MASTERS OFFX MASTERS OFFX Behind the Scenes with Geniuses of Visual and Special Effects Ian Failes Forewords by James Cameron Director of Avatar, Titanic, Aliens, and The Terminator and Lorenzo di Bonaventura Producer of Constantine, Red, and Transformers First published in the USA 2016 by Focal Press 70 Blanchard Road, Suite 402, Burlington, MA 01803 Focal Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Contents > Copyright © Octopus Publishing Group Ltd 2016 All images © their respective copyright holders Forewords 6 Introduction 10 This book was conceived, designed, and produced by Ilex Press Limited 1 2 3 Publisher: Roly Allen Senior Project Editor: Natalia Price-Cabrera Senior Specialist Editor: Frank Gallaugher Assistant Editor: Rachel Silverlight Commissioning Editor: Zara Larcombe Art Director: Julie Weir Designer: Grade Design John Bruno 12 Chris Corbould 22 Richard Edlund 34 Senior Production Manager: Marina Maher Strong background in Special effects and Known for ingenious The right of Ian Failes to be identified as author of this work has effects animation and miniature effects combinations of miniature been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the VFX problem-solving. supervisor. Goldeneye, Die and optical effects, and Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Ghostbusters, The Abyss, Another Day, Christopher later digital. Star Wars: True Lies, X-Men: Nolan’s The Dark Knight Episodes IV–VI, Raiders of All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or Last Stand. trilogy, Inception. the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, Multiplicity. or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notices: Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly 9 10 11 changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary. Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including Robert Legato 98 Joe Letteri 108 Dennis Muren 120 parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. Practical effects, virtual Performance capture and Pioneer from optical Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered cinematography, and real-world replication days to digital. Star Wars: trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. stereo pioneer. Apollo 13, expert. The Lord of the Episodes IV–VI, Terminator 2: Titanic, The Aviator, Hugo. Rings trilogy, King Kong, Judgment Day, Jurassic Park, A catalog record for this book is available from the Avatar, Planet of the Apes AI: Artificial Intelligence, Library of Congress reboots, The Hobbit trilogy. War of the Worlds. ISBN: 978-1-138-84596-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-72777-6 (ebk) Typeset in DIN 4 5 6 7 8 Scott Farrar 44 Paul Franklin 56 Karen Goulekas 66 Ian Hunter 76 John Knoll 86 Incredible on-set Part of the “new wave” of An innovator in digital Models, miniature effects, Co-creator of Adobe experience with practical visual effects supervisors. compositing and disaster and all-out destruction. Photoshop and digital and digital expertise. Pitch Black. Christopher films.Godzilla , The Day The X-Files, The Dark pioneer. Mission: Impossible, Back to the Future trilogy, Nolan’s The Dark Knight After Tomorrow, 10,000 BC, Knight, The Dark Knight Star Wars: Episode I—The Minority Report, trilogy, Inception. Green Lantern. Rises, Inception. Phantom Menace, Pirates Transformers films, of the Caribbean films, World War Z. Pacific Rim. 12 13 14 15 16 John Rosengrant 132 Phil Tippett 142 Douglas Trumbull 154 Bill Westenhofer 164 Edson Williams 174 Physical effects, special Leader in stop-motion VFX legend, immersive Advancing the art in Beauty work, aging, effects makeup, and animation and creature filmmaker, and high talking animals and de-aging, and digital animatronic effects. animation techniques. frame rate advocate. believable creatures. Babe: makeup effects. X-Men: Terminator films, Jurassic Star Wars: Episodes IV–VI, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Pig in the City, Cats & Dogs, The Last Stand, The Curious Park, Iron Man films, Robocop, Starship Troopers, Close Encounters of the The Chronicles of Narnia: Case of Benjamin Button, Real Steel. The Twilight Saga. Third Kind, Star Trek: The Lion, the Witch and The Social Network, The Motion Picture, the Wardrobe, The Golden Captain America films. Blade Runner. Compass, Life of Pi. Glossary 184 Picture Credits 190 Index 186 Acknowledgments 192 Foreword > by James Cameron [1] Leading Hollywood director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, and inventor This book celebrates 16 masters of visual effects. I know We used to paint matte paintings on glass, most of them personally, and seven of them I’ve worked and combine them in the camera with live action with over the years. A