Lost in the Plot

So I saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie tonight, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I liked the first one, but somehow I was more entertained by the sequel! What really got my attention, though, was the amazing effects work and character animation for Bill Nighy’s Davy Jones character. Under effects supervisor John Knoll, and animation supervisor Hal Hickel, the subtlety and realism of the squid-faced character is extremely impressive – the lipsync feels really crisp and real, the fleshy tentacles around his face look thick and dimensional, and absorb and refract light. All that, along with amazing shaders, makes the character look very very real, but it’s also the performance that is really just as impressive; as I was watching I was actually questioning whether it was just an actor in makeup with digital extensions, since I couldn’t pick a fault with the animation in visual quality or motion and expression.

Apparently on this production ILM pioneered a new on-set motion capture system with only a few high-resolution cameras, and no restrictions on the lighting like normal mocap. Then the animators based the character on the actual plate footage, not a mocap-only plate, and more or less rotoscoped the performance exactly.

“The technology has evolved to the point now where we’re trying to capture that exact same data by only using two video cameras as we’re shooting the actual shot”, continues Bill George. “The difference now is that instead of splitting it into two separate shoots, it’s happening all at the same time. There’s a lot of advantages to that. In the first ‘Pirates’ film, when an actor was fighting one of the cursed skeleton pirates, he was basically fighting with thin air, pretending that someone was there. Now the live actors are actually interacting with a real person, which is much more realistic and natural.” – Cinema Review

“Our philosophical approach was we wanted to have a good cast of actors all in the roles present on set so Gore Verbinski had someone to direct, the cameraman had something to frame up on, the director of photography had someone to light, and the editor had a performance to cut,” says Knoll. “We wanted no stylistic break from the rest of the live action.” – Chicago Tribune

At ILM, split-screen monitors were used by the animators to approximate every one of the actor’s subtle ticks and expressions on a digital mask full of keyboard-playing tentacles and vapor-emitting blowholes. “A lot of it is done by hand,” the director [Gore Verbinski] adds. “You split the image and work through it frame by frame. A lot of talented animators working a lot of hours, and you really steal his performance.” – SGV Tribune

I usually find all-CG characters kind of irritating because you can tell they’re not real, something gives them away, be it their motion, detail, staging or framing etc. But with Davy Jones, the character is most involving and real when the camera is tight on his face and you can really look closely at the acting and the nuances of the skin and eyes. There were a couple moments when I felt that the long dangling tentacles were moving a little strangely, like their sense of weight and movement wasn’t quite right, but all in all I think the character animation definitely represents an impressive step forward in all-CG characters. Find out more about the animation and effects work at IGN’s FilmForce, and at ComingSoon.