- il y a 11 ans
Performance capture, plans 100% numérique, écran vert/bleu ou encore explosions pratiques : tous les procédés ayant été utilisés pour réaliser les effets spéciaux de Star Wars 7 sont illustrés en longueur dans cette vidéo de 25 minutes !
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00:00This week on FX Guide TV
00:03We head to San Francisco to sit down at ILM to look at the Oscar nominated film The Force Awakens.
00:09Later we look at the new courses on offer at fxphd.com
00:14This and more coming up next
00:20Hello and welcome to FX Guide TV
00:23And yes I'll give you one guess what film we are covering this week.
00:28Yes that's right we are covering the most anticipated film of the year, Star Wars Episode 7 The Force Awakens.
00:36Everything you heard is true. All of it.
00:39So let's join John Montgomery in San Fran at ILM as he discusses the effects behind this most incredible film
00:46from director J.J. Abrams.
00:48So now obviously you've worked with J.J. on how many? Five films now?
00:52I've done four movies with him.
00:56Mission Impossible 3, the two tracks and now Star Wars.
00:59I did a little bit on Super 8 but you know it was in the pre-production phase.
01:06Well we know in talking to you in the past that it puts a lot of importance on practical effects
01:10and bringing stuff as real as possible.
01:12And how did that lead the process on this film?
01:17I think when we have a certain way, I think we've developed a certain way of working over the years
01:24which is really about trying to photograph as much as possible.
01:28And obviously I mean in reference to you know the sort of the practical side that means that we're trying
01:36to capture anything that we can in camera.
01:37And in truth he's very aware of what you can do in the digital world and what you can do
01:45in the post shoot.
01:47And if anything I have tried to, I think when you do an effect, the foundation of the effect is
01:56the way that you shoot it in the first place clearly.
02:00And I've always been a big proponent of trying to capture anything that you do in the right kind of
02:04light.
02:05And I think I've even mentioned this before on your blog.
02:11But the idea to me is that if you can do that, then you have the right start for anything,
02:18the right foundation for the work.
02:19People clearly wanted some kind of return to the sort of the sort of the DNA of those first three
02:29movies.
02:30And if you think about the way that they, you know, the environment that they were shot in, they were
02:35clearly shot at a time where it was harder to do visual effects.
02:40Just the process of doing anything was more difficult.
02:45And so invariably they tended to build sets where they could, they didn't rely upon, you know, set extensions or
02:51something like that.
02:52But the real difference to me, I think, is that if you, if you do have a set, then clearly
02:58you can light it.
02:59And you, if you can light a set, then that means that you, you inherently have something, something for the
03:05actors to respond to for the, for the, for the sort of the template of any work that you do
03:10is sort of set just by the,
03:11by the very nature of building something.
03:15And so we really set out to build as much as we could in camera and to go to as
03:19many locations we could in, as, as we could and photograph as much as we could in camera.
03:24What that really means is though, that, you know, you're still obviously doing a Star Wars movie and it would
03:31be foolish to sort of ignore the sort of the contemporary technology that's available to a modern filmmaker.
03:36So we just tried to, in simple terms, to plot the most efficient way of doing anything that we could
03:43and to build as much as we could.
03:46Now, quite often that really means that you're not really building very much or that you're not really capturing a
03:51lot in camera, but you're making that attempt, you're making that process, try to, trying to make it work.
03:55The technology that's available to you is just mind blowing really, you know, even for me, I work in this
04:01business.
04:02I'm shocked at, you know, how much we were, I think to just blur the line between, you know, the
04:08reality of shooting something and the stuff that we did later.
04:11And a great example of that really is BB-8, you know, where we built a, you know, Neil Scanlon
04:18and I had a lot of discussions about the approach to doing that droid.
04:26And we, we set a sort of template, we had a number of different ways that you could control him,
04:33but there's a certain point where you just literally cannot do what you want to do with that droid.
04:37And by building it and giving it a personality and a character and allowing the actors to sort of react
04:45to it in camera means that they understand what it is that you're talking about and understand his performance.
