Computer Graphics World

April-May-June 2021

Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1358125

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 32 of 35

a p r i l • m ay • j u n e 2 0 2 1 c g w 3 1 say, 'I want an elephant to speak,' to emit a sound – and then we would go through reference material and find out how they [trumpet]. Or how giraffes sprint or interact with each other," explains Helman. "There's a shot of the giraffes right before they sprint, and he wanted them to look at the actor who was talking before running off." "Those kinds of things are precious, and many may not notice them. But that is the kind of detail-oriented director Fincher is," Helman continues. When audiences first see the monkeys, it in a long lens shot, and initially only one monkey is visible. Then they are more visible on a wider shot, and on the third or fourth shot, the Marion Davies character is talking to them and they are reacting in kind, keeping with the three-part structure. The same goes for the elephants and, likewise, the giraffes. To create the menagerie, ILM used its Academy Award-winning BlockParty rigging system as well as its creature dynamics system, a proprietary muscle and hair simu- lation system within its Zeno framework. In this case, however, the group used a "light" version so that Fincher could direct the individual muscles interactively. "You never want to do anything that takes you out of the story. Everything is very, very subtle, especially for David's finely honed eye," says Helman. All the animals were backlit, so the artists had to be especially cognizant of the textures. So, which animal presented the most challenges? "Each had its own moments of complexity," recalls Helman. The Architecture As with the animals, Fincher was equally specific as to what he wanted in terms of the architecture and detail of the Victorian-style animal cages. ILM artists studied period refer- ences of zoos from the 1920s, '30s, and '40s – which were very different in terms of style and structure than they are today. In the elephant enclosure, there were no practical elements; there was just a field with short grass, which the artists replaced with video of grass swaying in the wind, shot by Helman during the pandemic at a location near his home. The artists also built and aged a digital Victorian fence in the enclosure. When filming the monkeys, there was a low wall behind the actors with Victorian fencing, and the artists had to insert the ornate digital cage behind that, which, as Helman notes, was problematic because they were using monochrome photography and no bluescreen or greenscreen could be used. "Everything had to be shot with a really bright screen placed behind the Victorian fence. And then we rotoscoped and used a luminance mask for that," he explains. This required intricate rotoscoping, and due to the placement of the monkey cage, the trees and vegetation had to be digitally replaced so they were visible through the bars of the cage. Filming Challenges While Huntington gardens seemed to be a perfect stand-in for the Hearst estate, it did present some issues in terms of bringing in the heavy equipment needed to light the scene traditionally. Instead, this night sequence was filmed during the daytime, and since it was black-and-white, ILM had to make sky changes, as there was great emphasis on the sky and clouds. As Helman notes, Fincher has a specific day-for-night look, with a very high moon that is never in the frame, as well as backlighting all the bright sky. That was the particular vision ILM had to match in its VFX shots when replac- ing the sky in the sequence. Moreover, there was a lot of vignetting and lens layering to better match the look of Citizen Kane itself. "Fincher also has this deep understanding of depth of field, and sometimes he would shoot with really wide lenses so when he comes around with the camera, the horizon changes. We had to correct that because while he liked the field of view, he wasn't a fan of the distortion," recalls Helman, noting it took some time to map those lenses and fig- ure out why they were behaving that way. "He also knows when the depth of field changes since some shots were traveling with the actors [as they walked]. And at some point he [moves] to the animals and then back to the actors. We had to get those right because he immediately picks up on those." Meanwhile, ILM inserted spherical lights in all the shots for the day-to-night, and had to be cognizant of the lens flaring because of the period grain structure. "Just the typical visual effects headaches you get that come from matching your work with something that has been shot," Helman says. Another hurdle resulted from the team having to work from home during COVID. At work, the artists can see the progress on a 60-by-40-foot screen in 4K (the movie was shot in 8K), but at home, it was difficult for them to see exactly what the director ILM created the elephants and other animals for the Hearst zoo in Mank. Images courtesy Netflix.

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of Computer Graphics World - April-May-June 2021