The Wachowski brothers bring live action anime, color and movement to
new levels in Speed Racer.
Bursting from the darkness of The Matrix trilogy, the Wachowski brothers have ventured into family films with Speed Racer, a color explosion of live action anime set to delight young newcomers and old fans alike. While some film critics might have expected another Matrix style vehicle, audiences who have seen the film have blogged they left the theater enthusiastic and dazzled, with expectations this film sets a precedent for exploring artistic genres in the future.
Digital Domain handled much of the car and racetrack work, under the guidance of VFX Supervisors John Gaeta’s visual approach and Dan Glass’s technical prowess. The artists were encouraged to explore the style and add their own flare. “We defined the edges of the sandbox,” said Gaeta, “and said, now you guys have fun inside. You get some free chaos time, we see what you have, we pick the closest to what we like, and we work towards a final image. It’s a collaborative way to work, a nice way to work because everyone is invested, and not so hung up on what is becoming, in my view, a routine which is dulling the senses of audiences.”
Richard Morton, Digital Domain’s CG Supervisor, was one of many artists who was very happy with the process and the results. “Every shot was meant to look like a beauty shot; you could frame it and put it up on the wall. The animation is amazing, it’s well edited, and it all comes together. The world has not seen a live action anime movie. I think the Wachowskis have broken ground with Speed Racer because of it.”
In order to follow the look of anime in a live action film, Gaeta and Glass designed a process that used what they called “bubbles”, spheres within spheres with 360 images mapped on the surface similar to the construction of an onion. By slicing the image according to what is closest to the camera, cutting windows that revealed from one to the next, and rotating the spheres at the nodal center, a similar parallax to cell animation results. By adding graphic elements, lines, shapes, and light, the bubbles would be used to replace the greenscreens.
Roughly 75-85% of the film was on greenscreen, and what was not greenscreen were colorful painted sets. According to Dan Glass, the sense of gesture and communicated emotion was a welcome break form being bogged down in reality like they had been doing for years. Though each post house involved had to push through the reality barrier, once this freedom was embraced, everyone was on board.
Click and drag your mouse over the image to view the 360 degree digital set.
Erik Gamache, Animation Supervisor at Digital Domain, was in charge of the racing sequences, car acrobatics, and cameras for the Thunderhead and Grand Prix races. In this world, racing is the biggest sport imaginable, a national passion where everyone races or knows someone who races. It’s a combination of Formula F1 racing and roller coasters and crash derbies, a sport where the goal is to win by any means necessary. Attacking other cars, even knocking them off the track is encouraged, and it’s a very aggressive style of racing that complements the extreme look of the film. The animation had to be fun, exciting, and chaotic, while still remaining family friendly.
Because the film was based on a cartoon and had visuals pushed to the extreme, the animation needed to be equally extreme. Using moves similar to skateboarding with flips and half pipes and cars grinding along the edge, special wheels that would always point in the direction of travel called “T180’s” were designed to handle the kung fu, or “car fu” moves.
The Digital Domain animation team that peaked at 11 people had their work cut out for them, especially under the tight schedule, “but we had really good rigs that Paul Jordan and Mattias Jervill put together for us. Quite honestly, the rigs were some of the main stars of the show. We couldn’t have done it otherwise.” Digital Domain was responsible for roughly 450 shots, and all but five to ten had to go through animation.
Gamache’s team worked with low res NURBS tracks that had a UV coordinate space, and nearly everything was keyframed. The NURBS were perfect for the low res track animation because it offered the ability to float IK goals so the suspension was always reaching for the track. “We had them set up to where the U Space was side to side, and the V space was running down the track, so we were able to attach the cars to the UV space. They had these IK goals that would travel along the NURBS track, adhere to it. We had some expressions on the rotations of the wheels. We didn’t have to concern ourselves if the car touching the ground properly or are we spinning the wheels the right speed, we could just concentrate on the performance.”
