4 New York 1933: A City That No Longer Exists	KING KONG PRODUCTION NOTES Introduction Movie Profile Synopsis A Filmmaker's Dream The Story of King Kong A Young Dreamer Meets a Classic Story 4Casting Kong: Keeping Original Time Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow Jack Black as Carl Denham Adrien Brody as Jack Driscoll Captain, Assistant, Orphan Building a Shrewder Ape Andy Serkis as Kong 4Filming Kong: An Island Off the Charts Cool-Looking Dinosaurs Primitive Islanders A Fully Digitalized Kong A City That No Longer Exists Shooting in Non-Digital World 35-Year Journey Neared End 4Other Stuff: Articles & Interviews Picture Galleries King Kong Poster Store 3Website Home
	Much as in the creation of Skull Island, it would need a team of accomplished artists to produce the other major setting (and one no less legendary) of King Kong: the New York City of 1933.  Taking the advanced computer technology developed for The Lord of the Rings to the next level, digital artists were able to turn back the clock and literally rebuild a city that no longer exists. As it has changed so radically in the last 72 years, it was impossible to transform modern New York, so the entire place had to be built from the ground up. And unlike the totally invented environment of Skull Island, this city has a real-world counterpart and, therefore, had to be constructed within certain confines (What buildings still exist? What is known of the city at that time?). Existing aerial and ground-view photographs from the period provided key reference for artists. These shots were then cross-referenced with a low-resolution digital dataset of present-day New York. Any buildings constructed post 1933 were stripped out, leaving a huge amount of structures to be replaced with data correct for 1933. Since the period photos were black and white, an initial color palette had to be determined by cross-referencing the hues of buildings that still exist from the time. From this starting place, proprietary computer programs began to rebuild the city, adding intricate detail to the low-resolution dataset. These programs were governed by a strict set of guidelines (period appropriate building styles on everything from doorframes to materials and trim color). Visual effects producer Eileen Moran comments, “Watching 1930s New York being built was truly amazing.  We were able to build the entire city in 3-D. CG supervisor Chris White created what he called `CityBot,' which created whole city blocks with correct architecture for each area. We had great aerial reference photographs taken in the 1930s, and we matched our 3-D city exactly to the photographs.”