Not yet, anyway. That is because he has not been around for 19
years, a time in which special effects has mostly migrated from
sound stage to server.
The first three Indy films were gritty, sweaty and tactile
affairs, largely because everything on-screen physically existed
somewhere. Not so with ``Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the
Crystal Skull”—though that was almost the case.
When first approaching the latest ``Indy,'' director Steven
Spielberg considered dusting off his old-school approach.
``He thought maybe we should just go back to the way we did
things before, like matte paintings on glass and things like
that,'' visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman said. ``We
entertained that idea for a little bit, but we realized we could
serve the story better by using our digital tools.''
That decision ultimately led to a filmmaking innovation that
brings the random reactions of a virtual world to the big
screen, giving more control to ILM's computers than ever before.
To the children romping outside at ILM's in-house daycare
located just past the lobby, the notion of a digital
``environment'' being responsible for much of what is on-screen
will probably seem quaint someday.
But to the adult audiences who have glimpsed the latest Indy
escapade, it is a big part of the reason this one looks so
different from Jones' last crusade.
Helman, who previously worked with Spielberg on ``Munich'' and
“War of the Worlds,'' was tasked with creating
realistic-yet-fantastic environments and creatures for ``Crystal
Skull,'' which finds Jones traipsing from New England to New
Mexico, Peru and the Amazon. Working on the ``Indy'' franchise
for the first time was a daunting task for the low-key effects
guru.
``It's horrifying to work on a movie that has this many fans,
but at the same time, it's an opportunity and a challenge,''
Helman told The Associated Press at the ILM offices less than a
week before its release. ``I think we were all very, very
respectful of the other three movies but also to the fans. All
the effects work that we're doing are completely
reality-based.''
That is if your reality includes a blooming atomic mushroom
cloud, seemingly endless Area 51 warehouse, vicious monkey army,
the City of Gold, thousands of man-eating ants and sundry
otherworldly things.
All those locales and critters were created by Helman and his
ILM team for ``Crystal Skull,'' making up the film's 450 effects
shots—not quite as many as the 600-plus in ``Transformers,'' but
more than you might expect from a flesh-and-blood character from
the 1950s.
About 300 artists and editors worked for eight months in
post-production on a high-tech computer network at ILM's offices
inside the Presidio of San Francisco, a long way from the
``Raiders of the Lost Ark'' and ``Temple of Doom'' days, when
``Indiana Jones'' special effects mostly consisted of miniature
sets and a few blue-screen mash-ups.
``The only reason why they weren't using computer-generated
effects back then is because they weren't invented yet, but they
were using the most up-to-date technology at the time,'' said
Helman, who finished his work on ``Crystal Skull'' in mid-April.
``So it only follows that we would do the same thing now.''
In the film's biggest action sequence, Jones and company battle
Russian soldiers and play hot potato with the ``Crystal Skull,''
all while careening through a fertile Amazonian jungle riding
atop military vehicles. When not dodging trees and palm fronds,
the jeeps plow through enough vegetation to give an arborist
heart palpitations.
``The script calls for a virgin jungle, but there's not one we
could safely run four vehicles through,'' said Helman. ``We
could've approached it in a more modern way on a big stage with
a blue screen, but that's not the way we did it. We basically
shot it the same way we would've shot it 20 years ago.''
Spielberg filmed the pursuit scene on dirt roads in a more
sparse jungle in Hawaii. Helman traveled to Argentina, where he
was born, and Brazil to capture images that would be used to
craft the junglescape, including a looming cliff where part of
the chase takes place.
At the ILM offices, Helman and his team meshed the Hawaiian
footage with the Brazilian and Argentine imagery, adding huge
swathes of flora using a new digital-effects technique. The
result is a fictitious jungle, one with its own look, layout and
laws of physics, that only exists inside the computers at ILM.
``The whole film for us has been really big on particle
simulation, which is creating an environment inside of a
computer and telling the computer the rules of the world,'' said
Helman, who also worked on two of the ``Star Wars'' films. ``You
give the computer this gravity, this mass, this amount of wind
and see what happens.''
That means instead of crafting movement for every vine and leaf
that Indy & Co. hammer through, visual effects artists were able
to drag and drop virtual vegetation programmed to react to the
vehicles' presence and actors' movements. It is an application
that has long become de rigueur for video games, and come full
circle to the big screen.
Even though they were going for something organic, Helman said
the filmmakers took some liberties with the laws of physics—more
gravity, more mass, more wind—to ``make it more cinematic.''
The result is a highly detailed chase scene that is far
different from Indy's landmark escape from a giant rolling ball
of a boulder in ``Raiders of the Lost Ark.'' And it is just one
of the many effects Helman and his crew created for the film.
However, there is one thing that he insists did not receive a
computer-generated makeover this time around: Indy's signature
accessories.
``We did not generate whips or hats,'' he said, cracking a
smile. ``Let me tell you that.''
On the Net:
http://www.indianajones.com,
http://www.ilm.com
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