Earlier this month, Life of Pi won four Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards, including the marquee honor for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Feature Motion Picture. Life of Pi also won for Outstanding FX and Simulation Animation in a Live-Action Feature Motion Picture, Outstanding Animated Character in a Live-Action Feature (Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger), and Outstanding Compositing in a Feature (for the Storm of God sequence).
During the VES Awards ceremony, Life of Pi director Ang Lee received an additional accolade, the VES Visionary Award. Lee affirmed that the VES community is not merely visual effects but rather “visual art.” He added, “You are not technicians, you guys are artists.”
The director went on to thank the artists who helped bring Life of Pi to fruition, including the film’s visual effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer of Rhythm+Hues. “You’re a great filmmaker,” said Lee to Westenhofer who was seated in the audience. “We made this movie together.”
Lee also acknowledged another audience member, Erick De Boer, leader of the Rhythm+Hues character animation team, for his contributions to Life of Pi. “I am so glad your tiger got the award today,” said Lee, referring to the Bengal tiger character named Richard Parker which earned the VES Award for Outstanding Animated Character in a Live-Action Feature.
Additionally Lee praised visual effects studio MPC for its work on the storm-at-sea sequences in Life of Pi.
At press time, Life of Pi was considered a leading contender for the Visual Effects Oscar. Earlier SHOOT caught up with Westenhofer who reflected on the experience of working on Life Of Pi.
“What sticks out in my mind is when Ang first addressed the crew at Rhythm+Hues,” recalled Westenhofer. “He didn’t issue any kind of technical challenge. He simply told us, ‘I want to make art with you–to make art with visual effects.’ That approach helped to make this film easily the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done professionally. The challenges were very heavy technically but every step along the way we were contributing to the art of the picture.”
Among the most daunting challenges was creating realistic animals, most notably the Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker.
Based on the bestselling book of the same title by Yann Martel, Life Of Pi tells an intricate story in which a shipwreck brings a young man, Pi, together in a lifeboat with several zoo animals, including Richard Parker. Taught as a child by his dad that the tiger was a mortal enemy of human beings, Pi, who’s now an orphan, somehow learns to coexist with survivor Parker as they are thrown into an adventurous and spiritual journey.
“You work to make it real,” said Westenhofer. “We set out to create a tiger who was going to be a tiger and act as genuinely and realistically as possible–a digital animal like one never seen before. In the end, fourteen percent of the shots of the tiger on screen were of a real tiger. The rest were what we did digitally. To get that realism, we shot hundreds of hours of reference footage of a real tiger to capture how they act and perform. We culled through documentary footage of actual tigers. I told Ang that we wanted to ground all of our animal performances in reference so that it can be as real as possible. Otherwise you can fall into a trap. It’s easy for an animator–even if not intending to do so–to anthropomorphize things. If you do that, you lose the animalism of the performance.”
Lee earlier told SHOOT he was drawn to Rhythm+Hues and Westenhofer in part based on the animal life they created for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which earned a VFX Oscar nomination in 2006. Two years later, Westenhofer won an Academy Award as VFX supervisor on The Golden Compass.
Whereas he was VFX supervisor for Rhythm+Hues on The Golden Compass and The Chronicles of Narnia, Westenhofer was the overall VFX supervisor on Life Of Pi spanning several studios.
For example, while Rhythm+Hues handled all the calmer water scenes and the morning after the storm, the actual storm sequences with tremendous crashing waves were done by MPC. “The artists there [at MPC] did a tremendous job,” assessed Westenhofer. “Blending tank water with digital water so that it plays realistically in 3D is an amazing feat to pull off.”
Westenhofer added that director Lee set the bar high. “Ang wants to be authentic, artistic and symbolic. There’s a lot of symbolism in the art he creates. And there’s a lot of research that has to go toward attaining authenticity. Working with him was a challenging, amazing experience.”
MPC’s piece of Pi, Prometheus VFX supervisor Guillaume Rocheron and VFX producer Genevieve West led the MPC team on Life of Pi, delivering over 110 shots in native stereo.
MPC’s main areas of work included creating two massive storm sequences: the sinking of Pi’s cargo ship The Tsimtsum, and the Storm of God, the dramatic climax to Pi’s journey aboard his marooned lifeboat. Other work included animating over 20 panicked animals aboard the sinking ship, creating a CG lizard, hornbill and Cassowaries for the opening titles and the first shots of Pi leaving India on board The Tsimtsum.
