Cinefex Weekly Update | Issue 08

Johnston limited time at the harsh location by using visual effects for a sequence in which Hopkins rescues the sheik's daughter by vaulting across Moroccan rooftops. "We were supposed to shoot above a mosque," related Alexander, "but Joe asked us to re-create the environment against bluescreen in LA. Luckily, he had established the scene at ground level so the tops of the buildings weren't visible and we could take some liberty with architecture. We shot a ton of stills; then, back at ILM, we built a 2½D background, mapping stills onto rough geometry to create multiplane and parallax effects."

Horse trainer Rex Peterson supplied five mustangs to represent Hidalgo. The only animal animation involved a pair of leopards that menace Hopkins and a companion during the race. The digital work proved necessary when the performances of real leopards -- shipped to the location and later split-screened into scenes with horses -- were found lacking. "It was very difficult to make the leopards look aggressive," said Alexander, "because they knew they were going back to their cage to eat at the end of every day. So, for some shots, we chose to re-create the leopards in CG." The CG leopard was modeled from reference of the leopards on set and from animal motion studies. "Very early on, we did a couple of tests using motion capture data of dogs, which we had used for Hulk. But when we applied that to the leopards, they just looked like dogs, so we abandoned that idea." ILM revisited the live leopards and shot video of them performing various actions from six different angles. Animation director Sylvia Wong and her team then rotoscoped the video to the CG leopard. "That gave us fluid and organic-looking behavior -- but the leopards still didn't look aggressive enough. So we used that as a starting point and key-framed everything from there."

The ending of the film, set in the United States, involved a spectacular stampede of mustangs, enhanced with 2D effects. "They had 500 horses out on location in Montana," said Alexander, "but when they released them into the wide-open spaces, it looked like nothing! We replicated the horses and made 2,500 out of the 500." Shot from a roving helicopter perspective, the horse release was an unrepeatable event, which tested the skills of ILM matchmove and compositing artists. "We couldn't shoot multiple takes, and the horses could only run the course once or twice a day; so we ended up using bits of other footage and tracking horses into the earlier environment with dust effects."

The lengthy and demanding production resulted in 216 effects shots, yet ultimately proved a painless experience for Alexander and his team due to the involvement of ILM alumnus Joe Johnston. "We spent 118 days on location in Montana, South Dakota, Morocco, the deserts of California, all over," stated Alexander. "But if ever we couldn't be there, Joe shot all the elements we needed. He really knew what he was doing, and that definitely helped."