Inspired by the true events of the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, and based on Lizzie Johnson’s 2021 book Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire, The Lost Bus is a white-knuckle ride through one of America’s deadliest wildfires as a wayward school bus driver (Matthew McConaughey) and a dedicated school teacher (America Ferrera) battle to save 22 children from the terrifying inferno.
ILM’s work largely took part in the film’s second half, using what ILM visual effects supervisor David Zaretti described as an almost two-hour-long “megaclip” of reference material to bring their effects to life. From there, ILM was tasked with creating large scale assets like building out seven different types of fire assets, including small, medium, and large sizes, traveling fire, and various types of smoke depending on what (i.e. vegetation, homes, etc) was burning. The team also built out substantial environments, such as Roe Road and the Skyway, where they added digital cars to the preexisting vehicles to give the claustrophobic appearance of the cars crowding together during their attempt to escape. Their environment work earned them a VES Award nomination for Outstanding Environment in a Photoreal Feature for their work on Roe Road specifically.
Though a lot of ILM’s work was focused on the terrifying inferno and the immense environments, a lot of their work on the film also consisted of invisible effects. One sequence in particular was when McConaughey’s character exits the bus to examine their fiery surroundings, the scene needed to be windy, but there wasn’t a wind machine on set at the time of filming. ILM worked their magic and rotoscoped the curls in McConaughey’s hair and added a comp shake to suggest the wind was stronger than it was.
Led by ILM visual effects supervisor David Zaretti, visual effects executive producer Stefan Drury and visual effects producer Jordan Harding, ILM’s visual effects work was led by our London studio with additional support from the teams in Sydney. Their work received numerous VES Award nominations, a BAFTA nomination, and an Academy Award nomination.
The Lost Bus is now available to watch on Apple TV.
Read more about The Lost Bus on ILM.com:
Rendering a Rescue: ILM’s Dave Zaretti on the Visual Effects of ‘The Lost Bus’