Planning and execution of the storm sequences took more than two years to complete and totalled around 15 minutes of final visual effects work in the film. To fit Lee’s precisely choreographed sequences, the team simulated water surfaces in Flowline, later adding multiple simulations of elements such as spray, bubbles, foam and whitewater, layering them together in a complex composite. By utilizing a new methodology to drive fluid simulations right from the layout stage, the team were able to gain precise control in terms of timing, layout and levels of realism added to the waves.
The ship itself, a detailed digital replica of the Tsimtsum, was modelled on a 1970s era freighter and built referencing blueprints which were given to the team by the production’s art department.
For the sunken shots, the team comped in a CG double to underwater photography, adding underwater waves and atmospheric elements to the scene.
The team was also tasked with creating a number of animated animals for several key shots. Led by animation supervisor Daryl Sawchuk, the team animated various creatures aboard the sinking Tsimtsum, including leopards, camels and rhinos. The team also rigged, modeled and animated a CG lizard, hornbills and Cassowaries for the movie’s opening sequences within a zoo in India.
Additional work included enhancing shots as the Tsimtsum sets sail. The team extended the deck set, added a CG ocean as well as DMP’s of Indian countryside in the background.
MPC also had a lead hand in the visual effects for the Ridley Scott-directed Prometheus, which earned three VES Award nominations, including for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Feature Motion Picture. VFX supervisor Richard Stammers of MPC addressed the movie’s artistic and technical challenges. “The visual and special effects departments worked together to bring realism, beauty and scale to many scenes of the movie, helping Ridley Scott revitalize a genre that he helped define 35 years previously. Prometheus was a native stereo 3D project with nearly 1300 VFX shots, created by 10 different vendors in four time zones with a relatively short schedule. This required meticulous organization and visual continuity. The lead studio, MPC were responsible for building the spaceships, the space and planet environments and “Hammepede” creature, Weta Digital’s main responsibilities were creating the Engineers, other alien creatures and pilots chair, and Fuel created the stunning holographic “Orrery” star map, holographic Engineers and scanning probes. There were a great deal of challenges for the VFX teams but I’ll pick three of the trickiest: the creation of the Engineer ship, the destruction sequence when the Prometheus hits the Engineer ship, and the ‘Orrery’
“The “Juggernaut” Engineer’s ship was to be much bigger and had to have a far higher level of detail than the derelict ship in the original Alien film. The ship had to have an organic design which meant every pipe, hole and recess detail had to be laid out by hand by the team at MPC. Careful balancing between modeled polygons and displacement maps was needed in order to utilize as much render power as possible to calculate realistic lighting using IBL and ray tracing. The CG Juggernaut was meticulously detailed by MPC’s team and held up extremely well to the close-up shots Ridley wanted but they also made a projected DMP pass on most of the extreme close-up shots.”
Another major challenge for MPC was the sequence where the Juggernaut crashes into the Prometheus. Stammers related, “The ships, the underground silo, background environment and destruction were all computer generated, and blended with practical and CG explosions. The destruction on the Prometheus was full CG. MPC’s custom destruction tool Kali calculated natural looking deformations and breaking depending on assigned material qualities and physics simulations. The volume of exploding fire was calculated using fluid simulations and rendered with textures derived from real explosions shot by the special FX team. Thousands of pieces of the Prometheus, modeled from the main ship build, rain to the ground kicking up dust and rocks, with dynamics calculated using object collision simulations. Smoke trails from the debris fill the air created by using fluid simulations and wind dynamics. Hero debris was also animated to hand off to practical explosions around camera and near the actresses running from the falling ship. With plates shot live in Iceland without green screens, MPC’s compositing team had a challenge to seamlessly integrate plates, CG and special FX elements with careful attention to stereo depth cueing.
“The ‘Orrery’ held a star map created by Fuel from 100 million polygons, combining frozen moments of fluid simulations, millions of stars, and graphic elements in a unique design created by the VFX crew,” continued Stammers. “Utilizing deep image rendering and propriety tools, we were able to manipulate expansive final renders to accommodate quick changes when required. It not only had to look technical and beautiful, but also closely serve the story with carefully considered animations that reveal the alien ‘Engineers’ intent.
“Biomorph” The marquee VES Award ad category winner–for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial–was Nike’s “Biomorph” with Digital Domain serving as its VFX studio. Last year “Biomorph” earned director David Rosenbaum of Mothership, a sister shop to Digital Domain, inclusion in the SHOOT New Directors Showcase. The client-direct spot also earned a 2012 AICP Show honor in the Visual Effects category.
