The Mill - The Great Arch VFX Breakdown

The Great Arch [L'Inconnu de la Grande Arche] directed by Stéphane Demoustier | France, 2025

The Film & Series teams at The Mill (formerly MPC Paris) handled the supervision, digital visual effects production, and picture post-production for Stéphane Demoustier’s new film, L’Inconnu de la Grande Arche.

Under the supervision of VFX Supervisor Lise Fischer, working alongside VFX Producer Loriane Lucas, we assembled a team of 30 artists over four months to create and integrate more than 100 visual effects shots. One of the major challenges was precisely recreating the construction site at different stages of its development.

To remain faithful to historical reality while respecting the filmmaker’s vision and production constraints, the decision was made to use archival footage as the primary material for all wide shots establishing key sequences. The team combined advanced digital techniques — CGI environments, matte painting and compositing — with meticulous documentary research based on historical archives.

SYNOPSIS
1983. French President François Mitterrand decides to launch an international architectural competition for the flagship project of his mandate: the Great Arch of La Défense, aligned with the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe. Against all odds, Otto von Spreckelsen, a Danish architect, wins the competition.

Overnight, this 53-year-old man, unknown in France, arrives in Paris where he is propelled at the helm of this pharaonic project. While the architect intends to build the Great Arch exactly as he envisioned, his ideas quickly clash with realistic constraints and the vicissitudes of politics.

MORE INFO
https://themill.com/work/linconnu-de-la-grande-arche

CREDITS
VFX supervisor : Lise Fischer
VFX producer : Loriane Lucas
Coordinateur de Production : Quentin de Breuvery
IO VFX : Kevin Fillinger

Superviseur Compositing : Philippe Desfretier
Artistes Compositing : Hugo Baptista, Rémi Doucet, Alexandre Lavaud, Sébastien Podsiadlo
Superviseurs 3D : Landry De Oliveira, Florian Wolff, Matte Painting
Superviseur Matte Painting : Christophe "Tchook" Courgeau

Superviseur Assets : Nabeel Karimpanchola
Artistes Assets : Thibault Voukourakos, Hugo Courtel
Artistes Lighting : Badre Bouziar, Antoine Motala, Christophe Plouvier

Lead Crowd : Louis Maero
Artistes Crowd : Taye Cimon, Paul Rouvin
Artiste Rig : Claire Auvin
Artistes Environnement : Jessica Ferry, Céline Bailleul, Alexia Ferry
Artistes Track & Layout : Thomas Grabot, Lothaire Rialhe, Stéphane Richez
Roto/Prep Department : Maxime Delvas, Corentin Male
Photogrammétrie : Jonathan Carrier

ABOUT US
The Mill is a world-leading creative studio built on nearly four decades of award-winning craft. Spanning Brand & Content and Film & Series, we create visually ambitious work for the world's most discerning brands, studios and storytellers — conceived from the outset to move across platforms, markets and audiences without compromise.

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