Adobe Behind the Scenes look at Terminator Dark Fate

In the world of movie franchises, Terminator is at the top of the list. For viewers that have been following the franchise, whether it was for one movie or all of them, just seeing the previews for Terminator: Dark Fate got them reminiscing and excited about seeing it in theatres. With big shoes to fill, this movie had to be unique, and boy was it. It was a tremendous collaborative effort among Adobe Max, director Tim Miller, editor Julian Clarke, ACE, associate editor Matt Carson, and visual effects editor Jon Carr. Despite all of the talented minds in the room, the most prominent team players were Adobe’s Creative Cloud tools.

The director, editors, and Adobe Creative Cloud brought out the visual magic in this hot action box office hit. Director Tim Miller was a strategic choice considering his recent success with Deadpool and his highly respected experience. Another obvious choice was editor, Julian Clarke, who worked with Miller on Deadpool. He was an advocate for Adobe from the beginning noting its functional and collaborative capabilities. Premier and After Effects were especially coveted with this team due to the great need for effective data management. To give a better picture of the massive amount of data needed to be appropriately organized for this production to be successful, consider Jon Carr’s following statement,

“There were 1,900 VFX shots in the finished film. Total, there were probably 2,500 to 2,600 shots. The vast majority of the shots were visual effects shots . . . And so, it’s essential to me to have an integration with After Effects and Premiere so I can dynamically link into After Effects from Premiere and then start working immediately.”

It was necessary to have an enormous amount of shots to capture the complex visuals played before our eyes successfully. Dark Fate was set to follow a sequence stemming from The Terminator and Terminator 2, Judgement Day. The team was tasked with a big job this time around. In making a worthy attempt to follow Sara through those earlier films to the present day, it was essential to incorporate the Adobe tools over others. At the same time, indeed created a proactive, creative film/graphic environment for all involved in producing Terminator: Dark Fate.