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www.postmagazine.com 38 POST NOV/DEC 2019 Oscar BUZZ P aramount Pictures released Terminator: Dark Fate on November 1st, marking the sixth installment in the franchise, which debuted in 1984. Directed by Tim Miller, the film reunites Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor and Arnold Schwarzenegger as the T-800, with Mackenzie Davis portraying the genetically-en- hanced human Grace, and Gabriel Luna playing the new Rev 9 Terminator. Natalia Reyes is Dani Ramos, the future hope for humans, and the target of the next generation of Terminators, who've been sent from the future to destroy her. Eric Barba served as visual effects supervisor on the film, overseeing teams from nine studios: The Third Floor, ILM, Digital Domain, ScanlineVFX, Blur, Rebellion, UPP, Method Studios and Weta. At the time, he was a creative director at ILM in Vancouver, but moved back to Los Angeles in order to work with the director on what he believed would be "an exciting project." Upon reading the script, it was estimated that the film would require somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 VFX shots, but Barba says that number swelled after seeing some of the previs sequences, ultimately growing to a figure north of 1,900. ILM handled the majority of the film's effects shots, including the sequence that Barba says was one of the toughest to pull off — the de-aging scene where the T-800 (Schwarzenegger) approaches Sarah Connor and her son John on the beach. The sequence is set in the early '90s, around the same time as the second film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and all of the actors needed to look considerably younger. John was portrayed by Edward Furlong in the original film, but was represented here by a young actor with sim- ilar features. All of the characters needed digital head replacement to make the scene work. "That was something that I felt we needed to get moving on pretty quick and with the expertise that was at ILM," says Barba of the challenge. "It was on the heels of some other stuff that they had done. I helped out with Aladdin on the launching of Disney Research's anima capture. I thought that would be a great resource for us. So they got that type of work." "You also hold on them, while there's the strug- gle with Arnold grabbing Sarah Conner's head and pointing her back," he continues. "There's just some emotion that has to be conveyed there. And yes, the heads have to sit on those bodies perfectly. The hair has to move in the wind and all the little action, all the intricacies so the audience just connects with them. The detail that is there has to be perfect, otherwise the illusion is broken." Head replacement played a significant role throughout the film, as many scenes involved com- plex fights with Schwarzenegger, Davis and Luna. The use of stunt performers allowed the production to capture the dynamic motion necessary while keeping the lead actors out of harm's way. "That kind of digi-human work was also put on the ILM plate," says Barba. "And then the character of the Rev 9, the endoskeleton and the liquid forms, were also put on the development plate at ILM." The Rev 9 Terminator has similar features to the T-1000, which appeared in the second film. The character could turn from a solid form, such as a hu- man, into a liquid-metal matter in order to change appearance or recover from damage it received. "It was important to Tim that the liquid from the Rev 9 be similar in that it moves like liquid, but it needed to have more intelligence to it," says Barba of the evolution. "We need to feel like there is some- thing — a secondary thing in there, or tertiary thing. And of course, instead of being chrome, he wanted it to be black, much like the Rev 9 is. There's a great Terminator: Dark Fate NINE STUDIOS COLLABORATE TO CREATE THE FILM'S VFX BY MARC LOFTUS The latest release is the sixth in the franchise.