David Kuklish - Visual Effects Supervisor

Featured Projects:

--NEW-- Ironclad

Outlander

Minotaur

National Geographic

david@airshippictures.com

BATTLEGROUND: THE ART OF WAR is a series produced by Morningstar Entertainment in association with Discovery Channel.

The program dramatically reveals the behind the scenes of some of the most important battles in history.

Animation World Magazine Article

"ALEXANDER THE GREAT"

God’s-eye view of the battlefield in Alexander the Great and the Battle at Gaugamela 331 B.C.

"ALEXADER THE GREAT" was outnumbered 10 to 1 in an epic battle at Gaugamela in preseent day Iraq. How is it possible he defeated this massive Persian army led by King Darius? Working with reknown military expert Dale Dye, we reconstructed the battlefield logistics, troop-by-troop and unit-by-unit on a computer model of the plains of Gaugamela. Then we choregraphed the battle with 3D animation to see how he did it.

By cleverly maneuvering, Alexander fooled the front line ranks of the Persian army into parting. Then his calvalry looped around quickly and drove straight for the King Darius at the center.

Many of Alexander's men were also arranged in bristling "human tanks" called Phalanxes... 256 men armed with huge spears and shields maneuvering tightly as a unit. Practically unstoppable.

There was a question of wether you could even physically fit a half million soldiers on that battlefield.... We showed that inded if was possible.

CGI Phalanx formation and main ranks with Greenscreen Sling throwers

Duplication of Live action Chariots with CG troops

"WATERLOO"

"WATERLOO" was filmed on location in Romania. The horsemanship was simply amazing.

In "Waterloo" we used matte painting to create images of Waterloo as it probably appeared at the time. Michael Aceves did some amazing work recreating the landscapes with a lot of atmosphere.
Extensive use of greenscreen.(sometimes in foggy conditions as seen here!) and cgi troops in the background.
We did a lot of duplication of real actors in costume in addition to creating large numbers of sodldiers by painting them in the deep background, or by modeling and animating them in 3D.

BATTLE OF THE BULGE was filmed entirely near Big Bear Lake near los angeles in the winter. The amount of snow was perfect to simulate that horrible winter in the Ardens Forest.