Computer Graphics World

March/April 2013

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VFX•Stereo 3D "On this movie, we art-directed every single thing with an eye to consistent detail," Stokdyk says. "And along the way, there was a massive amount of hand-done, artdirected work. We had massive environments and a massive amount of animation." At Imageworks, a crew of approximately 300 created the effects, including 50 animators at peak who performed the two digital stars that appear in the film: the little China Girl and the flying monkey Finley. Because these characters appear with Oz throughout the film, and for consistency, it made sense to have Imageworks handle the environments. "This is a traveling buddy movie," says Digital Effects Supervisor Francisco De Jesus. "Oz starts in one place and walks to the Emerald City on the yellow brick road, and all this time you see all the way to the horizon in daylight." All along the way, the Land of Oz is a fabricated world. "There was no location photography," Stokdyk says. "This film is very art-designed, very, very sculpted. Sam Raimi, Robert Stromberg [production designer], and Peter Deming [director of photography] wanted a stagebased look. A classic Hollywood look. So, they decided to shoot it all on stages." The production team chose shooting on stages to create a style based on 1920s films. They wanted to harken back to the 1900 publication of Frank Baum's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the 1902 stage play rather than the famous 1939 film. "We tried to build sets for as much as we could and use bluescreens, our modernized version of backdrops," Stokdyk says. "Our goal was to be stage-based. We fought to get on-set builds ■ ■ ■ ■ and not be in a sea of blue. To a large extent, though, this is a traveling movie, so once you go 200 or 300 feet from one environment to another, it didn't make sense to build a set. And we couldn't build a set for only one shot. So we ended up having probably five to 10 allblue environments." Landscape Design Including the set extensions, the crew at Imageworks built approximately 50 environments – interiors, exteriors, the Emerald City, the witch Glinda's courtyard, and many others in a variety of shapes and forms. "We start in Kansas during the Dust Bowl," Stokdyk. "I'm familiar with the landscape – I grew up in Kansas – so to add interest, we gave Kansas rolling hills like the Flint Hills [in eastern Kansas]. Then, we go into a fan- Visual effects artists create a fantastic landscape and two digital actors for Oz the Great and Powerful ©2013 Disney Enterprises, Inc. March/April 2013 CGW0313-Ozpfin.indd 11 11 3/14/13 12:11 PM

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