MR. X TAKES NO PRISONERS IN ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13!

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1 For Immediate Release January 18, 2005 Contact: Angela Mitchell, (PR, Mr. X) (U.S.), MR. X TAKES NO PRISONERS IN ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13! Some Complain About the Weather Mr. X Does Something About it Toronto, Ontario. January 18, 2005 Visual Effects studio Mr. X has turned Spring into Winter and provided 290 visual effects shots for the highly anticipated 2005 action film Assault on Precinct 13. In this exciting remake of John Carpenter s cult classic, Officer Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke) must cobble together a force made up of cops and criminals, trapped inside a soon-tobe-closed police station on a snowy New Year s Eve, to save themselves from a mob looking to kill gangster Marion Bishop (Laurence Fishburne). Mr. X was charged with the formidable task of helping to transform the entire setting of the film by applying brutal winter weather conditions and raging blizzards. It is always exciting to have the opportunity work with great filmmakers and have our work impact the very mood and feeling of a film, comments VFX Supervisor Dennis Berardi. Much of Mr. X s role on this picture was to provide greater scope to the fantastic job the production team, as led by Paul Austerberry and Laird McMurray, did in building and dressing the set. Our digital enhancements allowed for wider shots of the environment that would be nearly impossible to dress. Where production created the set, Mr. X helped to establish the world by providing digital trees, buildings, skyline, snowdrifts, and falling snow as the finishing touches. The challenge is always to realistically integrate our work with the practically shot elements and in the larger sense, to create effects that have great impact but at the same time don t call attention to themselves.

2 Page 2 To help establish a sense of desperation for the film s protagonists, Director Jean- François Richet wanted to convey a feeling of isolation for the precinct. In one particularly ambitious shot, a virtual camera travels from an interior, second-story office of the Precinct, and then far out the window and into the landscape of the gusting snowstorm, establishing the remoteness of the precinct s location in relation to the rest of civilization. Aside from the interior shot of the office, all other elements in the shot are wholly CG, including buildings, lampposts, terrain, roads, foliage, power lines, falling snow, the skyline, and more. To achieve the level of detail necessary for photorealism, parts of the CGI precinct, which would appear very large on screen, needed to built, quite literally, brick by brick, on computer, explains CG Supervisor Kristy Blackwell. Cracks, weather damage and other imperfections were modeled into these CG bricks, and in order for the brick s textures to hold up onscreen, the source images used were at times up to 14K in size, seven times that of normal film resolution. The sudden blizzard is a major plot point in this film and becomes a character in and of itself, explains Aaron Weintraub, Compositing Supervisor. One of the more challenging compositing effects was the creation of a veil of snow, using a combination of practically shot elements and 3D particles in an effect that is subtly and gradually intensified throughout the film until its exciting climax. 3D snow banks, debris, icicles, and (for close-up shots of the actors outside) a visible breath element were also added in order to complete the winter effect. Other visual effects included a wide variety of environment matte paintings and cityscapes, shot and explosion enhancements, laser sights, sniper scope POV s, and CG grenades, icicles, swords, and snow. The Mr. X team was led by Visual Effects Supervisor Dennis Berardi, along with CG Supervisor Kristy Blackwell and Compositing Supervisor Aaron Weintraub, and used such tools as Maya, Renderman, and MentalRay for the 3D work, as well as Shake, Flame, and Inferno for compositing. Mr. X continues to build upon its successful track record of partnering with filmmakers to create story-driven visual effects, as seen in Dawn of the Dead (2004) and Resident Evil: Apocalypse, as well as dozens more.

3 Page 3 Exciting upcoming projects for Mr. X include such anticipated titles as The Greatest Game Ever Played and Ice Princess for Disney, A History of Violence for David Cronenberg and New Line, and Where the Truth Lies for Atom Egoyan, among many others. About Assault on Precinct 13 Scheduled for U.S. release on January 19, and worldwide theatrical release on January 21, 2005, Assault on Precinct 13 is a suspense-filled remake of the 1976 John Carpenter film, produced by Jeffrey Silver. Set in a soon-to-be-demolished police station on New Year's Eve, the film tells the story of a small group of policemen and prisoners led by a jaded captain (Ethan Hawke) who must form an unlikely alliance in order to prevent the staged riot and killing of an infamous mobster (Laurence Fishburne) being held there. The cast also includes Maria Bello, Drea de Matteo, John Leguizamo, Gabriel Byrne, Brian Dennehy, Ja Rule, and Matt Craven. Who is Mr. X? Bringing together a unique mix of artists, filmmakers, VFX supervisors, and programmers, Mr. X specializes in partnering with filmmakers to provide story-driven visual enhancements. The artists and creative minds at Mr. X are known for their superb, photo-realistic achievements in CGI, their skills in digital matte painting, VFX compositing, and Post/VFX supervision, as well as for their realistic digital creations of epic-scale and otherwise impossible stunts. With a studio equipped with a rare mix of the latest imaging technologies, the team at Mr. X is committed to pushing the limits of the digital realm, and in making the impossible, possible. With credits on dozens of distinguished projects including Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Dawn of the Dead (2004), Wrong Turn, Blizzard, Ararat, The Sweet Hereafter and many more, Mr. X helps to define the very look and feel of a film. For more information on Mr. X, please visit their website at or for pictures or interviews, please contact Dennis Berardi at (416) , or via at Dennis@Mrxfx.com.

4 Page 4 For public relations materials, bios, or further backgrounders, meanwhile, please contact publicist Angela Mitchell at (904) or Paramitch@aol.com. Note: For a complete list of Mr. X titles and credits on Assault on Precinct 13, please refer to the credits list to follow. Images from Assault on Precinct 13 are also attached please do not crop, and credit 2005 Focus Features/Rogue Pictures whenever these images are used for your story. # # #

5 Page 5 Digital Visual Effects by Mr. X Assault on Precinct 13 (2005) Visual Effects Supervisor Visual Effects Coordinator CG Supervisor Compositing Supervisors Dennis Berardi Sarah McMurdo Dev Singh Kristy Blackwell Aaron Weintraub Noel Hooper Daniel Mizuguchi Hoa Tran Jeremy Dineen Karl Sisson Kyle Yoneda Matt Ralph Mike Mulock Sean Cohen Shane Glading VFX Compositors Rob Del Ciancio Barb Benoit Kris Brockman Bonnie Dickson Brian Lui Bryan Jones Jef Lonn Seth Martiniuk Vicki Silva Tamara Stone Operations Manager Tape Operators Systems Administration In-house Accountant David Singer Mike Diltz Vladimir Popovic Linda Rose 3D Animators Aaron Pozzer Brian Anderson Office Administrator Andreea Denes # # #

6 Mr. X Effects Takes No Prisoners in Assault on Precinct 13! Page 6 Images, Mr. X and Assault on Precinct 13 Please feel free to use these logos and images when discussing our project:

7 Page 7 Further Pictures and Logos (Before and After) 1. The shot before Mr. X s Visual Effects bring the blizzard to Precinct The same shot after Mr. X works its visual effects magic