Night Watch

Night Watch (Nochnoy Dozor) is a 2004 Russian urban-fantasy thriller directed by Timur Bekmambetov, adapted from Sergei Lukyanenko’s novel. It stars Konstantin Khabensky, Vladimir Menshov and Mariya Poroshina, and was the first of two Watch films, followed by Day Watch in 2006. Its premise sets the agents of the Light, who police the night, against their Dark counterparts under a centuries-old truce running beneath contemporary Moscow.

Urban fantasy of this kind lives on the collision between an ordinary city and the impossible, which puts as much pressure on FX and destruction simulation — energy, swarms, storms, matter that tears itself apart — as on the CG environments and matte painting that push a real skyline somewhere stranger. Creature and character animation has to make transformations read as physical rather than drawn, and extensive rotoscoping and layered compositing are what finally bind the two worlds into one frame. Terminal FX contributed visual effects and animation to Night Watch as part of its film, television and commercial portfolio.