The Convert

The Maidenhead is the central ship in the story — and for our work on The Convert, that meant building a complete CG version from the ground up. Production flew a drone 360 degrees around the physical Maidenhead at multiple elevations, capturing reference footage that became our foundation. We used those passes to build geometry, match proportions, and understand the rigging and construction details that would matter for animation.

The ship's mast sustains critical damage during the film's climax, so we created two distinct asset versions: the undamaged hero ship for the early sequences, and the broken-mast version for the catastrophic final act. This approach let us reuse the core geometry and rigging while maintaining complete story fidelity — the ship's state always matched what the audience had witnessed.

We positioned the Maidenhead across dozens of bay shots, rotating and angling it to match wind conditions, water movement and scene geography. Digital flags were added to sell scale and movement. Lighting was carefully coordinated with each location to ensure the ship felt grounded in the actual environment rather than floating above it.

The film opens with the Maidenhead crashing through a massive wave — a signature moment that sets the tone for everything that follows. Rather than building an entire CG ocean from scratch, we took a different approach: we sourced a high-quality stock plate that captured a real ship moving through heavy seas and breaking through a large wave. Once editorial locked this in, our team tracked the original vessel, painted it out, and prepared the plate for our integration.

We ran the HD source material through an AI upscaler to maximize detail and fidelity, then composited our CG Maidenhead into the correct position and orientation. The environment was complete with additional FX rain, mist layers and lightning that built atmosphere and drama. The result is a seamless blend of practical reference photography and digital enhancement — the best of both approaches in a single moment.

Late in the film, there is a sequence of profound meaning to the story and to the late director Lee Tamahori. A falcon hunts and snatches a huia — a native New Zealand bird — mid-flight. The interaction plays out over 30 seconds of screen time and demanded feathered creature animation at a level of detail and realism that would hold for such an extended moment.

We created both the falcon and the huia as fully CG assets, researching native New Zealand bird anatomy, flight characteristics and behavior to inform our builds and animation. The most rewarding part of this work was having Lee come into our studio and direct this sequence directly with our team. His passion for the moment, his understanding of what it meant thematically, and his specific direction elevated the work beyond technical execution into something genuinely moving. His passing was a significant loss to all of us.

The climactic attack sequence required significant crowd augmentation to enhance the sense of scale and chaos. We pulled three separate takes from production and used rotoscope work to manually rebuild the crowd, stitching the best moments from each take together to create a larger, more threatening attacking force.

Beyond the crowd work, we added layers of environmental detail: smoke and fire elements to enhance the chaos, destruction FX to sell the impact of the violence, and environment extensions to expand the geography of the conflict. The goal was to amplify what production had captured without abandoning the reality of what actually happened on set — careful enhancement rather than wholesale replacement.

The final act includes shots that show the colonial settlement growing and expanding over time — a visual representation of the passing years. Rather than building everything from scratch, we worked from photography of actual set pieces that had been constructed during the shoot. We modified these structures, replicated them at different scales and positions, and built them out as digital matte paintings to show the expanding settlement.

We also constructed a full British ship that appears in the final sequence, completing the image of colonial infrastructure and expansion. Additional flags — shot against blue screen during production — were composited in to add period detail and movement. The combined effect shows growth, establishment, and the permanence of settlement — a visual bookend to the chaos and conflict that preceded it.