Cinefex Weekly Update | Issue 36

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Article by Jody Duncan

Smallville -- an episodic television retelling of the Superman tale, in which Tom Welling plays an adolescent, pre-Superman Clark Kent -- recently launched its fourth season on The WB network. Since May, the complete second season of the series has been available on a six-disk DVD collection that features, among other bells and whistles, a ten-minute documentary -- Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Visual Effects of Smallville. The special feature includes commentary by visual effects producer Mat Beck and other members of the Entity FX team, which has provided the show's effects since season two.

Entity visual effects supervisor John Wash sees to on-set effects requirements in Vancouver, where the series is shot. Plates are delivered to Entity's facility in the west side of Los Angeles, where an average 20 to 30 effects shots per episode are generated. "We get an outline of an episode first," explained Mat Beck, "and from the time we get that outline to the time the show is completed is usually around two or three months. Generally, we work on five or six episodes at once. We might be reading and doing a breakdown on a show for later in the season, finaling shots for an episode airing next week, and doing shots for a number of episodes in between -- all at the same time."

Three second-season effects sequences are highlighted in the DVD special feature. One is a shot from the episode titled 'Insurgence,' in which Clark executes a superhuman leap from the roof of the Daily Planet building. To achieve the image, stage crews shot Welling against greenscreen on a lifting rig; Entity composited that greenscreen element into an all-CG environment, designing the shot first in previz. "Originally," said Beck, "the shot was designed so that the camera would be behind him when he jumped. I suggested that we zoom over the top of him and out over the building to create more of a vertigo feeling." All of the buildings surrounding Clark -- including the Daily Planet building -- were CG, many texture-mapped with reference photographs shot in Vancouver. "We had also shot footage of the city streets, which we comped into the shot to add some movement down below."

A tornado sequence from the season's first episode -- 'Vortex' -- is also highlighted in the DVD documentary. To generate the tornado, the Entity FX crew projected practical smoke and dust elements onto particles, creating sprites. Those sprites were subsequently mapped to digital tiles that swirled around to form the overall shape of the twister. "We were able to control the overall movement of the twister through these tiles," Beck explained, "but within that shape were real, organic particles of dust and smoke. Combining those two techniques gave us the best of the physical world and the best of the digital world."

A truck -- with Clark and Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) inside -- spins furiously within the tornado, breaking apart piece by piece. A partial truck cab was shot greenscreen, on a multi-axis rig, with the actors inside. "It had outriggers on it so you could track it as it spun around against greenscreen," said Beck. "We then built a CG truck -- basically doing a 'truck extension' -- and tracked it to the greenscreen cab. Then we 'blew off' those digital truck extension parts in sequence."

An effect seen throughout the series involves Clark's ability to move at super-speed -- represented either by the character and the surrounding environment moving fast, or by Clark appearing to move at normal speed as everything around him slows to a near standstill. "We use different techniques for the hyper-speed effect, depending on the shot," said Beck. "In its simplest form, we start with a clean background, then Clark runs up to camera, and we do some blurring and streaking and spatial distortion behind him to make it look as if he is leaving a trail. It becomes more complicated if the camera is moving and we have to replace the background behind him."

A hyper-speed shot in a cemetery, in an episode titled 'Accelerate,' was complicated by a bullet-time-like effect, the camera moving around Clark and his friend, Pete (Sam Jones III), who appears frozen in frame. "We didn't do a traditional bullet-time technique with an array of cameras," said Beck. "We just made it look like that by shooting the environment and the actor in the background with a high-speed camera. The actor froze the best he could as the high-speed camera was spinning around him; and then, in post, we tweaked that high-speed footage to make it look as if the actor was really motionless. Any actor, when they try to freeze, will tense up a little bit -- so we had to do some digital tricks to remove any tensing or twitching of muscles."

The shot was made even more complex by rainfall that also had to freeze in frame, individual raindrops suspended in midair. Entity created the rain entirely in CG. "For each raindrop," said Beck, "we had to do a holdout of the environment, a refraction of the environment, and a reflection of the environment behind the camera. If you look carefully, you can see images of Clark reflected in each raindrop." The shot won the Visual Effects Society's award for best single composite on television last year.

With its producers' commitment to presenting new and startling images every week, Smallville gives the artists at Entity FX the opportunity to execute a range of effects techniques, from character animation to set extension to digital ambient enhancements. "The variety of the work is one of the reasons we really like working on this show," Beck concluded. "We get to use a combination of traditional techniques and new techniques and practical techniques. We will shamelessly use an old technique, if it is appropriate; and, of course, we are always trying to expand the new ones."

In addition to its work on Smallville, Entity FX provides effects for other television shows, movies -- Spider-Man 2 and Aviator are recent projects -- and commercials.

The DVD set of the third season of Smallville will be released in November.

