Exploring Concepts of Compositing and Digital Visual Effects
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1 Invisibilising the Corporeal – exploring concepts of compositing and digital visual effects Submitted by Paul Johnson to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Research in English In October 2011 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: ………………………………………………………….. 2 Abstract. This thesis seeks to explore the way in which invisibility as a concept becomes explicitly housed within digital compositing, visual effects (VFX) and certain attendant techniques. The chapters will establish how compositing and effects techniques can be seen as pushing modern filmmaking into concealing, and therefore visually releasing, certain physical structures within films’ images and their production. This shall be achieved by drawing upon a combination of texts that disseminate the technical nature and make-up of VFX, alongside discussion and theorisation of their use within cinema, together with other established film theory. I will examine cases of VFX techniques within cinema that can be used to investigate how their construction and utilisation create invisibility to accommodate and nullify the profilmic elements captured through the camera and aspects of technology. The chapters begin by examining how the work of Georges Méliès, whose films use the concept of invisibility to promote a breakdown of temporal and spatial qualities, become redeployed in certain modern digital effects-based films. Expanding on this, the second chapter explores how theories surrounding realism as espoused through mise-en-scène and the so-called physical “truth” of the captured world can be rearticulated through VFX both optical and digital. Chapter three looks at how breaking down the physical structure of a performer through VFX and motion-capture result in characterisations that produce a sense of ghostliness, where the Bazinian mummification of photographic capture has new existence breathed into it. Finally, chapter four explores how recent developments in effects techniques in creating the Invisible Man act as a reflection of the physical body unbound in a digital world. Here, the digital infrastructure of modern culture, such as the Internet, is used to highlight how a more free-flowing and vivacious body can exist and make use of unseen and non-physical practices to commit nefarious acts, such as hacking. It is these aspects that become reflected in the most recent film iteration of the Invisible Man, Hollow Man (2000). 3 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my partner Helen for being my inspiration and rock over the past few years during this adventure/journey. Without her I would not have succeeded in completing the following work. A shout must go out to Prince, the Kings of Leon, Fatboy Slim, The Killers, James Brown, Maxwell, D’Angelo, Erika Badhu, Otis Redding, Miles Davis, Satan Getz, The Beatles, MAW and the countless other musical artists whose music has made writing more pleasurable when it was hard. Mondo thanks to my supervisor Dan North, for his constructive criticism, help and patience, not to mention the book loans. Hello especially to Morwenna Hussey, and the entire post-grad administration department for their help in obtaining “stuff”. I’d very much like to thank the kindness of the archivists and staff at the University of London’s Harry Price Library of Magical Literature. Last but not least praise and thanks to Auguste and Louis Lumiére, Georges Méliès, and the countless pioneers of cinema, special and visual effects: Ray Harryhausen, Willis O’Brien, John Dykstra, Denis Muren, Phil Tippett, Joe Johnston, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Sam Raimi, Robert Zemeckis, Cooper and Schoedsack, Pixar, Walt Disney and the (often) unsung animators at his company, and of course, H G Wells and the Invisible Man. Without you, your work and your escapades, none of this would have been possible. 4 Contents List of Illustrations………………………………………………………………………. 5 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………… 9 Chapter One: Méliès, Black Art, Time and Space …………………………………….. 38 Chapter Two: Reviewing Realism - the creation of mise-en-scène in the digital age….. 91 Chapter Three: (Performance) Capturing Ghosts – the Ironic In/tangibility of Invisibility……………………………………………………………………………... 154 Chapter Four: The Arrival of The (Digital) Invisible Man……………………………. 209 Conclusion: “I See You”………………………………………………………………. 