04:51And by having, you know, a puppeteer operate the droid, it meant that he had a personality.
04:56And now the actors can see that personality a lot of the time, but it doesn't mean that all of
05:01the work is done, you know, in camera.
05:03It just means that he has a singular personality, I think.
05:08But once that was set, you know, we scanned him and we took, you know, we did all the reference
05:13pictures and all that kind of stuff, of course.
05:15And we built our version of it, which is probably, you know, represents a third or something like that of
05:21the work that, you know, you'll see BB-8 in.
05:23But even I sometimes would just look at the shots and couldn't remember, you know, which ones were real and
05:29which ones weren't.
05:30And that really is the benefit of having gone through that process because you just sort of establish this personality
05:37by building.
05:38You go through all the processes of building the real thing and by doing that, you define the character so
05:44well.
05:44Yeah, absolutely. You know, he's such a cryoplaser. He's great. What a great character, you know.
05:50When you think about it, he's just a ball with this, you know, head on top and he doesn't have
05:55an eyelid or anything, you know, we can use to sort of, you know, get emotions out of him.
06:01But it's amazing how much, you know, the puppeteers on set were able to actually bring the character out of
06:08that puppet and really breathe life into him and make him such a lovable character.
06:13I mean, he steals the show in a way. And basically it started off that we're building the puppet in
06:20London and they built it in the computer in a CAD model so they could actually mill the parts for
06:25the actual puppet itself.
06:27And I said, I was on the show very early on and I said, can I grab that CAD model?
06:32And so they sent it over and I sort of chopped it up in mire and rigged it.
06:36And, you know, it was one of those things where a lot of sort of ideas came out of that,
06:40you know, simple animation tests, only had a day, you know, to do something.
06:45And, you know, one of the things that came out of that was the little antenna that wiggles, you know,
06:49I decided that it would be kind of fun if his antennas were very sort of flexible and wiggled a
06:55lot.
06:55So I animated it wiggling everywhere I went. So JJ enjoyed that and said, let's just let's do that.
07:01And one of the things I didn't do was make him weave as much as he does in the movie
07:05at the beginning.
07:06When he moves, he really weaves from left to right. And seeing the CG, it looked like he was really
07:11sort of, you know, he was moving, but he wasn't sort of wiggling side to side in the CG test.
07:16And JJ's, you know, that's something that came out of that. He said, what if we do that? You know,
07:19we actually make him, it just looks so sort of, you know, like, you know, sort of wooden in a
07:25way when he's moving from A to B.
07:27Let's have him weave around, you know. He's just, you know, just how to make him cute. And he is
07:32such a cute character.
07:33How do you convey emotion? You mentioned that.
07:37Yeah, I mean, it's basically, you know, the position of his head on the ball, you know, a lot of
07:42the times when he's sad, you know, obviously the head will sort of droop forward on the ball itself, you
07:47know, to convey that he's sad, you know, or popping the head back on the ball, you know, he's excited,
07:53you know, and interested in the head movements, snappy head movements, left, right, you know, he's excited, he's looking around.
07:58Those kind of little things, you know, really sort of help convey character for him. You know, he does this
08:05little fun little thing on the Falcon that's shot practically, of course, where he peeks around the corner, you know,
08:10and he sort of rolls out first and then the head comes over and looks around the corner. Such a
08:15cool moment, you know.
08:17A lot of times, you know, it's surprising how much CG is in the movie of BB-8, you know,
08:22there was a lot of things that they couldn't do, even though they built, I think, three or maybe four
08:27different styles of model to puppet to move him around.
08:31There was a remote control one that they could drive remotely. There was another one that was probably the most
08:37common one where you would push him with, you know, the apparatus, the sticks, basically, the controls, quite away from
08:46BB-8, like four or six feet away from it, and they could puppeteer his head and roll the ball
08:50physically.
08:52Another one where he's sort of still on the spot, and, you know, he doesn't actually move, and that's for
08:57more hero moments. So there's quite a few different styles of puppet. And then we had to sort of tie
09:03into that in CG, and it's amazing that the quality of the rendering is just unbelievable when you see him
09:10composited, you know, in a shot.
