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BroadcastNO ORDINARY JOB All componentswere precisely measured.Phil Billmore (centre) measures,Aaron watches (left). Thesketches were the skeleton ofthe finished on-air graphics.“Will the Bluebird ever be allowed to flyagain?” asked a British newspaper as anunderwater team lifted the wreckage of SirDonald Campbell’s legendary jet-poweredspeedboat from the bottom of ConistonWater in England some ten years ago.The moment of Sir Donald’s death backin 1967 is considered some of Britain’s mostprecious television history, still etched inthe memory of everyone who witnessedtheir national hero roaring across the water– in blurry black and white – at more than320mph. Tragically, Campbell died that day– failing to set a world record. In a matterof seconds, the front end lifted clear of thewater and the speedboat did a spectacularback flip, crashing into the water in a hugecloud of spray.Much has happened since, both on televisionand in the world of speed boats. Some45 years down the road, the public didn’thave to wait for the restorers to put all thepieces back together in order to once againadmire the iconic craft in action. Thanks to ateam from Sky News’s creative department,the hydroplane has already been broughtback to life, speeding across millions ofTV-screens last December.The remarkable story of the Bluebird’sphoenix-like rebirth was chronicled in atelevision documentary called ‘Bluebird:The Spirit Reborn’ broadcasted on Sky Newsand Sky News HD on Christmas Eve lastyear. The team used hi-tech 3D computergraphics, including Viz Artist, to recreateexactly what went wrong. The end-result isnothing short of amazing.The brief – To create the world’s mostaccurate high-end 3D reconstruction of thetragedy and to treat it with the respect andsensitivity it deserved.Sky were given exclusive access to theBluebird’s undergoing restoration, andbrought together the two most knowledgableexperts on the subject (Bill Smith andNeil Sheppard). Based on their new findingsand calculations, they visualized second bysecond what they believed to be the tragiclast moments of both Bluebird K7 and SirDonald Campbell’s life.Aaron Smillie and Phil Billmore (VFXArtists at Sky News) worked together onthe project from research, modelling andanimation through to final compositing. Theproject quickly became “a labour of love”for the entire team and they quickly realizedhow they needed to work in order to solvetheir own piece of the puzzle.the Sky News creative team Aaron and Phil are both Visual Effects Artists in the 3D VFX Teammanaged by Brent Jones. Aaron started his career as a Graphic Designer at ITV. Phil studied ComputerAided Product Design.Sky News A 24-hour based domestic and international satellite television news broadcaster withan emphasis on UK and international news stories. Its relations with Vizrt stretches way back. Today,Sky News it is one of Vizrt’s biggest and most important customers.The graphic got an amazingreception from inside Sky andthe audience watching at homeAaron Smillie / VFX Artist / Sky News“real-time felt like the right technology for this typeof project. The obvious benefit being that the expertsinvolved in the crash could not only see in real-time thesequence from all camera angles but could also suggestchanges as it evolved. Time withthe experts was limited so usingViz Artist made for an extremelyefficient workflow as their suggestionscould be immediatelyimplemented. Once they and thedocumentary producers werefinally happy with the sequence,they could leave knowing, prettymuch, what the final resultwas going to be”, Aaron Smillieexplains.“We had very little referencematerial to start with becausethe original plans were not made available to us so wesourced scale replica model plans from the 60’s. Thisenabled us to at least get started and it wasn’t too longbefore we were given access to the workshop wherethe restoration is being carried out. It was amazing toactually see Bluebird for real and it gave us a fantasticopportunity to photograph and measure every piece toensure that our computer model is the most accuratecomputer model of Bluebird K7 in the world.”Vizrt software was used in the animation and creationof the graphic and we also played it out live to theproducers and experts to scrutinize. This was then renderedoff as separate passes; reflections, water, boat andland and composited in After Effects, with Aaron goingto great lengths adding the finishing touches, such asglows, more water and even droplets on the lens.According to Aaron, the response was overwhelming.“The graphic got an amazing reception from insideSky and the audience watching at home. It will also begoing out on the History Channel in a few months”.See the end-result, plus the old TV-footage from 1967,by visiting vizrt.com/casestudies. To see more on theactual Bluebird K7 restoration go to bluebirdproject.comThe Vizrt Catalogue 2011 49