Boasting innovations in on-set performance capture (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST) and CG water (POSEIDON), Industrial Light & Magic led the way with two out of three nominations for best achievement in visual effects in the 79th Oscar race. SUPERMAN RETURNS, with its digital flying, heroic feats and superlative crystal work, earned the third nomination.
Four-time Oscar nominee John Knoll joins Hal Hickel (a two-time Oscar nominee), Charles Gibson and Allen Hall in supervising Buena Vista's DEAD MAN'S CHEST, which introduced ILM's new proprietary Imocap system for capturing data onset for Davy Jones and his fellow crew on The Flying Dutchman. At last week's bakeoff, Knoll stressed that the 1,300 shots were completed in a frightening five months, which necessitated that the crew complete 15 shots a day. Knoll illuminated that they also dealt with what to roto and not roto, acknowledging that ILM is using less and less bluescreen. And DEAD MAN'S CHEST was replete with complicated and plentiful animation of the "fishy, barnacly guys," miniatures of all scales and shoots on the open seas that went for days.
For Warner Bros.' POSEIDON, supervised by Boyd Shermis, Kim Libreri (ILM), Chaz Jarrett (MPC) and John Frazier, ILM led the way in providing a tremendous leap forward in full volumetric 3D water simulation (in association with Stanford's computer science department), complemented by innovative work in their own right by MPC and Scanline.
Fifteen vfx houses contributed to Warner Bros.' SUPERMAN RETURNS, under the overall supervision of Mark Stetson. They include Sony Pictures Imageworks, Rhythm & Hues, Rising Sun Pictures, The Orphanage, Framestore CFC and Frantic Films.
The academy additionally credits supervisors Neil Corbould, Richard R. Hoover (Imageworks) and Jon Thum (Framestore CFC). "Imageworks really stepped up with the animated Superman work," Stetson suggests. "The image-based render approach is very good, especially the closeup, high-res work; the cape sim is very good too: it's very fluid and very consistent. [Overall] the animation is head and shoulders above what Imageworks did on SPIDER-MAN 2, which was remarkable. And the Shuttle Disaster [the main action set piece] will be a real landmark for them."
Meanwhile, under Thum's supervision, Framestore CFC delivered 313 shots, revolving around the final climactic showdown between Superman and Lex Luthor. The work encompassed huge CG environments of oceans, crystal rocks, water interaction, seaplane, helicopter and Superman himself, all mixed with 2D elements of mist, waterfalls, layered skies and various greenscreen elements.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
