Cinefex Weekly Update | Issue 03

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Article by Joe Fordham

Visual effects supervisor Dennis Lowe reunited with filmmaker Anthony Minghella for Cold Mountain, an epic drama set during the American Civil War. Adapted by Minghella from a novel by Charles Frazier, the film told the tale of Inman (Jude Law), a wounded Confederate soldier who deserts a military hospital to embark on a long trek home, where his love, Ada (Nicole Kidman), is also struggling to survive the war.

Like Minghella's earlier films, Cold Mountain emphasized characters and drama over spectacle; yet, to set the stage of a country divided by war, Minghella chose to open the film with a ferocious battle alluded to peripherally in Frazier's book: the Union army's attempt to capture a Confederate stronghold in Petersburg, Virginia, by tunneling under enemy lines and detonating bombs from below, to devastating effect.

The sequence was shot on a tract of farmland outside Bucharest, Romania, bulldozed and landscaped to match 19th-century reference photographs. "The siege had to look awe-inspiring," said Dennis Lowe, "but a lot of it was achieved at the location, with physical effects, then subtly enhanced with visual effects." Physical effects director Trevor Wood, a long-time associate of Neil Corbould Special Effects, oversaw practical carnage for the siege, using more than 250 gallons of fuel and 200 pounds of explosives to simulate the excavation of a crater 170 feet by 80 feet, and 50 feet deep. "They couldn't physically pack all that energy into an area that was really that size; so Trevor's team detonated a circle of about 20 charges, which looked like a bigger explosion than it was."

Director of photography John Seale covered the explosion with four cameras, with a second unit in the trench. Lowe supplied five additional spring-wound Eyemo newsreel 'crash cameras,' positioned closer to the blast. The explosion was captured in one take, then enhanced with digital effects. Double Negative blended practical elements of exploding mud and 3D animation. "We wanted to emphasize the scale of the practical explosion," Lowe explained. "We added CG flying bodies, horses, carts and barrels blowing out; but it was never overemphasized. Anthony wanted the effects to be almost subliminal. Early on, we added as many people as would have been located in that part of the trench and had them fly up 300 feet; but that looked a little over the top, so we layered them into the explosion, covered by foreground mud."

Closeup angles of the ground erupting -- hurling Confederates through the air and ripping the clothes from one soldier's body -- used practical effects with minimal digital finessing, and editorial sleight of hand. "We took out wires and added dust and debris," said Lowe, "but most of that was done for real, with the help of film editor Walter Murch, who was very skilled at judging how much of a shot we could use."

Digital enhancements also included matte paintings of Petersburg extending off into the distance, and crowd replication seen in an eerie shot preceding the detonation where the camera cranes up to reveal the Yankee soldiers laying in wait, face-down in the mud. Six hundred members of the Romanian Army portrayed soldiers on the field. To expand the mass of men, the visual effects team repositioned and replicated the troops.

Crowd replication was used to nightmarish effect as Union troops pour into the exploded crater, then fall prey to a 'turkey shoot' as surviving Confederates take potshots from above. "The extras filled about 1/20th of the area of the crater," said Lowe. "We shot the crowd in sections using the old rope trick -- we threw a rope around them, moved them, then filmed them all again. We shot that as a static plate, then motion-tracked the foreground and added drifting smoke." Smoke added to the sepia patina created by John Seale using combinations of in-camera filters and digital grading by Framestore CFC.

Filmed over three weeks, the battle set a somber tone for the picture, intercut with Inman's memories of home. "Anthony felt the film was not about the war," said Lowe. "He and Walter broke up the battle as the film took shape, making it more relevant to the story. It was an anti-war film, really."

In addition to the battle, Cold Mountain's 176 visual effects included night sky enhancements, digital snowfall and a surreal vision in a well -- a prophetic image foreshadowing Inman's return home, inspired by an M.C. Escher print and created by digitally blending elements of Jude Law and trained crows. Digital matte paintings also enhanced environments, adding snow to areas of the Romanian landscape. "We tried not to make the matte paintings too beautiful," commented Lowe, " because we didn't want to draw people's attention to the effects. The hardest thing was holding back, but that's what Anthony wanted.

"The nice thing about Anthony is that he delegates. The first thing he said to me when I met him on The English Patient was: 'This is your film. Treat these shots as your own.' That was really shocking, because most directors are quite dictatorial. With Anthony, it's like going back to film school -- you're playing, and if you make a mistake, it's not the end of the world; you learn from it. That's such a good way to make movies."

Keyframe™ is digital entertainment. For three seasons KDP has generated thousands of effects for the huge sci-fi series Mutant X. Simultaneously, they worked on films such as, Bullet Proof Monk and Secret Window, created effects for the TV series Adventure Inc. and PlayMakers, developed their own internal animation called HUGGLERS™ and won the prestigious Accolade Award of Excellence for their animation in The Littlest Light on the Christmas Tree. Keyframe™ is truly one of the elite talents in the industry today.

