seagull is then followed that flies straight down the face of the tower, swooping past a tram, across the promenade and out to sea. All parts of this scene, even down to the people on the promenade and the water in the sea, were created by CGI under the direction of Sharp Cookies' Michael Hall.
The film was edited by Matthew Hall in Final Cut Pro, before moving onto the visual effects and grading stages that were carried out by David Cox in Mistika. Post production processes included green screen compositing, ageing of material, tracking, additional 3D effects and colour enhancement.
The film was then delivered to the purpose-built cinema which is housed under one of the arches of the Tower itself. Austrian based Kraftwerk were contracted to build the theatre and install and programme the 4D effects.
The “Blackpool Tower 4D Experience” opened this month, firstly to around 100 members of the national press. The end of the film was met with spontaneous applause and it is now open to the public, who have also given it widespread praise.
Merlin's Creative Director Craig Sciba concluded: “I think the film has its own original personality that brings it to life. This is something we wanted from the early brief and I think it was executed superbly.”
(BMcN)