Recreating A 43-Year-Old Metropolis

An older New York is re-built in computers.



Last week I had occasion to listen to old-school set builders and property masters talk about their crafts. A lot of their work still exists, because the traditional sets are still being built.

But we'll never see huge sets go up again, because all anybody needs these days is fifteen or twenty feet of a steel and plaster set, and plenty of green screen. After that, it's digital wizards building new realities with software and hardware and a director who knows what he wants.

And up above, visual effects supervisor Kevin Baillie talks to reporter David Cohen about how and his crew turned Joseph Gordon­-Levitt into a wirewalker moving between two skyscrapers that no longer exist.