San Andreas VFX Breakdown
San Andreas is a 2015 American disaster film directed by Brad Peyton and written by Carlton Cuse, with Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore receiving story credit. The film stars Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Ioan Gruffudd, Archie Panjabi, and Paul Giamatti. Its plot centers on an earthquake caused by the San Andreas Fault devastating Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Principal photography of the film started on April 22, 2014 in Queensland, Australia and wrapped up on July 28 in San Francisco. The film was released worldwide in 2D and 3D on May 29, 2015, received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $473 million worldwide.
Caltech seismologist Dr. Lawrence Hayes and his colleague Dr. Kim Park are at Hoover Dam doing research for a new earthquake predicting model when a nearby and previously unknown fault ruptures. A 7.1 magnitude earthquake is triggered as a result, collapsing the dam; Park is killed during the collapse, shortly after rescuing a child. Following the disaster, Hayes discovers that the entire San Andreas Fault is shifting and will soon cause a series of major earthquakes, potentially destroying cities along the fault line.
Ray Gaines, a Los Angeles Fire Department helicopter-rescue pilot in the midst of a divorce from his wife Emma, is called into work because of the disaster and finds himself rescuing her in the midst of a massive earthquake that devastates Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the couple's daughter Blake is taken to San Francisco by Emma's boyfriend, Daniel Riddick, who agreed to bring her back to school in Seattle following a meeting.
Left by Daniel in his company's lobby, Blake meets Ben, an engineer from England seeking employment, and his younger brother, Ollie, who soon becomes trapped within the city when it is struck by earthquakes. Abandoned by Daniel, Blake works with Ben and Ollie to find a working phone and call her parents for help.
Ray and Emma attempt the journey in Ray's helicopter until it begins to fail, forcing them to make an emergency landing at a shopping mall in Bakersfield. Amid the chaos of looting, Ray steals a Ford F-150 for him and Emma to continue their journey. The pair eventually comes across a couple who broke down on the side of the road, shortly before the San Andreas Fault. Finding that it has opened up and blocks the road, Ray and Emma exchange their truck for an airplane the couple owns. After making further contact with Blake, Ben, and Ollie, who attempt to reach Nob Hill to signal the pair after their previous meeting point at Coit Tower became engulfed in flames, Ray and Emma are forced to parachute at AT&T Park just before a 9.6 magnitude quake hits, becoming the largest recorded earthquake in the planet's history.
As the quake dies down, having left much of the city in ruins, Ray and Emma find themselves forced to commandeer a boat to reach the group, only to see the water in the San Francisco Bay begin to recede, indicating that a tsunami is approaching. The pair, accompanied by dozens of other people in boats, manages to make it over the wave before it crests, barely avoiding a huge cargo ship getting caught up in the wave. The tsunami eventually hits the Golden Gate Bridge, snapping the center span cleanly in two and killing everyone on the bridge, including Daniel, while swamping cruise ships and the ruined city, killing thousands, and flooding a building that Blake, Ben, and Ollie had run into that Daniel had been overseeing the construction of. As the building begins to sink beneath the water, trapping Blake underwater, Ray dives in and brings her back to the surface, while Emma rescues everyone else who took shelter within. Upon being resuscitated, Blake happily reunites with her family.
The survivors soon regroup at a relief camp, where the reconciled Ray and Emma talk about their future. On the remains of the Golden Gate Bridge an American flag unfolds, giving hope that the city will recover and rebuild, as rescue vehicles descend on the radically altered landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area, which has now extended south from San Jose to Santa Cruz, effectively turning the San Francisco Peninsula and much of central California into an island.