cineSync transforms Wolfman communication

Wednesday, 24 March 2010

With a troubled production history and key personnel spread all over the planet, co-ordinating the VFX of The Wolfman was a major challenge. However cineSync was able to ensure communication remained clear and the final results speak for themselves.

In an article with CG Society, Rick Baker and MPC's VFX Supervisor Adam Valdez talk about what sounded like a very difficult process. Rick Baker wanted to go for largely practical effects. The production schedule and a lack of clear decision making by the studio meant that the film ended up having almost entirely CGI effects. The effects design process happened while the various key creatives were on different continents, a process that would have been very difficult without cineSync, as the article discusses:

MPC was able to source Bakers' series of sculpted heads that were cyberscanned and used as a jumping off point for the first round of animation tests, as explained by MPC's VFX Supervisor Adam Valdez. "After that, we were iterating changes with Joe (director Joe Johnston)." Valdez also was on the project early, talking to the films' VFX Supervisor Steve Begg, before photography started with Mark Romanek, the original director.

"Even back then, as soon as everyone realized the transformations were going to be a point of focus, there was a discussion about what we could do that hadn't been done before. Then we were working with Joe and in post-production, but that debate hadn't really been settled." At the point they were still working with Del Toro acting out the beats of a transformation, without any makeup.

That obstacle was exacerbated by the distance between key players, since Johnston was in LA, MCP was in London, and the work was done via conference calls and Cinesync. (Both Baker and Valdez give the highest praise to Steve Begg (overall VFX Supervisor), who had to hold all this together.)

Johnston wanted to see how the transitions would look in action, so animators were given rigs that could do rough deformation and transformation work. "In the middle of that we had to start over, because Joe wasn't happy with what he was getting. There were a few rounds of discussion about whether or not Benicio Del Toro, who played the Lawrence aka Wolfman, should turn into something else on the way to becoming the Wolfman, so rather than traditional close-ups of bones stretching and hair sprouting he might turn into something resembling an almost fetal orc-like creature."

If you'd like to read the whole article, which details the whole difficult process, you can check it out at CG Society. It's a great read, but it sure doesn't sound like anyone had much fun....