Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/119349
n n n n VFX•Stereo 3D surface like old china, and we wanted that definitive texture. So, we worked with Scott [Stokdyk] to minimize the fleshiness without making her look old and haggard." To have emotions play across her face in a scene without breaking the feeling that she was made of porcelain, the animators devised a unique solution. "Her expressions had to be readable, so when they change within a shot, we tried to hide the change in the gross movement of her head," Saliba says. "Or, we'd cut away to James Franco. When we cut back, the expression was there. We didn't modulate. That limitation sometimes made our job difficult. But, it was exciting. Usually we fight a tendency to rely on formula. This time, we couldn't pull from our old bags of tricks. China Doll feels like a character you don't usually see. I think she's endearing. The scene when you first meet her in Chinatown is heart-wrenching." Monkey Business At top, the china village was a miniature set built at New Deal Studios. On set, a puppeteer performed China Girl, but in the film, she was computer-generated 99 percent of the time. At bottom, the monkey Finley was always digital. young voice actor Joey King play the doll's part on set. "We couldn't squeeze Joey King down into a corner," Stokdyk says. "So, we had a marionette version of China Girl on set and a master puppeteer, Philip Huber, who has been doing this for 40 years. He was able to get great nuances out of a simple model, even though he could only open and close its eyes. In post, we painted out the puppet and Philip when he was in frame, and replaced the puppet with the CG version. Easy to say, but time-consuming and tedious for the painters. "It was painful for all involved," De Jesus says. "The puppeteer was in a blue suit in the scene, casting a shadow, crossing in front of the actor. So, the amount of paint work we had to do was staggering. It took a long time to get there. After we finished the animation and renders, we waited another three weeks for the paint work. When it was done, though, the shots actually did work." On set, as James Franco acted with the marionette, he wore ear buds to hear King – who watched from a nearby booth – perform China Girl's voice. "Sam [Raimi] directed the performances, so later we had this great source material to draw from," Stokdyk says. "Tory Salida, our 14 CGW0313-Ozpfin.indd 14 animation supervisor, could pick and choose with Sam how much to take from the puppet performance and how much from Joey." Modelers created the CG character with ball and socket joints like the real puppet. After the marionette had appeared on set and in dailies for five months, the puppeteered version had become the China Doll character in people's minds. "Philip's [Huber] instincts were good," Saliba says. "The performance was simple, subtle, and poignant. And because of the puppet's limitations, his China Girl had quirky things we wouldn't have invented as we animated. Whether we used the surreal and awkward puppet or Joey, the little girl, depended on which Sam fell in love with. But even when he leaned toward Joey, we'd go toward the surreal puppet." The big challenge for the animators was in performing the face of the porcelain doll. Despite her brittle face, China Girl needed to be a living, breathing character. "We didn't want her to move her mouth like a ventriloquist's dummy," Saliba says. "We needed to feel that she was speaking, and we wanted that sweet little girl face. But, we didn't want her face to feel like rubber. Her face has that crackled Like China Girl, the CG monkey Finley's on-set presence was a challenge, but the challenge was distinct. Finley stands three feet rather than 18 inches tall, so in scenes when the monkey is on a rock or a tree stump, Franco could have been at eye level with Zach Braff, who was the digital character's voice. But not when Oz (Franco) walked and talked with Finley at his side. And, the monkey flies. "When Oz is walking on the yellow brick road, you want the CG monkey to interact with him," Stokdyk says. "We wanted that interaction between James [Franco] and Zach [Braff]." Rather than using a marionette for the monkey as they had for China Girl, though, the crew devised a unique solution. "We had a puppeteer in a blue suit with a monitor on a pole," Stokdyk says. "We called it 'puppet cam.' " In addition to the small monitor, the puppet cam pole had a lipstick camera, all covered in blue neoprene. The puppet cam operators were from the KNB EFX Group, which provided special effects. On set, Franco and Braff would rehearse scenes and block out action, and then Braff would move to a soundproof booth equipped with two monitors. The main camera fed the footage the DP shot to one monitor. The other monitor showed footage from the lipstick camera on the puppet cam pole; in other words, from the monkey's point of view, the view Braff would have had if he were on set rather than in the booth. Also in the booth was a camera aimed at March/April 2013 3/14/13 12:12 PM