Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/612975
14 cgw n o v e m b e r . d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 5 When they meet, Arlo doesn't know what Spot is, and he is initially antagonistic. Spot, like a dog, understands Arlo is not harmful and sees that Arlo needs help. Spot shows Arlo how to catch food, how to take care of himself. "Arlo sits and processes," Har- ris says. "Spot goes aer some- thing. Arlo is in the past or in the future. Spot goes with the flow. At the beginning, Arlo is internal and very human. Spot is external. They learn from each other." As the characters moved through the environment, the animators faced three interest- ing problems: the mountainous terrain, interaction between the environment and the charac- ters, and the size differences between Arlo and Spot. "The land is based on real geol- ogy, so there was a lot of uneven ground," Harris says. "But, it was fun to play with the environment, to make things tactile." Harris describes a scene in which Spot runs through bush- es. "We have two ways around that problem," Harris says. "We can move the bush or we can have a simulation artist move it. We tend to do a 50/50 split. We animate Spot to get his perfor- mance and timing correct, and then a simulation artist creates the motion for the bushes." As with simulating wind through the trees and other vegetation, the effects crew surpassed their expectations. "We were nervous about the hero interaction with the environment, especially when the characters leave the trails and touch things," Cameron says. "But, we got better at doing that and did more than we thought we could and that we had planned." Sometimes, however, anima- tors moved elements in nature without involving the simula- tion artists – particularly, rocks kicked aside as the characters trek through the mountains, big Arlo with little Spot at his side. B I G A N D L I T T L E The animators started with scenes developed in the layout department, where the artists established the character blocking and camera angle for each shot. For reference, layout artists looked at Western mov- ies, in particular, Black Stallion. "This movie was interesting from a camera standpoint be- cause we wanted to make Arlo feel big and allow the audience to relate to this big animal as a character," says Layout Lead Ar- jun Rihan. "Arlo is in the wild, so the environment is a character in the film in some ways, too. And getting Arlo and Spot both in a shot and having them read was a challenge. There were no easy shots in this film." Rihan and his team used one lens kit based on physical cameras that they adjusted per sequence. "We had lots of wide angles and extremely long telephoto lenses," Rihan says. "We could make the dinosaur look small in these large environments with lens choices, but it wasn't as simple as lens choices. It's also the framing. We'd set the cam- era far away from him. Framing a dinosaur was something we had to put a lot of thought into. When we framed Arlo in a particular way, he looked like a sock puppet because of his long neck. Over-the-shoul- der shots were not easy. And when Spot is in the frame, it's a huge challenge." When we first meet Spot, we don't understand who he is, and the camera is distant. As we relate more to him, the camera moves closer. But that creates problems with scale. "There are cheats, but we try to make them seamless," Rihan says. "We might put the camera underground, for example, but very carefully. And sometimes, we have to float a character above the ground." As always, camera move- ment supports the story's emotion. "When Arlo is home and safe, we used a stable camera and moves inspired by machinery and farming," Rihan says. "In the wild, we used handheld and Steadicam moves to reflect Arlo's unease, and to allow us to experience the environment." Sometimes for camera moves when Arlo is in the wild, the crew used motion capture to work with real-world equipment. "Motion capture helped us relate to where Arlo was," Rihan says, "especially in quiet moments, you really feel the sense that we're out in the wild with him." H O M E O N T H E R A N G E During one sequence, Arlo and Spot travel with a family of T. rex ranchers. The ranchers stop at an overlook to check their herd of what the Pixar crew call Bison aurs when sudden- ly a group of raptor rustlers stampede the "cattle." Rihan picks this sequence as the most difficult for the layout artists. "Everything is moving, so it was a challenge to set up," Rihan says. "We wanted to bring intensity and frenetic energy to RAPTOR BISONAUR RUSTLERS THREATEN ARLO AND SPOT.