Compiled by Joe Fordham

Pixar/Disney: Pixar Animation Studios chief executive Steve Jobs has called it quits with Walt Disney Studios, severing the co-production pact that brought us such CG-animation blockbusters as Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo. Reportedly, Jobs is now considering teaming up with either Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Universal or Sony. Pixar still has two films to deliver under its current deal with Disney -- The Incredibles, due out in November, and Cars, revving up for a 2005 holiday opening. Disney has meanwhile been forging new CG-animation partnerships with Vanguard Films -- the creative team behind DreamWorks' Shrek -- and Complete Pandemonium, the animation and commercials company co-owned by Steve Williams, Mark Dippé and Richard Kizu-Blair.
Frank Darabont: Variety reports that filmmaker Frank Darabont has signed a three-year production deal with Paramount, which is planning a fourth, yet-to-be-named Indiana Jones installment in 2005 based on Darabont's screenplay, with Steven Spielberg directing and George Lucas executive producing. Among the filmmaker's other projects, falling under his Darkwood Productions banner, are biographical stories about Tokyo Rose and William Mulholland, and the action adventures Way of the Rat and Doc Savage: Man of Bronze. Despite his new deal with Paramount, Darabont's long-in-development adaptation of Ray Bradbury's science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451 remains in development at Warner Brothers.
3001: The Hollywood Reporter states that Luke Wilson will star in this comedy about a man of middling I.Q. who is chosen by the military as guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program, and awakens as the most intelligent human being on the planet at the dawn of the next millennium. The screenplay -- written by Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill, in collaboration with Etan Cohen -- begins shooting in April under the Twentieth Century Fox banner.
Stuart Little 3: Animation World Network reports that the third film based on E.B. White's talking New York mouseboy will, for the first time, be an all-CG venture, released direct to video. The producers are nevertheless hoping to bring back Michael J. Fox to reprise his starring voice role.
Alexander: Los Angeles Times reports that Oliver Stone's upcoming Macedonian conqueror epic, filming in Morocco and Thailand with Colin Farrell in the lead, will feature 20,000 costumes, 9,000 arrows, 3,000 shields, 3,000 swords, 4,000 bows, 200 cavalry lances, 350 axes and clubs ... nine lords a-leaping and a partridge in a pear tree. Not included in the Times story, some Alexander production personnel have been referring to Universal's rival Baz Luhrmann production, due in 2006, as Alexander the Late. Stone's Warner Brothers film is slated for release on November 5.
Star Wars: Episode 3: Lucasfilm has released the first picture of the next-generation clone troopers -- which you can view here -- due to appear in Episode 3, the sixth and final film in the saga. The clone designs signify the next step in the evolution toward the stormtroopers, first featured in 1977's Star Wars. Also of note, Movieweb reports that Episode 3 will feature an epic duel between two key characters consisting of over 1,000 moves and lasting 12 minutes. If true, this would make it the longest fight sequence in movie history, beating the previous reputed record holder -- the eight-minute sword fight between Stuart Granger and Mel Ferrer in Scaramouche.
John Carter of Mars: Dark Horizons reports that maverick filmmaker Robert Rodriguez is in negotiations with Paramount to take the helm on John Carter of Mars, an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough's Martian space fantasy series. This project has been a long time coming, since director John McTiernan took it for a spin in the 1980s. If the film remains true to the books, this will be a huge visual effects vehicle, with Mars populated by cities of giant, six-armed green men.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Yahoo Movies reports that after years in development, Touchstone Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment will begin shooting this feature film adaptation of Douglas Adams' cult BBC radio show in England this April. Per Dark Horizons.com, Martin Freeman, from the British sitcom The Office, will be stepping into the role of Arthur Dent, the bewildered, pajamaed British earthling stranded after the demolition of his home planet. Rapper Mos Def will play galactic traveler Ford Prefect and Tricia McMillan will play hard-nosed space babe Trillian. Touchstone is planning a 2005 release.
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel: The Hollywood Reporter states that Finding Nemo co-screenwriter David Reynolds will next be writing an adaptation of this 1958 Robert Heinlein space adventure novel for Warner Brothers.
Imaginary Children: Variety reports that Southpaw Entertainment has commissioned Kelly Asbury, the director of Spirit and Shrek 2, to write and direct this live-action/CGI fantasy project based on a concept by Southpaw's Richard Lewis and Scott Peters about a cartoonist whose creations take over his life. Lewis states the idea was inspired by the life of Charles Schultz, creator of the comic strip Peanuts.
King Kong: TheOneRing.net reports that at a recent British Academy of Film & Television Arts luncheon, Naomi Watts revealed that she will, indeed, be sitting in the big hairy paw of King Kong, playing Ann Darrow in Peter Jackson's next film. Shooting is apparently scheduled to start in August for a December 14, 2005 release. Jackson is quoted as saying, "I want to approach King Kong as a drama, not as a fantasy … and explore what would really happen in that situation."