Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1144162
s u m m e r 2 0 1 9 c g w 5 H ow do you categorize Dis- ney's 2019 feature film The Lion King? The African sa- vannas look photographed. The lions, wildebeests, meerkats, hyenas, and other animals look like they stepped out of a BBC documen- tary. It has a live-action look and feel. And yet. These animals talk. And they and their environments are CG. Disney's wildly popular and highly acclaimed 1994 animated feature The Lion King spawned a Tony award-winning musical stage adaptation, theme park attractions, sequels, spin-offs, and video games. But to call this year's adaptation a "CGI remake," although technically accurate, oversimplifies the filmmakers' accomplishment. One thing is certain: The Lion King 2019 would not have been plausible just a few years back. Disney's 2016 The Jungle Book came close, but Jungle Book and Disney's other remakes that followed starred live-action actors. There are no live-action actors in The Lion King. With the excep- tion of lighting information captured from the real world and photoscans used for some environmental models, there are no real-world elements in the film. Modelers referenced photography of the animals in their natural environments as they created the CG characters, but they didn't scan animals, and no animals were motion-cap- tured. The film was created by hand, by visual effects artists. Visual Effects Supervisor Rob Legato, An- imation Director Andrew R. Jones, and MPC Visual Effects Supervisor Adam Valdez, who received Oscars for The Jungle Book, joined Jungle Book Director Jon Favreau for this film. Also returning for The Lion King were Visual Effects Supervisor Elliot Newman (who was a CG supervisor on The Jungle Book), Environment Supervisor Audrey Ferr- ara, and many other artists on MPC's crew. "The work all happened under the MPC umbrella," Legato says. Around 1,250 people at MPC worked on postproduction in Lon- don and Bangalore. Of those, 130 animators from 30 countries created the animals. As with The Jungle Book, the crew used virtual production tools and techniques to previsualize the film, but stepped up the game for The Lion King by moving into virtual reality. For this film, the MPC Virtual Produc- tion team joined forces with Magnopus in YOUNG SIMBA, PUMBAA, AND TIMON TRAVEL THROUGH A CG LANDSCAPE. ENVIRONMENT ARTISTS DID NOT USE MATTE PAINTINGS. FILMMAKERS COULD SHARE A SCENE IN VR AND SCOUT LOCATIONS, BLOCK ANIMATION, ADJUST LIGHTING, AND FRAME SHOTS IN REAL TIME.