Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1011494
F E A T U R E e d i t i o n 3 , 2 0 1 8 | c g w 5 9 SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY With the return of one of cinema's most beloved heroes, Han Solo, in his own origins story, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Disney and Lucasfilm give audiences a look at the iconic character's early life in the criminal under- ground world, his initial meeting with future co-pilot Chewbacca, and first encounters with the gambler Lando Calrissian. To create the unique look of the film, Ron Howard was brought on to helm the project as director, and was supported by a stellar team that includes special creature effects legend Neal Scanlan and visual effects supervisor Rob Bredow (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Independence Day, Godzilla, The Amazing Spider Man and Men in Black 3), among others. "This film is charged with youthful energy – and cool. While it had to be true to the aesthetic and sensibility of Star Wars, we also wanted to push the envelope to make it work for young audiences, so it would feel more relatable than nostalgic. And yet, in a way, this is the first real character study in the galaxy so far for fans," says Howard. "The story very much reflects the spirit of the original movies in the combination of playfulness, thematic focus, mixed with great action, and a universe that is fasci- nating, inviting, entertaining, and a little bit thought-provoking." To tie together the work of set designers, costume designers, Scanlan's creature work, the photography, and more was the visual effects efforts of Industrial Light & Magic, headed up by Bredow, the newly named SVP, executive creative director, and head of ILM. Bredow oversaw the 2,000-plus visual effects shots for the film, created by a team of more than 1,200 artists worldwide and additional contributions from outside ven- dors, including the Montreal-based Hybride, with which ILM has partnered on a number of previous projects. Effects work pretty much spanned the full gamut, including CG characters and objects, digi-doubles, set extensions, matte paint- ings, greenscreens, and more to create vehi- cles, character performances, otherworldly environments, and spacecra unique to the Star Wars universe. From the speeder chase and train heist to the infamous Kessel Run, the VFX team had an immense challenge in creating the over 90 minutes of visual effects required for the film. A NEW CLASSIC Bredow says, "This movie had a particular aesthetic that we were going for, which was inspired by the 1970s' way of making the film. We leveraged a lot of the older, original visual effects techniques and then updated them for modern technology." The teams combined "some of the best old-school techniques with cutting-edge technology" to pull it all off, resulting in Solo's unique look and feel. Bredow and ILM collaborated closely with the special effects team, led by supervisor Dominic Tuohy, as well as Scan- lan, to bring Howard's vision to the screen. "I think we pulled out every trick in the book on this film, and developed a few new ones of our own," explains Bredow. "We took some of the oldest visual effects techniques, such as front- and rear-screen projection, and updated them with the latest technology. This allowed us to film 360-degree environments on the stunning Dryden's Yacht set. We also used the latest laser projection technology to surround the Falcon cockpit with screens." Bredow acknowledges that rear projec- tion is not a new technique. In fact, it's been done for probably a hundred years, where you place a projector behind a screen and photograph that projector with something else going on in the foreground. "We did a really nice version of that for this film for sev- eral different scenes, including the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon," he says. Here, Bredow describes that work. "We made a 30-foot-tall screen that wrapped 180 degrees around the cockpit, and then we put seven 4K laser projectors around the back, which would project on the back of that screen. When you got into the cockpit and looked out the window, you actually saw the stars that were out there, or whatever environment we were going to next. And then when you pushed the le- vers on the Millennium Falcon and pushed it into hyperspace, you would actually see the stars stretch and go into hyperspace for real, in-camera. Not only did it create a really convincing look for the camera, but it looked just like we had done it with bluescreen, or even better, because the light coming off of the screen was lighting the actors and the set in such a way that everything looked integrated. "So, that's a fun example of taking some- thing that's been done before in Star Wars and improving the quality of it because of the greater interactivity between the lights and the cockpit, and also being very efficient with the way we were able to do the work," Bredow continues. "We had a very com- pressed postproduction schedule, so in that case, we were able to get some shots right in-camera that were going into the film." Bredow adds that the effect also im- mersed the cast into hyperspace, so they were "actually experiencing it like you would on a simulator ride, only at feature-film quality that worked in-camera." CAST OF CHARACTERS The team also combined rod puppets and creature costumes with state-of-the-art digital effects to introduce new characters, such as the droid L3-37 and Rio to the Star Wars universe. "We made every effort to capture as much in-camera as possible, not only for the creatures and environments, but also the incredible vehicles in the film," says Bredow.