San Francisco, we have a problem -- liftoff

IT took four years to construct the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. And it took a year to create the spectacular sequence in “X-Men: The Last Stand” in which the rebellious mutant Magneto and his band uproot the 69-year-old suspension bridge and send it sailing through the air.

“It was the end of April 2005 when I started designing shots for that sequence,” says visual effects supervisor John Bruno, “and that was the last sequence that we finished at the end of this April.”

The effects feat was accomplished through miniatures, replicas, green screen, photographic plates and computer-generated imagery.

After designing shots for the sequence, Bruno and his staff did a previsualization -- a computer-generated storyboard. “We sort of picked our angles and from there broke it down on how to achieve each shot.”

The miniatures supervisor was sent to San Francisco to shoot photographic plates of the City by the Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge and the area around the bridge, among other shots.

Miniature sections of the bridge were built for close-up shots. “If people were walking on the bridge, it was a full-sized section,” says Bruno. “We basically built the roadway and the raised section of the walkway. The railing, the lamppost, the cables and tower were all composited CGI. The bridge was extended in CGI and the wide shots of the bridge flying were also CGI.”

The 20th Century Fox comic-based adventure grossed more than $120 million in its first four days in the U.S. and Canada, a record for Memorial Day weekend openings.

-- Susan King