Digital effects supervisor John Paul Docherty oversaw the creation on The Brothers Grimm’s fairy tale world. All images courtesy of Peerless Camera Co. © Miramax Films.

Is it plain bad luck or is he the new Orson Welles? Once again, acclaimed director Terry Gilliam clashed with a studio over final cut and saw the release of his movie postponed by several months in the process. After his much publicized fights over Brazil (1985), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (abandoned in 2000), Gilliam experienced yet another hectic relationship with a studio, this time with Dimension Films. Starring Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, The Brothers Grimm (opening Aug. 26) follows the adventures of the famous brothers who, after performing bogus exorcisms for years, end up facing a real witch and her minions. This encounter plants the seed of the many fantastic tales that will later become their literary trademark.

To start with, principal photography was halted for almost a week when cinematographer Nicola Pecorini was fired by Dimension. Later on, post-production was severely delayed when Gilliam disagreed with the producers on the final cut. The conflict lasted so long that the director had the time to shoot another feature film — Tideland — in the meantime. The hiatus affected the visual effects unit too. As usual, Gilliam had awarded the shots to Peerless Camera, the esteemed London-based effects studio that he founded in the 1970s with visual effects supervisor Kent Houston. “I started the project in January 2003, working with Terry to develop the concepts,” Houston recalls. “Peerless came on board in June 2003 and we started serious visual effects work around August 2003. In August 2004, we ran into a number of major issues with the project and with the studio.”

The main problem was the fact that the number of effects shots had dramatically increased, mainly because of issues that arose during shooting with the physical effects. “When we started the show, we were planning on just under 500 shots, but that number kept increasing until we reached 800 shots,” explains digital effects supervisor John Paul Docherty. “The problem was that we were expected to deliver many extra shots without adapting the original budget, or the schedule,” Houston adds: “At that point, I had no choice but to shut the project down. We then went off to do other shows, including The Legend of Zorro. In January 2005, after six months of negotiations, we agreed to open the project up again with additional funds and a new cut. The show was finally completed in June 2005, two-and-a-half years after I had started.”

In Your Face CGI
As if the political aspects were not difficult enough for the effects unit, The Brothers Grimm turned out to be the toughest project ever tackled by Peerless. It involved ambitious set extensions, highly complex CG animation and effects shots that often exceeded 800 frames. Most of all, Gilliam insisted on handling CGI in a different way than what is usually the norm in mainstream Hollywood movies. “California-based effects companies often handle shots that feature CGI on a very large scale,” Docherty comments. “They deliver large shots, ‘signature shots’. Terry didn’t want any of this. He wanted the CGI to be three feet away from you. It had to be seen up close, in a disturbing manner. Terry envisioned a dirty claustrophobic world with a dark age feeling, very European in its approach. In terms of the look, we often referred back to the work we had previously done on Roberto Benigni’s Pinocchio (2002) for the visual density of its shots.”

Indeed, the many matte-paintings and digital environments of The Brothers Grimm were created at 10 bits and even 16 bits. “Each one of these shots featured an awful lot of layers,” Docherty notes. “Given this amount of detail, an 8-bit image would have looked like a dupe…” Featuring many set extensions created in Photoshop, the forest sequence was shot on stage in Prague and more often than not, the studio lights and rafters appeared in the frame. The forest was then digitally extended up in 2 1/2 D, with some shots necessitating the creation of CG trees and sky to complete the set. Jim Bowers was the senior digital matte painter for Peerless.