Planet X

Walraven van Hall (1906-1945), a scion of the famous Van Hall family, was a banker in Zaandam. At the beginning of the war, he was one of the founders of a national aid organisation aimed at providing financial support to resistance activities. Together with his brother, Gijs (later Mayor of Amsterdam), he came up with a unique, worldwide plan to defraud the Bank of the Netherlands of 50 million guilders. Through this fraud, and large private loans, Van Hall was able to raise a total in excess of 106 million guilders (more than half a billion Euros today). This money was used to finance the lion’s share of the illegal activities carried out by the Dutch resistance. Walraven was betrayed to the Germans in January 1945 by a newcomer in his private circle, arrested and a month later murdered.

Planet X Belgium finished up around 150+ vfx shots for this 2 hour war film. Work ranging from removing modern elements from locations to match 1940's era, to set-extensions and large scale matte-painting work. We've spiced up a lot of action scenes with additional gun effects, made sure actors didn't have to bleed on set and blew up a matte-painted building. Also lot of effort went into creating believable 'cold-breath' shots of which you can see a making-of here.

Superb looking plate photography by Marc Van Aller and an overall solid team made this a great project for Planet X.