Cinefex Weekly Update | Issue 17

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Article by Jody Duncan

Columbia Pictures recently released Big Fish on DVD. Making its theatrical splash in 2003, Big Fish was just the kind of magical, whimsical, slightly off-kilter film audiences have come to expect from director Tim Burton. The story involves a son's last-ditch attempts to find the man behind his father and the truth behind his tall tales. The film cuts between the present day -- which finds the elderly Ed Bloom (Albert Finney) on his deathbed -- and the past adventures of the younger Bloom, portrayed by Ewan McGregor.

Bloom's mythic stories -- realized on film through a variety of effects techniques -- include encounters with a giant, a witch, citizens of an idyllic village, a really big fish and, in a wartime sequence, beautiful conjoined twins named Ping and Jing. The conjoined twin assignment, along with the majority of the film's effects, went to Sony Pictures Imageworks and visual effects supervisor Kevin Mack.

Imageworks completed about a dozen conjoined twin shots, starting with footage of twins Ada and Arlene Tai performing side by side on set or against greenscreen. "They designed a dress that both twins could fit into," explained Mack, "so they were stitched together at the hip. Of course, they still didn't look like conjoined twins because, with the two of them in this dress, they were double-wide." Production also merged the two performers for the live-action shoot by tying one twin's right leg to the other's left leg. "The twins learned a little dance routine; but, because their legs were tied together, they could only perform the upper-body portion of it. They couldn't move around very well."

CG body replacement was required to create the illusion of conjoined twins; and, for most of the shots, Imageworks wound up replacing everything in the live footage except the heads. "It was a design problem," Mack said. "Tim wanted the character to look sexy, with this hourglass waist; so even though these twins are supposed to be joined at the hip only, with separate upper bodies, they had to taper down to a single waistline. To make that look right, we had to design the character, changing the proportions, lengthening the legs, tapering the waist, and so on."

To facilitate the design process, Mack shot stills of the twin actresses in leotards and skirts, then warped and stretched the images in Photoshop until he had achieved an acceptable look. With Burton's approval of the design, Imageworks modeled the conjoined twin body in CG, using proprietary software. The twins' costume -- a dress adorned with strings of beads, designed by Colleen Atwood -- also had to be built in CG. "The beads that dangled off the sleeves and down the sides of the dress were all physically simulated," explained Mack. "We got together with Colleen Atwood very early to design the dress, because I suspected we might have to do a lot of CG. We decided that it would be better for us -- even though it would be more work -- to have things like sequins and dangling beads on the dress, because it would be distracting to the eye and take the mind off the CG. I think it made the effect more convincing."

The dress also featured thin net sleeves covering the twins' arms, while sequined fishnet stockings covered their legs. The twins' chests and shoulders were bare, however, requiring rendering of flesh in the all-CG bodies. "We see them very closeup," said Mack, "so we did full subsurface scattering shaders for the skin. We were fortunate that, with the stuff that had been shot on set, we had great reference of them in the costume and in the real lighting."

Imageworks also relied on the on-set reference when animating the CG body, matching the movements of the CG character with those of the real performers. Because the performance was essentially the same, the attitude and movements of the live-action heads blended well with the animated body when they were tracked to it via the Inferno. "For the most part," Mack said, "once we had the heads really locked on, they tied very closely to what the CG body was doing. It was a bit off in a few cases, but only because we added some new elements to the lower-body performance." The new lower-body dance moves added in post were conceived by Imageworks animators. "Animators take on whatever they are doing rather passionately and pursue it until it is right. I would often find the animators dancing in the hallways, working out the moves. It was a bit disturbing."

The first view of the conjoined twins starts with a closeup of the performers, then pulls back wide and moves around to their backs in a 280-degree reveal. For that shot, Imageworks filmed the twins on a turntable against greenscreen, replicated the rotating move on a dolly on location, then married the two together. As the shot goes wide, it transitions from the live-action performers to the all-but-the-head CG character. "At the beginning of the shot," explained Mack, "we actually used their shoulders and chests; but then, there was a lot of transitional warping and morphing going on from the chest down as we did a handoff to the CG character, with CG arms and shoulders and everything."

In another shot, the twins walk right up to camera and into a dressing room. On the set, the twins were shot walking toward camera as gracefully as was possible given the fact that their legs were tied together. "Everything except the heads is CG in that shot," said Mack. "The real twins moved through several light sources as they walked toward camera, so it was a very complex lighting setup for us. We just matched the lighting in the plate very carefully."

In creating Ping and Jing and all of its effects for Big Fish, Imageworks chose techniques that would afford Tim Burton maximum flexibility and produce invisible effects. "We wanted to be as discreet as possible," said Mack. "That was the style that seemed the most appropriate for this movie. These unbelievable stories are bigger than life, but they are told as if they are really happening -- so we wanted the effects to look natural, almost off-hand. We didn't want any 'Hey, look at this!' shots."

