Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/100015
POST: Was it always planned as a 3D shoot? LETTERI: ���Yes. Peter has always loved 3D and wanted to do it. In fact, we briefly discussed doing King Kong in 3D. We met with Jim Cameron and loved all the 3D rigs he had developed, but we didn���t have enough time to really get into it, so he was very anxious to do this in 3D because it brings that extra layer of realism to the fantasy.��� POST: Walk us through the workflow and the whole process. LETTERI: ���Normally what happens is we���ll look at what needs to be shot and we���ll do a breakdown ahead to see what set-ups we need on the shot. Take the earlier Baggins scenes��� In Lord of the Rings we used a lot of forced perspective tricks to make Gandalf look huge next to the hobbits, which worked great ��� but that doesn���t work in stereo anymore. So we had to create essentially a forced-perspective rig, and we did that by having two stages set up simultaneously. So on one we���d have the dwarves performing on their fullydressed set and we���d do a walk-through with Ian McKellen so everyone knew where to leave a path for him. Then he���d go to our adjacent greenscreen stage set up with a motioncontrol camera that was slaved to our live set. ���We used motion capture technology to track the live camera, scaled it up to match the appropriate size for human versus hobbit or dwarf, and drove the motion-controlled camera on the greenscreen stage around Ian���s performance based on what the camera was doing on the live set. He had to still be able to act with everyone, so they all used earpieces, and we used markers on the green- ing all the VFX, camera crews and all the cast. Then we began on all the paint and roto and detail work. Now we���re finishing up on this one, we���re already starting VFX work on the next two films.��� POST: The film is edited on Avid Media Composer by Jabez Olssen, who cut The Lovely Bones and worked on Lord of the Rings and King Kong. Tell us about the editing process and how closely you collaborated. LETTERI: ���All of the post is done here at Weta Digital, so we���re all together, and a lot of it is him working with Peter on what material is going into the cut and the direction of certain sequences, and then us really breaking down the detail of what needs to happen both in the frame and across it ��� as you���re always trying to build elements that will work in the cut and editorially. So we talk a lot, especially about motion and dynamics and framing, as well as subtle things about the intent of a shot and how it relates to other shots. As we���re Director Peter Jackson chose to shoot this trilogy at 48fps, which working digitally, we can minimizes motion artifacts. keep finessing stuff during the edit.��� (For our interscreen stage for each dwarf that would light view with Olssen, turn to page 16.) up when it was time for their dialogue, so he POST: How many visual effects shots are always had an eye-line and face to interact there, and what systems did you use? LETTERI: ���There���s over 2,000 shots, about with. So there was an elaborate amount of planning just to get this shot on stage, involv- 800 crew on them, and we���ve been working on it for two years. Our software is a mix of off-the-shelf and custom-made gear. Maya is our main 3D platform, RenderMan is our main rendering system, and Nuke is the main compositing platform. Then we augment that with a lot of custom plug-ins for various shots we need.��� POST: It sounds like you tend to gravitate to off-the-shelf systems that are fairly open? LETTERI: ���Exactly. They���re essentially platforms that give you a fair amount of functionality, but they���re open systems that allow you to write customized extensions for, which works great for us.��� POST: What was that the most difficult effects shot to pull off? LETTERI: ���I���d say the scene inside the goblin caverns. It���s unique as you go down underground and you���re immediately in this strange 3D world as there���s almost no one fixed ground plain anymore. It all happens at multiple levels, so it was fascinating to design and figure out camera moves that would take most advantage of it, since you���re constantly able to move between these different levels in the cavern, and we really wanted to use that to exploit what we could do with stereo.��� POST: Where does this rank in terms of scope and difficulty compared with the other massive productions you���re worked on? LETTERI: ���It���s way up there at the top, because every film is a little harder than the last one ��� and also a little more fun. It���s been an incredible experience and so much fun to go back to Middle-earth and walk on the same sets again and see a lot of the same cast and crew back.��� www.postmagazine.com Thanks to enhancements in performance capture, Andy Serkis���s CG Gollum became even more realistic and believable. Post���������December���2012��� 15