09:12It might cut away from a shot that is practical and go straight to a close-up, and the close
09:17-up CG. And I forget now, when I look at it, I go, is that, did we animate that? Or
09:22is that, is that the puppet? Or, it's very hard to tell.
09:28There are stories about what happened.
09:32It's true.
09:37All of it.
09:42You know, we started almost two and a half years ago, and one of the very first things we were
09:45able to do was start building the Falcon, because we knew it would be in the picture. Even before the
09:48script was finalized, we knew there'd be a Millennium Falcon.
09:51So, we had the wonderful job of starting to build this thing, and as you say, one of the amazing
09:57things about it is we know it so well. Everyone knows what the Falcon looks like, but if you really
10:02sit people down in a room and start talking about what the Falcon looks like, it's sort of this collective
10:06hive mind of what the Falcon may look like.
10:08You know, and there's a five-foot model from episode four, there's a three-foot model from episode five. There
10:14was a full-scale build for all three of the first movies, and our movie episode seven.
10:18So, when it's your job to actually build a new, not a new, but a representation of that vehicle, there
10:25isn't actually a Falcon. It seems like there is, but there isn't.
10:28So, you have to start figuring out what you need your Falcon to look like.
10:32And it led to lots of long conversations you wouldn't believe about, you know, what should the gray value, basic
10:40gray value, be of the Falcon?
10:41And what you're talking about is miniatures that were shot on film on stages.
10:45So, even if you look at the miniature of the Falcon, and the white paint is a certain value, while
10:50on stage it was lit a certain way, and it's different from shot to shot.
10:53You know, and we would start doing test renders of our Falcon, and you'd sort of show people, and they'd
10:58say, nah, it looks too white.
11:00And someone else would say, nah, it looks too gray.
11:03And again, so dialing in that collective opinion of what this thing should look like took, you know, two years
11:09of fiddling with it, really.
11:12And the process started with partly a discussion on what should the Bible be, and we really decided that it's
11:22the five-foot episode for Falcon.
11:24And partly it's because we went to go see it, see this model, and it's the most beautiful thing you've
11:29ever seen, this thing.
11:30It's really a high point, I think, in effects, miniature building, and even industrial design.
11:36It's just a dynamite object, and everyone agrees it's dynamite.
11:39You look at it and think that's just gorgeous.
11:41So, you know, we want our Falcon to look like that.
11:44You know, we scanned it, we photographed it, and then you take that data.
11:48But our needs are, not only do you need it to look like that, but we get closer to it.
11:54And talking about multiple use cases, we also acknowledge that in a VR experience, someone might walk up to this
11:59thing and look at a bolt on the door.
12:04So there's a lot of talk about how far to go with detail.
12:07We went pretty far.
12:08It's a remarkably detailed model, our Falcon.
12:11It was a luxury to actually go there to study the original miniature and design the, actually, that's another key
12:18word to be always, design language.
12:20We wanted to make sure the design language of this movie is literally coming from the original, the trilogy.
12:26So we studied, you know, what the design of these shapes look like, and then also one of the luxury
12:33was the Paul Houston, who was the original, the member of the crew of the Star Wars, still works here.
12:39So we oftentimes went to talk to him, you know, what was the thought process and how you came up
12:45with this design.
12:45And always we looked up the Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston's original sketch and production design to incorporate what we
12:54designed in the shapes.
12:57Now, you know, again, going to the archive and studying the miniature, there are a lot of detail that we
13:03didn't even see or we didn't even know.
13:09And we tried to incorporate those, you know, the level, the details in what we created in the CG.
13:16I think in the early chatter on the web where there is no CGI in the film is actually a
13:20testament.
13:20That's actually quite a compliment.
13:21Well, that's the big thing is that you feel like there's a real responsibility here of making sure that that
13:29idea and that aesthetic that you don't want people to feel the CG that you're adding.
13:34And it's not that a lot of this is invisible effects.
13:37This isn't, you know, a movie where you can have invisible effects.
