Spirits of America
Inspired by the Grand Finale of the American Adventure, the Spirits of America incorporates the statues that line the walls of the Liberty Theater into the dramatic sunrise as depicted in the show’s climatic Statue of Liberty sequence.
Isolating a Spirit — Process & Methodology
The creation of this image required an intense amount of rotoscoping, including eight individual steps to effectively and realistically combine the statues into the cloudscape.
Step 1 — Original Photography
Step 2 — Pen Rotoscoping
Step 3 — Finished Path
Step 4 — Black Matte
Step 5 — Negative of the figure (to match lighting)
Step 6 — Masking the Image
Step 7 — Composting
Step 8 — Final Image Blending (Overlay set at 45%)
For those of you following along at home, repeat this process 11 More Times! :)
The Statue of Layers
The iconic Statue of Liberty scene is actually of 3 separate elements including the torch and characters, glass flame, and fire effects. No fewer than 9 layers were composited to produce the final image.
To the left is an over-simplified demonstration of where the photos and effects separate.