The climactic battle between Rush (left) and Depp compares with Yoda’s fight scene in Star Wars Episode II. Credit: Elliot Marks, SMPSP.

The Bones in Davy Jones’ Locker
The incorporation of skeletons and nautical antics provided the most CG work for ILM. As Bruckheimer concurred at the film’s gargantuan premiere at Disneyland, “The transformation and gore associated with the pirates was by far the most challenging visual effects part of the movie. ILM did a fantastic job!”

Hal Hickel, animation supervisor at ILM, agreed that the skeletons provided the most challenging aspect of the visual effects. “Also within that, the close-up shots where characters transformed from human to skeleton were the most difficult. When the camera is that close, as is the case for example when Geoffrey Rush (Captain Barbossa) makes his first skeletal transformation, it was important to make sure that the facial features, concepts and costumes looked perfect because they all had lots of detail. Many of the characters have trinkets and talismans woven into their hair. The animators had to make sure that none of those details were excluded in the modeling of the skeletons, or else the transitions would not work.”

The fight scenes between the British Navy and the pirates proved to be the most problematic for the filmmakers. In order for ILM to animate the skeletons akin to Verbinski’s vision, most scenes were shot twice. “First we’d photograph the British Navy and the pirates fighting,” explained Verbinski. “Then we’d do another reference pass with just the Navy, followed by another with just the pirates. The guys are essentially fighting air.”

It took a huge production crew five months to painstakingly build Captain Barbossa's spectacular hideaway. Photo Credit: Elliot Marks, SMPSP.

Although the VFX do not dominate Pirates to the extent of The Matrix Reloaded or Terminator 3, the movie does have moments of eye-candy bliss. The buzz after the film’s premiere was how seamlessly animated the scenes are when the pirates battle the British Navy while weaving in and out of the moonlight, causing the pirates to constantly morph between human and skeleton forms. The visual apex is the final battle between Depp and Rush, in which ILM skillfully hews a live-action, CG-hybrid sword fight on par with Yoda’s fight scene in last year’s Star Wars Episode II. Hickel detailed how ILM achieved this stupendous effect: “We began with the plate that had the character actually in it. Then we would paint them out in the moonbeams, and our skeleton goes right atop where they were.”

Since the ILM effects crew had reference scenes with the actors, they were able to animate the skeletons so that their body language was analogous to their live-action counterparts. “When you see the characters as skeletons, you’ll know immediately which pirate is which,” added Verbinski. “Even when they’re 100% computer- generated and their clothing is in shreds, you’ll know. Not just from the actor’s voice, but from every nuance, which is why we shot entire scenes only as reference.” Furthermore, ILM had biweekly videoconferences with Verbinski and others to insure that the animators were working according to Verbinski’s vision.