13:41Obviously, everyone kind of looks at this and goes, OK, I understand a lot of this is created.
13:45But you want to have that feeling where they're watching it and they start to forget that they should be
13:50questioning things and they start to stop analyzing every little bit and they just sort of go with it.
13:55And that's where I think, you know, the real challenge comes in is getting people to forget that they're watching
13:59visual effects.
14:00I think we've done 2100 visual effects shots.
14:05OK, yeah, it's a massive amount of work, you know, and I think you can't, you know, you just can't
14:13do this kind of movie without a huge, you can do, you can, you know, I'm very happy.
14:20If people honestly believe that a lot of the stuff was done in camera, I think that's fantastic.
14:25And they believe all of those things are really happening.
14:28I think that's wonderful, you know.
14:29But the truth is, it's just a massive amount of work, yeah.
14:32Now, as far as digital characters on set, you touched briefly about the ability of actors to actually interact with
14:38these two.
14:38What was that process of doing digital characters on set and filming so that the actors would have something to
14:43react to?
14:44Well, we, you know, we had a number of, I mean, real, well, you know, characters that, you know, we
14:52had Andy Serkis, you know, played one character, Snoke.
14:55And in his case, that, you know, the character itself was much bigger than, you know, that he was realized
15:03on set.
15:03So the way that we did that was we just put him always at the right height, you know, when
15:07he was interacting with the actors.
15:08And we did a whole bunch of, you know, motion capture on Andy, strangely enough, you know, he's the sort
15:14of the master of that.
15:15And then we had Lupita playing a character, too.
15:20And Lupita's character was actually smaller than, you know, she was a smaller person.
15:25But, and so we used, or, you know, we used a lot of different techniques to allow her to play
15:32her part on set and interact with all the actors and, you know, get all the kind of eye lines
15:38and reactions correct.
15:39But we did do a lot, and we did a lot of motion capture with her, too.
15:44Lupita had never done anything like that before, you know, the motion capture side of it and the technology side
15:50of it.
15:51So she was a little bit intimidated.
15:53Who wouldn't be, you know, to walk onto a set and be that person who's dressed up in the funny
15:57suit, you know, when everyone else is in sort of costume, traditional costume,
16:01and she's walking around with, you know, gray suit with bands on them and, you know, a big full head
16:07rig, you know, I mean, it is quite intimidating.
16:09So Andy's really used to that, you know, I mean, he is the king of that.
16:12So really he was there to help her and talk her through it and, you know, and get her comfortable
16:18in that situation.
16:19And obviously he did a great job working with her, you know, as well as JJ and just making her
16:25feel like she could give the performance, you know,
16:28and look through all this technology, you know, and just really give a pure performance to bring that character to
16:35life.
16:36What tools do you use in-house to actually help her that way?
16:38Were there stuff that she could visualize her character or make easier facial capture that's without all the stuff in
16:44the way?
16:45You know, it's one of those things where it's, you know, sometimes too much information can sort of cloud their
16:50judgment of what their character should be.
16:52So I think JJ really wanted to, you know, refrain from giving her too much information.
16:57I mean, there was definitely a maquette.
17:00They actually built a little maquette of her character and just so they could see the skin tone and, you
17:06know,
17:06how the skin would reflect light and the costume and all those sort of little details.
17:12But, you know, he didn't really want to show her moving, you know, we didn't do any real-time motion
17:18capture or anything like that on the set.
17:20I mean, we could have gone down that route, but, you know, we wanted to, he wanted to her to
17:25give the performance
17:26and for us to actually make that performance come to life on the screen.
17:30So did you end up using anything like similar to the FaceShift technology that you have developed for years here
17:37internally?
17:37Yeah, I mean, FaceShift is a great, fun piece of software and that was definitely sort of used on set
17:43to just see, you know,
17:45how somebody's performance could be put onto a character.
17:48But, you know, obviously for the movie we have to really sort of take every nuance of her performance
17:54and map it onto the CG character.
17:59And then we need to be able to manipulate that after the fact, you know, with the animation department
18:05having an input, you know, to accentuate any sort of expression or change something along the line.