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Emmy Awards: Creative Arts Emmy Awards for the 2003-2004 season, which honor technical achievements, were presented at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, September 12. Among the winners in the effects categories were visual effects supervisor Ronald B. Moore, who led a nine-member team -- including representatives from Eden FX -- to capture Emmys for outstanding special visual effects in a TV series (Star Trek: Enterprise, Episode: Countdown); visual effects supervisor Nicholas Brooks and his team, which included Giant Killer Robots, Double Negative and Glassworks -- for outstanding special visual effects in a miniseries, movie or special (the ABC miniseries Dreamkeeper, Part 1); and James Mackinnon, Thomas Burman and Bari Dreiband-Burman for outstanding prosthetic makeup in a series, miniseries, movie or special, (the pilot of Fox Television's Nip/Tuck).
Mission: Impossible 3: The Hollywood Reporter states director J.J. Abrams will be teaming with screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, his co-writers on the TV series Alias, to create the latest draft of this big-screen TV spy series for Paramount and Cruise/Wagner. Dean Georgaris, Dan Gilroy, Robert Towne and Frank Darabont reportedly contributed to earlier drafts of the screenplay.
The Muppets' Wizard of Oz: THR states Jeffrey Tambor and David Alan Grier will star with Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and friends in this ABC TV movie based on Frank L. Baum's fable about a Kansas farm girl swept off to a fantasy kingdom by a tornado. Tambor will play the Wizard, singer Ashanti will play Dorothy Gale, an aspiring performer who works for her Auntie Em (Queen Latifah) in a small town diner. Grier will play Dorothy's Uncle Henry. IMDb reports Adam Goldberg and Tom Martin wrote the screenplay, Kirk Thatcher directs and the movie will air this month.
The War of the Worlds: THR states Paramount Pictures is now advancing the release of Steven Spielberg's adaptation of H.G. Wells' Martian invasion novel to Wednesday, June 29, two days before, and in aggressive competition with, Twentieth Century Fox's comic book adaptation of The Fantastic Four.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: ComingSoon.net reports Fox 2000 Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox Animation and Bagdasarian Productions are producing a live-action and CG-animated version of this NBC Saturday morning cartoon series, which Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., and Dave Seville first created as annoying, speeded-up, pop-music recording stars in 1958. The hyperactive rodents -- Alvin, Simon and Theodore -- will be computer generated. Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. and Janice Karman are producing. No director has yet been assigned.
Doom: Variety and The Hollywood Reporter state Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and Karl Urban will star in this videogame adaptation being prepared by Universal Pictures and director Andrzej Bartkowiak. Urban will play John Grimm, leader of a special ops team hunting alien demons; it is unclear what part Johnson will play, but woe betide any demons that get in his way. Moviehole.com reports principal photography will begin in the next few months, with the film slated to open August 5, 2005.
Alexander: A selection of images for this film have appeared on-line at the German Website Mysan.de. Click here to view Colin Farrell as Macedonian warlord Alexander, charging about deserts and battling elephants for director Oliver Stone. Spectacular scenery and very lush-looking production design are also on display -- especially if you 'klicke für grössere version.'
Ghost Rider: Moviehole.net reports this Marvel Comics adaptation about Johnny Blaze, a motorcycle rider with a pyrotechnic hairstyle, will begin shooting at the Central City Studios in Victoria, Australia, January 2005, and will be the most expensive production yet filmed in the Melbourne Docklands studio. No director or cast have yet been announced, but Mark Steven Johnson and Nicholas Cage have been previously linked with the material. Yahoo Movies indicates Revolution Studios plucked this project out of turnaround from Dimension Films in early 2002. Plans call for a Columbia Pictures summer 2006 release.
Sony/MGM Merger: Click here at Comingsoon.net for details on the aquisition by Sony Corporation of America and its equity partners of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. for the purchase price of $4.8 billion. The way was cleared for the acquisition following the withdrawal from negotiations of Time-Warner, which had also been bidding on the studio. The merger, which ends MGM's 80-year run as a stand-alone movie studio, reportedly will reduce the likelihood that a much-hoped-for adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit might be mounted, since MGM owns theatrical rights to the book and Time-Warner owns New Line Cinema, which previously released Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Threshold: Variety reports filmmaker David Goyer, Harry Potter producer David Heyman and screenwriter Bragi Schut are planning this alien invasion series for CBS. The production will reportedly commence with an hour-long pilot for what is described as 'a contemporary sci-fi drama about the government's response to an alien threat.' Paramount Network Television will produce, Goyer is slated to direct and executive produce and Mark Rosen will also executive produce.
The Scarecrow: The Hollywood Reporter states Sam Raimi and his long-time producing partner Robert Tapert will produce this horror project, to be directed by Hong Kong filmmakers Oxide and Danny Pang. The project will be the Chinese filmmakers' English-language debut, and will be produced by Blue Star and Ghost House Pictures, a joint venture of Raimi's and Tapert's Senator International. The story, written by Stuart Beattie from an original script by Todd Farmer, follows the emotional and psychological breakdown of a farmer who moves into a rundown sunflower farm with his family, and begins to exhibit disturbing changes in behavior. Principal photography is scheduled to begin in the spring.
Aliens of the Deep: Ain't It Cool News reports filmmaker James Cameron screened footage of his latest documentary project recently at the Giant Screen Theater Association 2004 trade show in Montreal, where Cameron debuted his large format 3D digital documentary for Walden Media. The footage reportedly featured underwater shots of bizarre deep sea creatures. AICN states the filmmaker is planning to incorporate this footage into shots for his still officially untitled upcoming 3D live-action science fiction extravaganza, which is said to be an adaptation of Japanese manga comic Battle Angel Alita. Click here for more details.
Cursed: Moviehole.net reports Wes Craven's troubled werewolf movie is conducting more reshoots this week, tweaking the finale. Excised scenes will reportedly be recycled for Cursed 2. Yahoo Movies reports Dimension Films originally targeted the film for an August 8 release, but it has since been shunted to February 2005.
Sin City: Click here for JoBlo.com screen shots from Robert Rodriguez's and Frank Miller's graphic novel adaptation, showing strangely colorized, mostly black-and-white, film-noir-style images.