Three top VFX supervisors talk about
three of the top VFX films of 2007.
CGSociety Special Feature
Barbara Robertson - 31 January 2008
Between now and February 24, 12 visual effects professionals will be anxiously awaiting the moment that someone on stage at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood (assuming the writers’ strike has ended) opens an envelope to say, “And the Oscar goes to…”. These 12 Oscar nominees practiced their art on three films - four nominees for each - that the visual effects branch singled out during a process that began last fall.
The executive branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences first picked 15 films, narrowed those to seven, and then members of the branch picked the three nominees at the annual “bake-off.” At the bake-off, the potential nominees presented a reel with 15 minutes of their work and answered questions from the audience who voted for the nominees.
The winning films - “The Golden Compass,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” and “Transformers” - now go to the entire Academy, where actors, scriptwriters, directors, producers, makeup artists, and so forth, vote for who takes home the golden statue.
It is perhaps no coincidence that the three multi-award winning visual effects supervisors for the films - Scott Farrar for “Transformers,” Mike Fink for “The Golden Compass,” and John Knoll for “Pirates” - all started their careers in the 80’s. Farrar and Knoll both work at Industrial Light & Magic; Fink is independent.
Farrar stepped into visual effects as a photographic effects cameraman on “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” released in 1979. In 1985, he won an Oscar for his supervision of the visual effects in “Cocoon.” This is his fifth Oscar nomination; he’s also received four BAFTA nominations.
Fink was VFX supervisor first for “War Games” in 1983 followed by “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension” in 1984. This is his second Oscar nomination - he received a nomination for “Batman Returns” in 1992. It’s his third BAFTA nomination.
Knoll began working at Industrial Light & Magic in 1986 as an animation camera operator on “The Golden Child” and moved onto the digital side as a computer graphics designer on “The Abyss” in 1989. This is his sixth Oscar nomination and fourth BAFTA nomination. He won an Oscar in 2007 for “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”
We asked these fx luminaries why they think these three films received Oscar nominations and to talk a little about their own films.
Do you think the three nominated films raise the bar for visual effects?
FINK: I do think the films are different from last year and all the previous years. If I were going to pick three films from the seven [at the bake-off], these are the three I’d choose.
The movies are so different that you might not see it when you look at the work, but I think there’s a similarity in the way John, Scott and I see things and approach our work. All three of us come from camera backgrounds. We understand cameras and film and light, which probably links the three films the most.
These films have the best lighting I’ve ever seen in films with CG characters and environments. We’re getting to the point where we really know how to use these wonderful lighting tools to make things look like they are part of the scenes.
KNOLL: The films aren’t revolutionary, but they’re definitely incrementally better. We’re seeing [directors and cinematographers] shooting freely in more and more films in a way that people have been reluctant to do in the past. They have confidence that we can sort it out later. That makes the visual effects fit into the rest of the movie. There’s no stylistic break. So that’s a welcome development.
Also, we’re certainly not shying away from things that are difficult to execute: water, destruction, CG objects in dense atmospherics, and CG characters with major close-up speaking roles.
FARRAR: The three films nominated represent big effects challenges: Fur in “The Golden Compass,” water simulation in “Pirates,” and hard body surfaces in “Transformers.” Some people have said to me - I’m just repeating what people have told me - that “Transformers” is the next big step since “Jurassic Park.” I didn’t think we were in that league, but I do think we hit a new high water mark in terms of making things more photoreal in the world of computer graphics.
Why do you think the effects in “The Golden Compass” received a nomination?
KNOLL: I think they had a very good-looking reel that showed a lot of good work, very ambitious. I particularly liked the environments- the big views of the city from the dirigible - and the small animals. And, everyone’s daemons were really well done. There’s a shot where you see the ferret through a magnifying glass sticking out his tongue. It has a lot of charm.
I’ve known Mike since we worked together on “Baby’s Day Out” in 1993. He’s a really smart guy. I’ve worked on some effects movies comparable in size to “Golden Compass,” but I’ve had the benefit of having it happening within one facility. I can only imagine how difficult it was to manage half a dozen or a dozen different companies. It takes a special mind to hold all that in your head and keep it under control.