18:12So we have our own system here, in-house system to deal with the motion capture.
18:17We do the Medusa system, so the Disney Medusa system.
18:20So we can actually capture all of her expressions in a camera array.
18:25So we can actually build all the shapes that are needed to go into that system.
18:30So then we put all the markers on her face and we have the stereo head rig and it captures
18:35her performance.
18:36And then basically that information is then solved into the R shape library.
18:41And then that is sort of comes through with the creature in Maya.
18:46And then you get a whole bunch of sliders for all the different shapes which are being driven by that
18:51capture, by that solve.
18:54And then the great thing about it is, you know, you can go in there and you can tweak all
18:58those curves
18:58and you can make, you know, push an expression, you know, or, you know, change the eye tweak, you know,
19:05the eye direction or, you know,
19:07all that kind of stuff we can do after the fact.
19:09In case, you know, obviously in case JJ says, you know, I just need a bit more at this moment,
19:14we can go in there and do it.
19:27Yeah, we had this great moment.
19:29And this is something that, you know, sometimes you have these ideas or JJ has these ideas anyway that are,
19:35you know, we're going to kind of survive.
19:37And I think that that idea of the X-wings coming across the water was something that they came up
19:42with early on in the script.
19:44And it was one of those things that you go, okay, that is such a cool moment.
19:47You know, that's going to be in there.
19:49And so we started working early on with Rick Hankins, our effects, one of our effects leads, who was coming
19:55up with, he sort of built our sim engine.
19:58And at the same time, he was one of the artists working on some of these shots.
20:02And it was such a striking image, you know, the thought of an X-wing, first of all, in a
20:07daytime sort of atmosphere,
20:10which I don't think is the thing that we've really ever seen before in a Star Wars film.
20:13And just flying across the water like that and having those huge rooster tails of water.
20:17And, of course, we looked at references of everything we could, cigarette boats, speed boats, and all of that.
20:22Well, and also we have the Blue Angels, you know, who practice right here outside ILM.
20:27So we were able to actually ask some of the artists, hey, send us your best photographs of these things
20:31and just checking out how those things look coming close to the water.
20:36So we had a really good idea of what we wanted this to look like.
20:39But, of course, once you have that reference, you have to sort of get that behavior out of the water.
20:43And so Rick spent a lot of time, you know, working with Dan Pearson, our effect supervisor,
20:48and just sort of trying to get the rooster tails to behave the way we wanted.
20:53And then there's the art aspect of the whole thing.
20:55And I think one thing that people probably don't even realize is that we started doing some of those early
21:00teaser shots.
21:01And, you know, things are still a little bit fluid in those early days.
21:04And so we worked a lot with Yannick Dussault, our art director,
21:10who kind of came up with this sort of visual look of what these things would look like.
21:14And we were sort of playing exactly to his artwork in terms of making those first early teaser shots.
21:21And then as we got closer and closer to the movie, it became more and more technically correct.
21:25So a lot of it was, you know, a buildup from, hey, here's the visual guide of how you want
21:29these rooster tails
21:31and these plumes to look, and to the end, which is, okay, now they're physically actually doing
21:35what they should have been doing from the get-go.
21:37But you kind of work your way into the physics of it all, and you sort of start with that
21:41artistic idea.
21:42I think that approach really paid off because it sort of set us up for a beautiful-looking scene, you
21:49know.
21:50And I think when you see that scene in the film, I think it's one of those really striking sort
21:53of like awesome visual moments.
21:55So where are we at regarding the state of deep compositing ILM and Star Wars?
22:01Well, I mean, I guess the last time we probably spoke, it was an emerging technology.
22:07And now it's everywhere.
22:10Pretty much every effects pass that we do comes with a deep component.
22:15Every lighting pass that we get comes with a deep component.
22:18We have something called deep IDs, where we're able to isolate all the geometry and using a custom deep pass.
22:25Isolate that and tune materials based on sort of their particle ID, or actually their, I guess it would be
22:31their geom ID.
