A lot of this is pretty techy stuff, but it does show this guys attention to realistic detail, which will be great to have on the Rings movies. I can’t wait to see what they cook up. Personally I’m dying to see how they do Treebeard.
This is a good deal of the article, as Rygiel is commented throughout the whole thing. The dog they are referring to in the first half is Oddball, the spotless dalmation. The mag goes on to say…
“The actual spot removal technigue was one-part procedural and one-part by-hand artistry. ‘The first step was to take a shot through a procedural, which would get rid of any stright-on spots,’ explained Rygiel. ‘we utilized combustion by Discreet Logic, which could track indivdual spots, clone a white area next to each one, and fill it in procedurally. As long as the spot was side-on, pointed toward the camera, the process was fairly simple; but as soon as the dog started moving – which meant that the spots were moving and changing perspective – it became more complicated.'”
“Nintey-five percent of the spot removal shots required a second, hand-painting phase. Compositing supervisor Brian Leach was in charge of determining which shots should go through procedural, and which should go diriectly to Sandy Houston’s paint department. ‘The challenge was not so much in the indivual approach for each shot,’ explained Leach, ‘as it was just the sheer number of shots we had to deliver.'”
“‘As a general rule,’ Rygiel noted, ‘they pushed all of the shots through procedural – becuase any shot that procedural could get rid of would help. Then the spots that were not straight-on to camera would be hand-painted out. We’d get spots piling up on the edge of the dog’s body, for exampleforming a kind of black line, just because of the perspective. It took an artist to paint those out and maintain consistency from frame to frame so the hair didn’t chatter like something out of the original Mighty Joe Young. For each spot, we had to find a patch of fur next to it that was the same color, then clone it and track it, making sure all of the hairs moved in the same direction. It had to be perfect.'”
“The dog’s ears, often flopping around wildly throughout a shot, were especially problematic, requiring additional steps beyond procedural and paint. ‘We would rotoscope the ears utilizing Elastic Reality,’ said Rygiel, ‘then warp textures onto them, adding back in shadows, and all the correct lighting. If the ears were moved too much in the frame for Elastic Reality to handle, we’d model and animate 3d CG ears, then track them to plate.'”
“One of the worst spot removal scenes, in terms of level of difficulty, was one in which Oddball rolls around on a copying machine, hoping to pick up some balck ink that will give her a faux spotted coat. ‘The dog they used for that scene was particularly black,’ Rygiel remarked. ‘When when I saw it on the set I thought, ‘the crew back home is going to kill me when they see this dog.’ Not only did it have a lot of black on it, it was rolling around all over the place. In most of the other shots, the dogs would stand there and maybe turn a little bit. But this one was flopping around as if it was on a rotisserie – which meant the spot perspectives were changing all over the place.'”
“In a handful of cases, te spot removals were so difficult, the effects team began to think it would be easier and more effective to replace the live dog – or at least a portion of it, such as it’s head – with a computer animated model. ‘Rather than beat our heads against a wall, trying to remove the spots in those situations,’ Rygiel commented, ‘we thought, ‘Why not just replace the live dog with a CG dog?’ We considered it seriously after we started getting plates back from production that had these really black dogs in them.'”
The article states that Maya was used in creating the CG dog and that they refrenced dog photos for a realistic match. That CG oddball got extreme closeup shots. The model was devised by building in layers ie. bones, muscles, skin, all from photos and x-rays and video footage, so that the CG dog moved and acted like a real dalmation.
Pretty impressive stuff.
Originally appeared in Cinefex magazine – number 84 by editor Jody Duncan for Cinefex.