Compiled by Joe Fordham

Ray Harryhausen: VFXPro reports the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be screening five newly-restored prints of stop-motion guru Ray Harryhausen's fairy tale short subjects in the Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Friday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m. The films were animated by Harryhausen in his garage home studio from 1946 - 1953. The screening will include 35mm prints of Mother Goose Stories, The Story of Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, The Story of Rapunzel and The Story of King Midas. Leonard Maltin will moderate a discussion with Harryhausen and artists who helped restore the films. For tickets and more details click here.
Ella Enchanted: Click here for fairytale castles, misty lakes and a sprinkling of kung-fu in this whimsical live-action fairy tale, in the Shrek and Princess Bride mold, directed by Tommy O'Haver for Miramax. Visual effects -- including work by Double Negative, Cinesite and The Moving Picture Company -- were supervised by Angus Bickerton.
Spider-Man 2: Take the phone off the hook, pull down the shades, crank up the volume and click here for the latest Spider-Man 2 trailer featuring Spidey, Doc Ock and the Big Apple, back in big-screen comic book glory when the sequel opens in theaters June 30. In a report at About.com, Marvel Enterprises movie mogul Avi Arad also confirms that Spider-Man 3 is on track for development at Columbia.
Metroid: The Hollywood Reporter announced that action filmmaker John Woo has optioned the movie rights for this Nintendo video game, and plans to produce the science fiction project with an option to direct for Tiger Hill. Terence Chang and Brad Foxhoven will also produce, with Suzanne Zizzi of Lion Rock Productions. Foxhoven states it will be a big-budget production, scheduled for release before 2006. No screenwriter has been announced yet, but the story will concern "the origins of the game's female protagonist, sexy bounty hunter Samus Aran, and relate her adventures battling the insidious life-sucking Metroids and their controlling force, Mother Brain."
Dungeons and Dragons 2: Variety reports Studio Hamburg's international production arm World Wide Pictures and Silver Pictures are producing this sequel to Dungeons and Dragons, the 2000 film adaptation of the popular video game. Warner Brothers will distribute the sequel in the United States. Gerry Lively will direct, with shooting slated to begin in Europe this year.
The Day After Tomorrow: Click here to see storyboards illustrating more mayhem in Roland Emmerich's upcoming global warming disaster movie, made available by Twentieth Century Fox and ComingSoon.net.
Star Wars 3: Lucasfilm has announced it will be releasing its final Star Wars film, the still-untitled Episode 3, a little earlier than anticipated. The film will appear in the United States and Canada and near-simultaneous international territories Thursday, May 19, 2005. Japan will have its premiere, as it traditionally does, in July. North American Star Wars premieres have always occurred between the magic dates May 16 and May 25.
Fantastic Four: LatinoReview.com reports Tim Story, the director of Barbershop, will helm this Marvel Comics adaptation for Marvel Enterprises and Twentieth Century Fox. For the uninitiated, the four blue-suited superheroes -- Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Benjamin Grimm and Johnny Storm -- receive their superpowers after being irradiated by cosmic rays while testing an experimental spacecraft. No cast has been announced, but Michael Chiklis, star of TV's The Shield, is rumored to be in talks to play rock-man, The Thing, and Tim Robbins is rumored to be interested in playing the villain, Doctor Doom. Yahoo Movies reports Samm Hamm, Doug Petrie, Tristan Patterson and Mark Frost have contributed to the screenplay; and states the film is scheduled for release July 1, 2005.
Casino Royale: SciFi Wire reports, in an interview with filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, that the director has been speaking with Pierce Brosnan about helming the actor's fifth and, apparently, final Bond film, tackling a remake of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale, with the emphasis on characters rather than pyrotechnics. Tarantino is quoted as saying: "Wouldn't it be great to have a James Bond movie that didn't cost $115 million and only cost $40 million or something like that...? You know it's going to make its money back, and we [would] all do good. Maybe we win the critics this time, then you're back in business the way you were before."
Watchmen: The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Hellboy and Tomb Raider producers Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin have declared that they will not be making a third Lara Croft film, but are now turning their attentions to adapting Alan Moore's 1986 graphic novel Watchmen. Describing the premise, Levin said: "It's about a group of superheroes who reunite to figure out who is trying to kill them off... it's different characters, but it's really a unique story because it deals with the spiritual aspect of being a superhero." Yahoo Movies states Watchmen will be a Sony/Revolution Studios production, tentatively scheduled to start shooting sometime in 2004 in Prague, for a 2005 release; Screenwriter David Hayter is in talks to direct.
Kill Bill, Volume 2: Click here to see a new trailer at Apple.com for Quentin Tarantino's upcoming second installment of his chop-socky tale of feminine empowerment and flying limbs.
Lemony Snicket: An Unfortunate Series of Events: Click here to See Moviebox.net's presentation of a TV trailer for this Paramount/Dreamworks/Nickelodeon feature, with Jim Carrey transformed by makeup artist Bill Corso into a wonderfully twisted Count Olaf. The film, due out in December, is based on the popular children's books by mysterious fictional author Lemony Snicket.
Pattern Recognition: The LA Times reports producer Steve Golin has acquired the rights to cyberpunk author William Gibson's 2003 novel Pattern Recognition. Set in present-day reality, or at least a Gibson-esque version of it, the story follows the efforts of Cayce Pollard, a 'cool hunter' marketing executive, who attempts to track the origin of a mysterious videotape let loose on the Internet. Director Peter Weir is rumored to be interested in the project.

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.