22:33But it's everywhere.
22:34And all the shots that we're doing now, any large shot, whether it's the X-wings over the water, buzzing
22:40the water,
22:41or whether it's some hero shots at the end of the movie, which those are all done deep.
22:46Or they're at least, all the explosions are deep.
22:48And then we sort of work, you know, two chains where there's a deep, sort of a deep stream and
22:53nuke and a non-deep stream nuke.
22:55And they're sort of seamlessly working, well, not seamlessly sometimes, but they're working back and forth.
22:59And so everything we're doing has a huge component of deep workflow at this point.
23:04What's the decision in doing comp deep versus more traditional?
23:08Oh, well, you know, I think at this point, we don't even make the choice to do it traditionally anymore.
23:14It's just so much easier for us to do it deep.
23:17And the question really becomes of whether the compositor will pre-comp the deep holdouts on their own early, you
23:23know, early,
23:24or whether they'll keep it live deep.
23:26And that's the thing that we, that's the thing internally that we struggle with a lot, is should we keep
23:31on working on this live deep?
23:33Because it's extremely heavy to work that way.
23:35Or should we just say, you know what, I'm going to pre-comp everything.
23:39It's going to be much simpler as a bunch of overs.
23:41And then at least if I need to, if one of the passes changes, I'll just take the hit and
23:46I'll run, you know, four hours of pre-comps to recreate all the holdouts.
23:50So that's still less time than it would be to send us back.
23:52Sometimes it is.
23:52Sometimes you don't have that choice.
23:54Yeah.
23:54Right.
23:55So, and what about some of the particle stuff?
23:57Is that using your own?
23:58The particle stuff, it's primarily using what's in nuke.
24:01So like embers and snow and, you know, there's obviously all the stuff that's done.
24:05And we will create setups and check those in into our, into our sort of proprietary back-end setup.
24:11And we'll have that available for other people to use.
24:14And they'll, you know, obviously, you know, one of the things that's great about ILM is that pretty much every
24:17shot that we work on has a, has a layout camera.
24:20And so that gives us a flexibility to basically place, you know, whether it's an embers or snow or even
24:28canned explosions, things like that.
24:29And we'll, we'll have those available for us.
24:31Well, so is that a combination of, is that nuke's built-in particle system or original photographic elements?
24:37Because I know you guys have a huge library of those or both.
24:39I would say that we use practical elements whenever we can.
24:43Yeah.
24:43And then the particle systems within nuke, if, if we can't find an element, you know, there's a lot of
24:48times when the camera moves too much or we don't have, it doesn't have the right lens or whatever.
24:54And you have to use, you have to use nuke's particle system.
24:57And it's not a, it's not a bad option, but I always think that the, the practical is always better
25:02for me.
25:02I mean, I think there's a, there's reality to it.
25:04And there's so much complexity that happens in the practical elements in terms of, you know, the, whether it's the
25:09fall off of the embers or the snow or, you know, focus or whatever it is.
25:13We always choose elements first.
25:15Is there something similar to lightsaber?
25:16Is there a language or vocabulary for processing?
25:19Oh my God.
25:20I mean, what do you, to maintain that look between various artists?
25:24Well, there's huge vocabulary to lightsabers.
25:26I'm not sure if that was the question you were asking.
25:28And then, and it's actually a, it's not a easy thing to get.
25:32You know, the, the, the brightness, the color of the core, the fall off, the amount of fritzing, the amount
25:38of a little, you know, Kilo Ren's got his own saber, obviously.
25:43The little, little sparklets that, that pop off those, those kinds of things.
25:47Those are, you know, we have effectively a style guide that we're trying to get.
25:51And you have to do it.
25:51You have to enforce it over hundreds of shots.
25:54So it's, um.
25:55Hundreds of shots, multiple locations.
25:57Hundreds, multiple locations, hundreds of shots.
26:00It's a mixture between the old lightsaber, Luke's saber, and, um, the new one.
26:05So there's a lot, there's a lot going on.
26:08Yeah.
26:09There's a lot going on.
26:22There's a lot going on.