Top SFX shots No. 48: The Day After Tomorrow

Roland Emmerich continues to destroy the world in this ecological disaster-movie, and VFX house Digital Domain turned out some outstanding fluid simulation work in the flood sequences. For the shot in question, however, the fluid sim was provided by Tweak Films, with Christopher Horvath and Day After Tomorrow VFX supervisor Karen Goulekas overseeing the shot (one of five which Tweak contributed to the movie). Depicting water is one area of SFX where the CGI luddites tend, wisely, to shut up. SFX debacles such as those in Raise The Titanic (1980), The Dambusters (1955) and the 'Hoover Dam bust' in Superman (1978) only go to prove that water simply does not scale at anything but 1:1. Calculating (or impersonating) the confluences and counter-collisions that an incoming flood of water will make against the maze of Manhattan is a mind-bogglingly difficult task, and we can only pay this shot the compliment of saying that it 'looks right'.

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