The visually arresting piece saw Digital Domain create an anatomical view of a human foot and depict with poetic license the process of constructing a Nike Flyknit shoe as the two knit together and become one. A footprint evolves into the formation of a runner’s foot–replete with muscles and nerves–and then the knitting of the shoe around it as it makes contact with the pavement below.
“The challenges were both creative and technical,” explained Aladino Debert, Digital Domain’s VFX supervisor on the spot. “The main creative challenge had to do with finding ways to walk the thin line between realism and visual beauty. We could make the inside of a foot 100 percent realistic, but that could end up being distracting and a bit creepy, so we worked a lot to find a dramatic way to showcase that while maintaining anatomical realism. The same could be said about the fiber knitting process.
“As for the technical challenges,” continued Debert, “while going into the project we had a pretty good idea on how the animation of the bones and muscles would work (we also had done a test while pitching the project), the fibers of the shoe proved to be extremely tricky to visualize. We developed three completely different approaches to the animation before we found the one that would give us enough artistic control while being practical. In the end we were quite happy with that balance.”
“Cloud” Winning the VES Award for Outstanding FX and Simulation Animation in a Commercial or Broadcast Program was Guinness’ “Cloud” directed by Peter Thwaites of Gorgeous for AMV BBDO, London, with visual effects from The Mill, London. The spot tells the tale of a cloud that is “more” than a cloud, not guided by the wind but rather some inner force as it comes from the sea to meander over a city, yet with great purpose, ultimately helping firemen to douse a large fire. It’s a cloud that’s “made of more,” like Guinness ale.
Tom Bussell, head of 3D at The Mill, noted, “This was a really unique job for us in that the hero character in every shot was created entirely in CG. Realistic clouds are one of the most difficult elements to achieve in CG. It’s easy to do too much with the animation; too much movement and the cloud becomes comical–something we were keen to avoid. The brief was to create a truly lifelike and believable cloud, but then take it one step further and give it character. Because the project was so ambitious and technically complex, the 3D team and I began by developing the cloud in Houdini. This meant we were then able to build our whole setup from scratch and tailor it to the way we wanted it to work. The setup needed to be flexible because every shot presented a different challenge!
“Building a natural looking cloud was one challenge, making it bend, stretch, squash, maneuver and look like a character was a whole new obstacle,” continued Bussell. “We had to strike a fine balance between giving the cloud a “character” both looks and animation wise, and also being careful not to take it too far out of the realms of what we are used to seeing clouds look and behave like. The opening three shots were also a huge test for us; they were built from scratch using no live action plates. After they had been created entirely in CG, they were then composited mainly in Nuke. This meant that from the 3D team’s perspective the cloud needed to look completely real before it was passed on to the 2D team.”
Neil Davies, head of 2D for The Mill, chimed in, “Our 2D team then composited the CG in Flame and Nuke to make sure it fit seamlessly into the beautifully shot backplates. One particularly tricky shot was the ‘squeezing through the buildings’ shot. After a lot of experimentation in 3D, we eventually hit upon a 2D solution to execute this shot. Two clouds which had been rendered for different shots were manipulated, combined and reanimated in Flame to achieve the desired effect.
“Not only did the cloud have to look realistic, but so did its shadow. In shots where the shadow of the cloud was seen, our team created a version of the shot in Flame which was relit to be entirely in shadow. We then used mattes from 3D to wipe between the natural and shadowed plates to achieve the perfect look. Matte paintings were also used to place the fire sequence into the heart of the city along with extensive augmentation of the scale and ferocity of the fire in Flame.”
According to Bussell, “further touches were added to perfect the believable feel the whole spot needed. This included CGI seagulls, smoke, fire, a ventilation system on the rooftop, pigeons and even a few extra buildings.”
Bussell and Davies found “Cloud” to be a highly challenging and complicated job that needed to look entirely photo-realistic, pushing The Mill artisans to come up with new bespoke ways of working, resulting in a successfully simple piece.
Super Sunday This month’s Super Bowl also had its share of noteworthy VFX spot work. At an average cost of $3.8 million per :30 slot, Big Game spots carried big pressure, with high risk and reward stakes. Among the standout fare was Kia’s “Space Babies” directed by Jake Scott of RSA Films for David&Goliath, with visual effects by Method Studios. The spot has as its catalyst the classic question posed by a child: “Where do babies come from?” Caught off guard, his dad concocts a wondrous tale of “Babylandia” as a sanitized answer to satisfy his curious son. To visualize this mythical planet, the Method coterie of talent developed CGI environments, rocket ships and assorted infant creatures, including penguins, elephants, pandas, giraffes and hippos, with versions of the creatures dressed in spacesuits.