few I consider close friends. Though or they would be combined later in the optical printer. they know me as a director, I actually started out in their Sometimes we would use forced-perspective techniques game, doing visual effects on low-budget movies, so they like foreground miniatures to extend sets. High-speed also know me as someone who talks their language. This photography gave the models their correct movement so makes me both sympathetic and responsive to their needs they would “scale.” Blowing up models was my favorite but also demanding, because I know what’s possible. part of the whole process, which is a measure of how [1] James Cameron Often the job requires knowing not just what’s possible, much we were all really just kids in grown-up bodies on the set of Avatar. but what CAN be possible, because we are constantly getting paid to stay kids. Since wire removal—and all inventing to bring the impossible to life on the screen. the other myriad of paint-out techniques—was still over The masters in this book are collectively responsible the horizon, we had to keep the wires hidden, using the for some of the most stunning images ever projected on thinnest gauges of piano wire or monofilament possible the world’s screens. They have transported audiences to to fly a spaceship or to lash an alien Queen’s tail. There realms of fantasy and brought fantastic creatures and was front-screen and rear-screen “process” projection, characters to life that are so iconic they are indelible parts both now obsolete, replaced by digital greenscreen of our shared global cultural dreamscape. And yet, though compositing. Those massive projectors are now most of them are still actively producing astounding museum pieces, or for all I know being used to imagery, the tools and techniques they use now are not create artificial reefs. Not one of these techniques at all the ones they started out with. These masters have is still widely practiced. Cameras are digital now, with also pioneered the very techniques that make movies the no moving parts except the lens elements and the fans dazzling experience they are today. that keep them cool. Film is arguably gone except for Just as the age of sail gave way to steamships, and its use by a handful of filmmakers, none of them among the horse-drawn carriage to the automobile, technology the new generation. And certainly film is 100 percent advances relentlessly. In our world what was once novel gone for compositing. The optical printer itself has and bleeding-edge becomes the norm within a few gone the way of the steam engine. years. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the Though a small minority still clings to physical visual-effects world. miniatures, the tide has overwhelmingly swept away the I think back to when I was a young VFX practitioner model shops with their buzzing Dremel-tools and the in the early 1980s and compare it to where we are smell of resins, in favor of photo-realistic digital models. today. At that time we built physical miniatures and Physical miniatures have become a quaint artisanal photographed them with cameras, which drove strips niche, though still fondly remembered by those of us of light-sensitive film through mechanical movements who started in that era, but nevertheless resoundingly as precisely machined as Swiss watches. Often we obsolete. To bring a creature to life back then you had would take those images and combine them together three choices: prosthetic makeup (or a rubber suit) on using arcane optical printers that nevertheless often an actor, stop-motion animation, or an animatronic yielded jaw-dropping results. Think Douglas Trumbull’s puppet moved by hydraulics or puppeteers. Stop motion images for Bladerunner and Close Encounters of the Third is now gone, except for the occasional film that makes a Kind, or Richard Edlund’s work on Star Wars, if you want virtue of the stylized look, and animatronics are in a slow to visualize that technique’s golden age. sunset, now mostly phased out by computer animation. 6> FOREWORD Makeup is still very much with us, but its domain has to digital. I consider them my contemporaries, since we been deeply eroded by the creation of photo-realistic, are all about the same age, give or take 15 years. And fully-expressive characters, such as Gollum, in The we all, earlier or later in our careers, spanned the two Lord of the Rings films, or the simians in the new Planet sides of the uncanny valley. We started in a world of of the Apes movies, and the Na’vi characters done for models, film cameras, and optical printers, and are now my own Avatar—all three examples done by Joe Letteri’s working away in the digital world happy as hogs in a amazing team at Weta Digital in New Zealand.