Multimedia
Blogs
Forum
Affordable HD
Whitepapers
Newsletters
Events
Advertisers
Blogcast
MillimeterDr. Manhattan Project
Feb 25, 2009 12:00 PM, By Michael Goldman
Tech secrets from Watchmen.
Cinematographer Larry Fong (pictured, center, with Director Zack Snyder, right) used two Sony HDW-F900 HD cameras—one targeting body motion and one targeting facial motion—in phase sync with Fong’s 35mm Panavision cameras to capture detailed reference information for animators.
Photo by Clay Enos.
That testing took months and included several ideas that were considered and then discarded along the way. “We were putting a photoreal, 30ft., blue, naked man glowing with energy — who is, himself, a light source — on the big screen,” says Cinematographer Larry Fong.
Indeed, allowing Manhattan to be an interactive light source himself was central to the project's credibility, filmmakers insist. The nature of the original character in the graphic novel caused them to eventually decide he would have to be an all-CG creation — even though his performance largely revolves around conversation, close-ups, and interrelating with other characters, rather than action or stunts.
“Zack had ideas presented to him that involved painting an actor with a blue material and doing a 3D process afterward, but I felt that did not help with the problem of him being over 40ft. tall and then shrinking down to be a normal guy all in a conversation, or him growing giant to fight Vietnamese soldiers, or creating two or three versions of himself in his apartment,” Des Jardin says. “We would need motion control, among other premeditated and time-consuming production tricks. So, quickly, as we talked about it, Zack asked about him being an all-CG character, and I said, ‘It solves a lot of our problems with shooting him and putting those shots together.’ With a CG character, you don't have to worry about multiple [motion-control] passes in the sequence where there are four of him or all those strange techniques to make him so tall.”
Still, CG or not, Snyder insisted Manhattan be played by a real-life, A-list actor: Billy Crudup. Thus, filmmakers initially began gravitating toward a motion-capture concept similar to what Weta Digital used for the Gollum character in the Lord of the Rings films, what Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) used for Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, and what Imageworks itself used for The Polar Express and Beowulf. However, further tests soon helped them conclude that motion-capture data and high-resolution HD video of every aspect of Crudup's performance could be best used not to drive the performance, but rather to reference and inspire it — so Imageworks' animators animated the performance by hand instead. But because they also needed Dr. Manhattan to be an interactive light source, they eventually moved toward the idea of using the tools and some of the processes of the motion-capture world to build Crudup a special suit that would allow him to become a human lighting instrument, interacting with the characters and sets around him at the exact same time they were recording his performance for reference purposes on set.
Continue the discussion on Crosstalk the Millimeter Forum.