FARRAR: “The Golden Compass” represents, of course, the fantasy film genre and, it certainly represents all the paths that are required in our work. It has animation with furry animals, which is difficult, speaking parts, set extensions, created environments, combinations of tricky set reconstructions with actors against greenscreen, and there are physical effects. It seems like all the images match in aesthetic style and that’s an important thing, an attraction of the movie. I really liked the aerials with the dirigible flying over the city. They were painterly and romanticized.
Also developing the characters and the relationships between the humans and CG animals was interesting and important part of the storytelling. I’m a fan of Mike’s work. He always does a nice job on the movies he works on.
“Pirates of the Caribbean” is now three for three - all three films received Oscar nominations for visual effects and last year’s “Dead’s Man Chest” won. Why do you think the branch decided to honor “At World’s End?”
FARRAR: “Pirates” has a huge variety of work in it and I think that’s what people love. That’s true of all three films, they’re not just one kind of work. John talks about the challenges of the maelstrom, of course, one of the bigger set pieces in the film. The fight between the two ships that look like they’re going down the drain is terrific; it has great scale. And the shots in the storm - I know how difficult it is when you have vapor, smoke, layers of rain and wind. It has beautiful compositing.
I also like the stones that turn to crabs and help move the ship. It’s like in “Golden Compass,” the strong points are that the effects carry the theme of the film and aid the storytelling. You’ve got to get the ship out of the sand and go from a flat sandy area, over a hill, and down into the water and you’ve got to portray that visually.
I’m a fan of John. He’s been, like all of us, a student every step of the way. He’s an innovator. He knows photography and CG. He’s quite well versed in the visual effects side of things. He understands and loves miniatures. He represents, like all of us, the kid inside of us. He looks for the best way to turn an idea into an image. I think that’s something all three of us share. We’re all dedicated to story and to servicing that.
FINK: “Pirates” was huge and I don’t mean huge like yeah, there were lots of shots. It’s that the scale of the undertaking on the shots and the level of detail that had to go into these shots was amazing. And then maintaining that kind of quality on schedules that Scott, John and I have had to put up with is astonishing to me.
The Davy Jones work is truly superb and to me, the highlight of the movie. The quality in the smaller shots - the ones that weren’t huge ships at sea - but the dialog shots that required character animation were so good. I worked on a movie full of small shots. They’re harder than the big shots. When you do a big shot filled with bears or warships or hundreds of people, whatever, there’s so much forgiveness because the eye can’t take it all in.
I met John in 1993. I was supervisor on “Baby’s Day Out” and he supervised the effects for ILM. He pulled off some stuff amazing stuff in that movie that no one saw because no one saw the movie. I’m a huge fan of his work.
Oscar nominees: Michael Fink, visual effects supervisor, Bill Westenhofer (Rhythm & Hues), Ben Morris (Framestore-CFC) and Trevor Wood (special effects)
I think the film got nominated for two reasons. One is that it isn’t a repetition. No one has seen a scene like the bear fight before, a sustained, animated fight. The closest might be King Kong’s fight with the dinosaurs, but this was different because there was a personal relationship between the two combatants.
We had to tell that story as well as make the fight. And, we had to keep Lyra in the story, and see the other bears shift their allegiance.
The other reason, I think, and I’d like to believe it although I’m too close to it, is that it’s beautiful. A lot of people came up to me after the bake-off and said, “That is so beautiful.” They liked the way it felt.
Our film had a more lyrical dynamic that the other films and I think it served us well. In a shot I put in the bakeoff reel, Mrs. Coulter picks up the golden monkey and holds it. That shot runs for 45 seconds.
There are 1100 frames of contact between her and the monkey. You have to believe she’s seeking Lyra and that she just whacked her daemon, which she isn’t supposed to do.
The daemons [the CG animals] were so critical to the story. To use effects to create relationships - I think that’s why we got nominated. There wasn’t anything like that this year, and there rarely is.
We brought a new emotionality to connection between live action actors and animated characters that I don’t think people have seen before. I spent two years of my life on it, and it wasn’t easy.
When we showed the reel, even though we cut the bear fight down to half its length, at the end, there was this not quite audible moment where the audience just got it. You felt a hush go over everybody in the room.
I was sitting with Ben Morris who did the bears and Bill Westenhofer who did the daemons and we just looked at each other. I’ve been going to bakeoffs since 1982 and I’ve never seen anything like it.