The Thin Red Line (1998) UK Psycho (1998) UK A Perfect Murder (1998) UK The Portrait of a Lady (1996) The Prophecy (1995) The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995) American Yakuza (1994) Ruby Cairo (1993) UK Carlito’s Way (1993) UK The Young Americans (1993) UK Young Guns II (1990) UK Fresh Horses (1988) UK
Liv Tyler (Arwen)
Plunkett & Macleane (1999) UK Cookie’s Fortune (1999) Can’t Hardly Wait (1998) UK Armageddon (1998) UK That Thing You Do! (1996)
Ian Holm (Bilbo)
eXistenZ (1999) Alice Through the Looking Glass (1999) (TV) The Fifth Element (1997) UK The Sweet Hereafter (1997) Dance with a Stranger (1985) Chariots of Fire (1981) Time Bandits (1981) S.O.S. Titanic (1979) (TV) Robin and Marian (1976) Shout at the Devil (1976) A Severed Head (1971) UK Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)
Sean Bean (Boromir)
Ronin (1998) Shopping (1994) UK Patriot Games (1992) UK Stormy Monday (1988)
Hugo Weaving (Elrond)
The Matrix (1999) UK Babe: Pig in the City (1998) UK Bedrooms & Hallways (1998) The Interview (1998) The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
Miranda Otto (Eowyn)
The Jack Bull (1999) (TV) UK The Thin Red Line (1998) UK
Elijah Wood (Fodo)
The Faculty (1998) UK Avalon (1990) UK Internal Affairs (1990)
Cate Blanchett (Galadriel)
Pushing Tin (1999) An Ideal Husband (1999) UK
Ian Mckellen (Gandalf)
X-Men (2000) Gods and Monsters (1998) Apt Pupil (1998) UK Jack and Sarah (1995) I’ll Do Anything (1994) UK Last Action Hero (1993) Six Degrees of Separation (1993) UK
Secret of the Andes (1998) UK Cats Don’t Dance (1997) The Protector (1997) Bloodsport 3 (1996) The Great White Hype (1996) The Unnamable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter (1993) Perry Mason: The Case of the Fatal Framing (1992) (TV) Victor/Victoria (1982) Sword of the Valiant (1982) UK
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
Sean Astin (Sam)
Icebreaker (1999) Kimberly (1999) Bulworth (1998) UK Dish Dogs (1998) Safe Passage (1994) UK Encino Man (1992) UK Where the Day Takes You (1992) UK Toy Soldiers (1991) UK The War of the Roses (1989) UK The Goonies (1985)
Christopher Lee (Saruman)
Sleepy Hollow (1999) UK Jinnah (1998) UK Death Train (1993) (TV) UK Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) UK Mio min Mio (1987) UK Safari 3000 (1982) The Last Unicorn (1982) Bear Island (1979) UK 1941 (1979) UK Arabian Adventure (1979) Return from Witch Mountain (1978) UK Airport ’77 (1977) The Four Musketeers (1974) UK The Creeping Flesh (1973) Nothing But the Night (1972) One More Time (1970) Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968) UK Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968) The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966) UK The Face of Fu Manchu (1965) UK The Gorgon (1964) UK The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) Private’s Progress (1956) UK Moulin Rouge (1952) My Brother’s Keeper (1948) UK Scott of the Antarctic (1948)
Bernard Hill (Theoden)
True Crime (1999) UK A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999) UK Shirley Valentine (1989) UK Gandhi (1982) UK
Brad Dourif (Wormtongue)
Urban Legend (1998) UK Bride of Chucky (1998) UK Best Men (1997) Death Machine (1995) Phoenix (1995) Murder in the First (1995) UK Amos & Andrew (1993) Cerro Torre: Schrei aus Stein (1991) The Exorcist III (1990) UK Graveyard Shift (1990) Hidden Agenda (1990) Spontaneous Combustion (1989) Ragtime (1981) Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) UK
Peter Jackson (Director)
Heavenly Creatures (1994) Bad Taste (1987) UK
Howard Shore (Composer)
The Cell (2000) High Fidelity (2000) eXistenZ (1999) Dogma (1999) Analyze This (1999) UK Crash (1996) UK Striptease (1996) That Thing You Do! (1996) Se7en (1995) Single White Female (1992) UK Prelude to a Kiss (1992) Postcards from the Edge (1990) She-Devil (1989) UK Dead Ringers (1988) UK Places in the Heart (1984) UK Silkwood (1983)
No, we haven’t become greenthumb.com, but if you remember a few weeks ago we reported that this years show has an entire section devoted to LOTR and The Hobbit. Well Ringer Spy (can you really be a spy at a flower show?) Odo IV sends us the pics and a report!
I happened to be in Chicago for the weekend with my wife, and rushed over to check-out the “Hobbit’s Garden” at the 2001 Chicago Flower & Garden Show.(I got to see something LOTR – *and* score points with the Missus! Cha-ching!)
The display was VERY well-done, incorporating signage with appropriate quotes from the Hobbit, but more impressively – they used many of the plants and flowers to which Tolkien was so fond of making reference.
As you can see in the photos, the hole itself came complete with a round, green door (brass knob in the exact middle, of course!) and a nicely done stone chimney. (Apologies for the lo-res photos, but my digital cam only does 640×480, and the lighting inside the pavillion was terrible.)
I was impressed with the size of the display – it goes a full 360 degrees around the “hill” … bounded by a nice little hand-made fence. There was a stone path, a miniature hay-wagon, a few walking-sticks leaning about, and even a small stone statue of a dragon!
They really put a lot of work and care into this, and the display won two of the show awards. It seemed to be drawing a fair amount of attention, and there were many obvious Tolkien fans about the place.
Although the tickets were a bit pricey (at $11 USD for adults), it is worth checking out if you are in the area. Just the thing to get you in a “hobbity” sort of mood.
Took me right back to fourteen-twenty, it did – and that’s saying something!
