Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1127068
G odzilla has come a long way from the heavy rubber suits used in the productions of the 1960s. In 1998, Roland Emmerich directed the creature's big-screen return, and in 2014, he rose from the depths once again in a film by director Gareth Edwards. Now, five years later, Godzilla reemerges in King of the Monsters, the new Warner Bros. film from director Michael Dougherty. Visual effects supervisor Guillaume Rocheron knows the creature better than anyone, having worked on both the 2014 and 2019 releases. For the new film, he coordinated visual effects between a number of lead- ing studios, including MPC, Dneg, Method Studios and Rodeo FX, completing 1,535 shots (up from 900 on the 2014 film) for its May 31 st release. The new film challenged effects houses to not only further develop the signature creature, but also bring other characters from the 'monsterverse' to the big screen. Mothra, Rodan and Ghidorah all make appearances and vie for supremacy, while simultaneously endangering humanity. "I work with the director, editor and producer, and really kind of design the movie," says Rocheron of his role as VFX supervisor. "We storyboard the film and do previsualization, and decide how we are going to shoot the film." Rocheron is part of the MPC team, but was called on by Legendary Pictures to handle the film's overall VFX supervision. He worked closely with fellow VFX supervisor Robert Winter at MPC, which served as the film's lead effects house. PREVIS Like many VFX-heavy films, previs played an im- portant role, but in this case, it went beyond serving as just a place holder. "Often, the previs is not very nice to look at — not very compelling," says Rocheron. "It's purely informative. In this case, it was [Michael Dougherty's] first version of the shot that he was happy with. "We were all looking at the previs and iterating on it," he continues. "Not only from an informative standpoint, but from a shot-design standpoint and the performances of the creatures…A lot of the movie happens on partial sets, and there is a lot of interaction between the creatures and the live action. We wanted a seamless blend between the two…We made a conscious decision to push the initial steps of shot design much further than we would in general so the photography could be done to spec within that bigger picture." Previsualization was provided by The Third Floor (http://thethirdfloorinc.com) and Day For Nite (http://dayfornite.com). The new release is different than the 2014 film in a number of ways. The first conversation Rocheron had with director Michael Dougherty focused on the personalities of the creatures, and how they were not to be portrayed as just animals. "Mike was always reinforcing the fact that we see those creatures as ancient gods," he recalls. "They have been around for much longer than us. They were the first gods, who were worshipped by some civilization…They are not just big monsters lumbering around, destroying things and smashing buildings. They have a history." The 2014 film had a hand-held camera feel and muted tones, giving it somewhat of a graphic, docu- mentary feel, he adds. "This one, it's the same world and same universe, but we are trying to design shots to have very strong silhouettes and colors, and bold composition, so as a viewer, the visual language reminds you of mythical creatures." DETAILING A 400-FOOT CREATURE Thanks to the 2014 film, the VFX team already had a CG model of Godzilla that they could use as a starting point. "We didn't go back to square one," Rocheron explains. "We started with what we had and built on top of it. The original Godzilla that we did for 2014 — it took us five to six months of just texturing," he recalls. "Think about the level of detail for these creatures? If you imagine Godzilla is 400-feet-tall, his toenail is the size of a school bus!" Considerable time was spent improving the lead character's textures and tweaking his rig. "We did a few design adjustments at the direc- tor's request. We adjusted the dorsal fins a little bit to resemble the classic star shape. We gave him a slightly more aggressive profile. Obviously, we updated the muscles and creature rigs, so that had to be re-done — all the muscles and facial animation control to get that extra level of subtlety. "Also, since the first Godzilla, we changed the way we rendered stuff. We switched to Renderman RIS, and it's a full ray-tracing, path-tracing solution. That gives us the ability to get material quality and lighting that is more sophisticated and realistic. That required an upgrade in our shaders and textures. Even though we started with what we did in 2014, we took at least three months to get new Godzilla for the new movie." As lead VFX house, MPC (mpcfilm.com) handled almost all of the creature animation. "They are one of best places in the world you can go for this," he says of MPC. "We worked with the character lab to finalize the design of the creatures and they han- dled most shots with Godzilla, Ghidorah, Mothra and Rodan — the big action sequences." Specifically, MPC created the Antarctica scene where Godzilla first sees Ghidorah, the scene where Rodan emerges from the volcano, and the shots where Rodan interacts with the fighter jets and fights Ghidorah. The studio also created VFX for the whole third act, in which a massive battle takes place in Boston. MPC's Montreal location headed the effort, with contributions from its London, Bangalore and Los Angeles teams. Method Studios (methodstudios.com) handled GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS UP FROM THE DEPTHS — AND MORE DETAILED THAN EVER! BY MARC LOFTUS Godzilla was given a slightly more aggressive profile in the new film.