“The quantity of special effects called for was a bit overwhelming at first,” said Method VFX supervisor Andy Boyd, recalling when he saw the original boards. “We had full CG environments, rockets, CG animals of all varieties. We took the approach we normally do, which is to break the job down into different areas. We formed a creature team, a space team, an environmental team to make the spot more manageable.”
Several factors made the ambitious task less daunting. For one, Method had done extensive CG creature work for the client in the form of the last two Kia “Hamster” commercials. “The team, our tools and techniques were already in place. We were starting from an advanced place,” related Boyd who also cited Method’s established working relationship with the team at David&Goliath. “Based on or working with them on this account before, they trusted us to get stuff done, giving us space to do what we needed to do. There was a mutual respect with our team members enjoying them as clients, going the extra mile. Trust is important, especially on a job like this where the first time they see a finished version is right before delivery.”
Boyd added that director Scott was a major positive mainstay. “He’s a fantastic illustrator,” said Boyd of Scott. “He drew storyboards at the very beginning. He could draw out his ideas so well and those boards helped put everyone on track. It was those illustrations that I think drew the agency to him. There wound up being strong similarities between his boards and the finished spot. Jake had a strong idea of what he envisioned and stuck to the plan, helping us get a lot of good work done in a short period of time. This was our first job with Jake and I’m hoping we have many more.”
During post, Scott had to travel and was in the U.K. for a stretch, noted Boyd. But he still remained proactively involved in the work. “He would call and spend two hours on the phone going through each shot, shot by shot, sharing where he wanted to take the material,” said Boyd. “He would come up with the simplest changes that would make the work twice as good.”
Boyd shared an example of a Scott-suggested change relative to “the shot of the animals overlooking the launchpad as the babies walk to the rockets (a shot made up of about eight filmed plates, 20 CG animals and CG background). The shot was feeling flat and missing something. Jake said we should expose for the inside allowing the outside to bloom and be really bright–this simple treatment really helped the spot.”
All the while, Method maintained a delicate balance, creating elements that were realistic while having the distinct sense of something imagined, a meshing of two dynamics essential to the story. (For a full rundown of Method credits, see this week’s quarterly VFX/Animation Top Ten Chart.)
Another Super Bowl spot that earned inclusion on the SHOOT Chart was “Morning Run” for the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) directed by Peter Berg of Pony Show Entertainment for Deutsch NY, with effects by The Mill NY. The spot stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a father who goes great lengths to make sure his kids have milk and its essential protein and nutrients in the morning. When he sees that the milk has run out, he runs out to get another gallon. That single minded purpose has him ignoring emergency situations–from a cat caught up in a tree to stampeding zoo animals–along the way. The :30 plays like a theatrical blockbuster with chaos breaking out seemingly everywhere and “The Rock” apologetically declining to come to the rescue as his sole mission is to catch up with a milk truck. Once he’s back in the apartment, his kids with milk, he gets back to his work as a superhero, knocking out a space alien trying to climb through the window. He’s headed back outside to thwart an alien spaceship invasion and varied other threats to our way of life.
Charlotte Arnold, The Mill’s VFX producer on “Morning Run,” laid out the diverse elements the project entailed. “Firstly, there was the CG giraffe and rhino,” she said. “We also added additional atmospheric elements throughout the circus scenes including smoke, heat haze and flames. We had to do some sky replacement that would hint to the impending doom of the alien takeover without giving too much away at the same time. Then, there was the big hero end shot. We shot The Rock in the apartment and then replaced everything behind him. This consisted of building the city with a mixture of CG in the foreground and matte paintings in the background. The ‘Mothership’ is a matte painting that we did at 3K and Corey Brown, The Mill’s 2D lead artist, then added lots of atmospheric elements to bring it to life: pulsating lights, steam vents, shadows over the clouds. The attack ships are also CG, and the main building explosion on the left was built with CG FX and a 2D fireball element on top. We used Massive to fill the streets with running people, added CG cars, and even shot some Mill people on our rooftop here in NY and composited them onto the roofs of some of the other buildings. Corey and I are both in there; I get caught in the rubble of an exploding building…Corey saves himself though! Once all these CG elements were in place, the shot was brought to life with the final 2D elements of smoke and explosions to fill out the scene.” (For a rundown of credits on “Morning Run,” see SHOOT’s VFX/Animation Top Ten Chart in this issue.)