The latest issue of SFX Magazine holds an interview with conceptual artist and worldfamous Tolkien illustrator John Howe. He talks about his involvement in the building of the sets and such, and he never stops praising Peter Jackson and his crew for the great job they are going to do, it’s a very interesting read! [More]
Text below: (Thanks to Jakob for the text!)
They said, at the beginning, if your draw it, we can build it,² says Tolkien artist John Howe. As Howe¹s been a penciller and painter of Tolkien related pics for many years, it was only natural that Peter Jackson should come to him and fellow artist Alan Lee for pre-production designs. Though he¹d never heard of Peter Jackson, and was not entirely convinced the film could be made, Howe jumped at the chance.
³I¹d heard of the rumours, I knew it was coming up,² he says, his Canadian twang undimmed by 20 years of living in Switzerland. ³When the phone call came, they did a huge sales pitch, they had like ten people on the other end of the line, ready to convince us that is would be a good idea. I was just waiting for them to finish so that I could say yes! I wasn¹t sure it could be done, and there was that feeling you might get involved in something that won¹t work, but it¹s easy to sit back and sneer; the real challenge is to take a deep breath and jump in.²
Though originally commissioned to work on landscapes and buildings ³All the stuff they had to build, because there is nothing in New Zealand except the landscapes² Howe¹s enthusiasm for weaponry and armour meant he was soon helping design the harness and wargear of Middle-earth, and many of the creatures have something of his and Lee¹s work about then, being originally inspired by their paintings.
³We drew some crazy stuff. The Dark Tower is something like a thousand feet high. I always thought of Middle-earth as somewhere where everything is too big, too huge and breathtaking. One of the most exciting things, which may not be all apparent in the film, is this layer upon layer of civilisations in the book. It¹s full of ruins, Middle-earth, because it¹s much less populated than it was in the second age.²
He also found the challenge of having to incorporate sets into real locations a new and exciting challenge. He mentions Hobbiton as an example.
³It was this place in North Island, and we wandered round these fields saying, well, Bag End can go here, that can be our party tree; it was very exciting. It¹s almost even more fun to have a location imposed upon you, because you really have to get down to brass tacks and figure it out, imagine it on paper. It¹s a real illustrator¹s job.²
Howe is full of nothing but praise for Jackson, the cast and the crew. He says the Kiwis will take any problem in their stride, mentioning the carpenters unfazed by the rounded Hobbit burrows, and the new technique they came up with to make realistic looking chainmail out of plastic.
³Peter Jackson¹s filmmaking skills will make it or break it. He¹s such an amazing man, so skilled at filming people. And you¹ve got a wonderful set of actors. I think there was an atmosphere of enthusiasm practically unheard of on a movie set. No huge actors being flown in for two weeks and flown back out again. Everybody took it to heart. People like Christopher Lee, who is passionately interested in the books, would be going to talk to the sculptors all the time. It would have been a disaster had it been done in the States, it would have been impossible to do it in Europe. It is an incredible set of circumstances for Peter Jackson to do it.² He¹s sure there¹ll be some people who are unhappy though.
³There will be hue and cry of ¹traitor¹ and ¹what has he done to the books?¹
But the power of the books is such that though the script was originally quite wide of the book, each rewrite brought it back closer and closer. Some people you can never please. I get this all the time ¹He doesn¹t look like that¹, so I¹ll say ¹What¹s he like?¹ and they¹ll say ‘Not like that.’ But that aside, I think Peter¹s actually going to fix a lot of the imagery once and for all.
