The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Diaries: Part 4 – Sony Pictures Imageworks & Mr. Tumnus & More
In the final installment of VFXWorld’s exclusive production diaries, Jim Berney of Sony Pictures Imageworks chronicles the creation of more mythical CG characters, the Bombing of London and other environmental effects for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Includes a QuickTime clip! By Jim Berney
Mr. Tumnus We were awarded the show on a Friday, and on Monday, when I arrived in New Zealand, at the start of the second week of principal photography, I first met with Dean Wright to discuss how we were going to create the goat legs for Mr. Tumnus. We were actually working with Giant Studios, a New Zealand effects company, to collaborate with them on a combination of motion capture and animation. We did a test with James McEvoy, the actor playing Tumnus, who wore green pants with target dots on them during filming, and we found that if he could walk on tiptoes during filming, and still say his lines, that it made his body appear more believable as a faun. The first scene we shot with him was the first day of snow work at the main Narnia forest set at Kelly Park, where Lucy comes through the wardrobe for the first time. Giant had their motion capture cameras set up on that set, and basically the way it worked was we’d get the plate from editorial, we’d do the matchmove of the camera movement, and then we’d give the digital camera plate to Giant and they’d do the motion capture integration of the legs to the body. For the leg animation, it was about 90% of the way there, and then we’d do foot interaction, and all the hair, muscle and fur details, to really complete the shot. We were able to use a lot of James’ footprints from the shot to help line up the animated hooves in the final composited shot.
David A. Smith, digital supervisor, said, “I actually thought Tumnus worked better than I expected. It’s hard to put goat legs on a man; they’ve got to fit the photography that was shot. When Andrew first saw a few shots put together, he said it was amazing how quickly you dismiss the fact that it’s a human, you just see his legs and it’s all part of his character right here. Having seen the development, I didn’t have that same jump to the final product, but if I step back for a minute, you go, wow, that is good.”