274 Filmography…………………………………………………………………………… 285 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………… 291 5 List of Illustrations and Images Figure 1.1: Invisibilisation via the Williams Process in Whale’s The Invisible Man – 10. Figure 1.2: original shot from Deadwood (2004 – 2006), showing modern traffic lighting – 14. Figure 1.3: the completed shot, with the lights removed and a new patch of building, trees and other atmospheric debris inserted – 14. Figure 2.1: Thayer’s “The Black Art Act”: showing the stage mechanics and layout of the process (from the Harry Price Collection) – 42. Figure 2.2: Méliès and the four troublesome heads – 54. Fig. 2.3: The Most Dangerous Game’s use of optical compositing, where live action film of the actors is combined with previously photographed footage of a waterfall – 63. Figure 2.4: Ghostbusters’ Gozer temple matte shot, which incorporated separately photographed live action shots to create the final image. Note the blank space at the building’s corner for the live action Ghostbuster characters – 65. Figure 2.5: Speeder Bike Chase from Jedi, combining individual elements from different temporal and spatial locations into a new area – 65. Figure 2.6: Illustration of VistaVision format (by Max Smith), using 35mm film turned on its side, increasing the available frame space, and therefore grain – 67. Figure 2.7: Note the transparency of Méliès’s detached heads (especially on the right side of the frame) in Le Mélomane – 68. Figure 2.8: the soft focus style of Sky Captain reflects the cinematography of certain films made during the 1930s – 70. Figure 2.9: The similar style seen in Shanghai Express (1932) – 71. Figure 2.10: Polly “enters” Radio City Music Hall; created from a series of stitched together photos and composited into a blue screen shot – 72. Figure 2.11: use of texture and lighting programs gives more believability to the alien Na’vi from Cameron’s Avatar (2009) – 74. Figure 2.12: Sky Captain confronts the visage of Laurence Olivier’s Totenkopf, yet another distanced temporal element layered into the film’s final composition – 77. 6 Figure 2.13: Expanding the frame’s scope, and the original stage space in Snyder’s 300 (2006) - 88. Figure 2.14: evocation of space through two-dimensional stage flats in Le voyage dans la Lune (1902) - 89. Figure 3.1: CGI Gollum composited into live-action footage in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) – 93. Figure 3.2: From: Citizen Kane (1941) – 98. Figure 3.3: From Citizen Kane (1941), showing the beginning of the apparently unbroken rise up through the theatre – 99. Figure 3.4: From Citizen Kane (1941), the optical wipe’s join is hidden by the edge of the curtain -101. Figure 3.5: From: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), illustrating the masses of separate elements in the mise-en-scène that contend for attention - 104. Figure 3.6: Final completed shot from Spider-Man 3 (2007) – 113. Figure 3.7: Studio set photography from Spider-Man 3 (2007) – 113. Figure 3.8: From Black Narcissus (1947), with the studio based live-action photography on the left and matte painting on the right - 115. Figure 3.9: From Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), featuring the original Thailand plate, subsequent live-action elements from China, model trees, practical mist element, digital matte painting of the beach, and digital vehicles and structures - 116 Figure 3.10: The CGI version of the T-1000, from Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), exits a fire replete with its reflective elements and composited atmospheric details – 117. Figure 3.11: the ice palace from Dr. Zhivago (1965), showing the physical dressing of the set in order to fabricate ice - 120. Figure 3.12: Jango Fett and Obi-Wan, or their digital doubles, brawl in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) - 133. Figure 3.13: the CGI Sandman (and surrounding CGI setting) from Spider-Man 3 (2007) - 140. Figure 3.14: live-action reference for the Princess in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) - 144. Figure 3.15: final animated frame from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) - 144. 7 Figure 3.16: Thomas Haden Church and his digital addition - blending the indexically captured and artificially transfigured - 152. Figure 4.1: the Slimer puppet and its operators from Ghostbusters (1984) - 155. Figure 4.2: another rubberised “puppet” ghost from Poltergeist (1982) – 163. Fig 4.3: a shot from Ghostbusters, showing the overlaid virtually immaterial animation of the ghosts entering New York City – 164. Figure 4.4: the basic principle of matte shots (“Traveling matte shot” from intralinea.it) – 165. Figure 4.5: An example of spirit photography (Frederick A. Hudson (England) – 169. (Mr. Raby with the Spirits "Countess," "James Lombard," "Tommy," and the Spirit of Mr. Wootton's Mother). Figure 4.6: Final composited shot of the Seplavite attack from Constantine – 180. Figure 4.7: the “traditional” or generic spectre; the translucent librarian ghost from Ghostbusters – 181. Figure 4.8: A demon witnessed by the young Constantine, created by the imposition of digital layers onto a live actor – 182. Figure 4.9: John Kricfalusi’s animation studies for creating squash n’ stretch heads – 189. Figure 4.10: Animator Matthew Hackett poses in demonstration of how he characterised General Hein – 195.