The Thin Red Line (1998) UK Psycho (1998) UK A Perfect Murder (1998) UK Albino Alligator (1996) The Portrait of a Lady (1996) The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995) American Yakuza (1994) Ruby Cairo (1993) UK Carlito’s Way (1993) UK Young Guns II (1990) UK Fresh Horses (1988) UK Witness (1985)
Liv Tyler (Arwen)
Cookie’s Fortune (1999) Plunkett & Macleane (1999) UK Can’t Hardly Wait (1998) UK Armageddon (1998) UK U Turn (1997) UK Silent Fall (1994)
Ian Holm (Bilbo)
Alice Through the Looking Glass (1999) (TV) eXistenZ (1999) The Fifth Element (1997) UK The Sweet Hereafter (1997) UK Dance with a Stranger (1985) Time Bandits (1981) UK Shout at the Devil (1976) The Fixer (1968) UK
Sean Bean (Boromir)
Airborne (1998) Ronin (1998) Black Beauty (1994) UK Stormy Monday (1988)
Hugo Weaving (Elrond)
The Matrix (1999) UK Bedrooms & Hallways (1998) The Interview (1998) Babe: Pig in the City (1998) UK Babe (1995) UK The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
Miranda Otto (Eowyn)
The Jack Bull (1999) (TV) UK Dead Letter Office (1998) The Thin Red Line (1998) UK
David Wenham (Faramir)
Dark City (1998) UK
Elijah Wood (Frodo)
The Bumblebee Flies Anyway (2000) UK The Faculty (1998) Flipper (1996) UK Avalon (1990) Internal Affairs (1990) UK
Cate Blanchett (Galadriel)
An Ideal Husband (1999) UK The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) Pushing Tin (1999) Elizabeth (1998) UK
Bruce Hopkins (Gamling)
Lawless (1999) (TV) UK
Ian McKellen (Gandalf)
X-Men (2000) Apt Pupil (1998) UK I’ll Do Anything (1994) UK Six Degrees of Separation (1993) UK Scandal (1989) UK Plenty (1985) UK Alfred the Great (1969) UK
Secret of the Andes (1998) UK Bloodsport 3 (1996) The Great White Hype (1996) UK The Unnamable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter (1993) Perry Mason: The Case of the Fatal Framing (1992) (TV) The Seventh Coin (1992) Canvas (1992) Secret Weapon (1990) (TV) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) Waxwork (1988) King Solomon’s Mines (1985) Victor/Victoria (1982) Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Dark City (1998) UK Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
Sean Astin (Sam)
Icebreaker (1999) Kimberly (1999) Bulworth (1998) UK Encino Man (1992) UK Where the Day Takes You (1992) UK Toy Soldiers (1991) UK The War of the Roses (1989) UK White Water Summer (1987) UK
Christopher Lee (Saruman)
Sleepy Hollow (1999) UK Jinnah (1998) UK The Odyssey (1997) (TV) Death Train (1993) (TV) UK Treasure Island (1990) (TV) Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) UK Mio min Mio (1987) UK The Last Unicorn (1982) Safari 3000 (1982) Arabian Adventure (1979) 1941 (1979) UK Bear Island (1979) UK Return from Witch Mountain (1978) UK Airport ’77 (1977) The Creeping Flesh (1973) The Three Musketeers (1973) UK Horror Express (1972) Nothing But the Night (1972) Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968) The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968) UK Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968) UK Theatre of Death (1967) UK Psycho-Circus (1966) The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966) UK The Face of Fu Manchu (1965) UK Beat Girl (1960) The Crimson Pirate (1952) UK My Brother’s Keeper (1948) UK
Bernard Hill (Theoden)
The Loss of Sexual Innocence (1999) True Crime (1999) UK The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) Shirley Valentine (1989) UK
Brad Dourif (Wormtongue)
The Progeny (1999) UK Bride of Chucky (1998) UK Urban Legend (1998) UK Best Men (1997) Murder in the First (1995) Escape from Terror: The Teresa Stamper Story (1994) (TV) Color of Night (1994) UK Amos & Andrew (1993) Cerro Torre: Schrei aus Stein (1991) Hidden Agenda (1990) The Exorcist III (1990) UK Spontaneous Combustion (1989) Mississippi Burning (1988) Wise Blood (1979) UK Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)
There’s been complaints from South American Ringers about the lack of interest shown in LOTR by the mainstream media – but Dunadan wrote in with some news today:
“This week’s Brazilian edition of the ‘Época Magazine’ brings a cool report about the re-edition of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ books. It also brings something about Tolkien and his books, and the influence he has over other writers like J. K. Rowling. At the end of the article there’s some information about the movie production and Peter Jackson.
In the same page of this article, there is a ranking for the best sellers in Brazil. Tolkien’s ‘Fellowship of the Ring’ is 10th place! “
Brazilian fans can visit Pelennor.com for more info! Cheers!”
“Nintey-five percent of the spot removal shots required a second, hand-painting phase. Compositing supervisor Brian Leach was in charge of determining which shots should go through procedural, and which should go diriectly to Sandy Houston’s paint department. ‘The challenge was not so much in the indivual approach for each shot,’ explained Leach, ‘as it was just the sheer number of shots we had to deliver.'”
“The dog’s ears, often flopping around wildly throughout a shot, were especially problematic, requiring additional steps beyond procedural and paint. ‘We would rotoscope the ears utilizing Elastic Reality,’ said Rygiel, ‘then warp textures onto them, adding back in shadows, and all the correct lighting. If the ears were moved too much in the frame for Elastic Reality to handle, we’d model and animate 3d CG ears, then track them to plate.'”
Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn)
Liv Tyler (Arwen)
Ian Holm (Bilbo)
Sean Bean (Boromir)
Hugo Weaving (Elrond)
Miranda Otto (Eowyn)
Elijah Wood (Fodo)
Cate Blanchett (Galadriel)
Ian Mckellen (Gandalf)
Andy Serkis (
Bruce Spence (Mouth of Sauron)
Sean Astin (Sam)
Christopher Lee (Saruman)
Bernard Hill (Theoden)
Brad Dourif (Wormtongue)
David Wenham (Faramir)
Mark Ferguson (Gil Galad)