Another plate shot at Universal Studios and a typical green screen setup.

Still in search of a taxi, Barbara crosses the street to a conveniently placed United Nations building. Director Peyton Reed wanted to take a whimsical approach to establishing the city. Therefore, we were instructed to place New York city landmarks in several of the shots, even if it meant moving them many blocks away from their proper New York locations.

This shot was planned so that the taxi's right door was just off-frame allowing many extra's to keep pouring out of the cab.

Here we created a matte painting and CG cars for the background environment. As we wait for the cab to unload, now even the Empire State building is visible just down this same street, another humorous homage to Hollywood's 1960's backlot period.

Period cars and extras dressed in 60's clothing line the streets of what will become New York here on the Universal Studios lot.

As Barbara's cab drives away, we tilt up to reveal the street now resembling Madison avenue. MWD created the matte painting and added billowing CG flags to the "canyon" walls, then added a few more cars to maintain that bustling look.

Catcher Block (Played by Ewan McGregor) and Barbara Novak (Rene Zellweger) on a helicopter rope ladder in front of a green-screen and tracking targets.

The CG model is used in conjuction with a 3D matte painting, complete with animated CG cars.

The final composite of our main characters being swept away, high above New York City.

MWD created a moonlit cityscape for the vista just outside of Barbara's New York City apartment.