Computer Graphics World

filmmaking, I would say communication is one of the things that you need. You need to be able to communicate really quickly. You need to be able to understand and listen to other people. On Wicked we had over a thousand artists and crew people working on the movie. So it's really important that you're open to listening to what other people have to say, but you're also very focused on what needs to be done. For me, even aer all these years, it's about the people that you work with. It's very rare that you get the project, the people, and the financials together. At least in this project, the people and the project kind came together for me. So it's a combination of things that makes something work. Dale Newton: Trying to get the best understanding that I can of what Jon wants for the character—that's my biggest job, to try and find myself in that space. I can think I'm making good choices and sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I'm off the mark, but I think that's the point—that you climb in there, you put your best foot forward with all of the skills that you have, and contribute from your angle. So very oen we'll be pitching ideas, and sometimes Jon surprises you. He says, "Yeah, that's great, I didn't think of that." And sometimes, "Sorry guys, come back again." But that's the nature of the business, and I think just being humble and putting your best foot forward all the time is all I can offer. Pablo Helman: I think part of moviemaking is that it's collaboration but it's also exploration. So you're exploring things. If you weren't exploring things, then Jon would just do one take and give it to the editor, and then the editor puts it together, and then that's it—that's your movie. And it doesn't happen that way. It's usually between ten and fieen takes, sometimes even more. Try this way, try this other way, and then the editor picks it up. We try all kinds of things in visual effects and animation. So it's about exploration. Were there any sequences that were par- ticularly memorable or challenging to work on? Pablo Helman: Well, we had 1,800 shots. So that's pretty much ev- ery shot in the movie, for like two hours and two minutes of work. So was there anything that was more challenging than others? No. The challenge here was start to finish. But I would say something like "No Place Like Home." It's a se- quence that has a lot of animals and interaction between the actors and the animals. Or something like "No Good Deed" where Elphaba becomes a witch and she faces up to the challenge. It was really a visual effects kind of challenge to put everything together, because at that point there's a lot of asset building of the environment. There were a lot of monkeys in that last sequence. The beginning of the movie is always a challenge because you want to start with a bang and you want to set things up. And I think throughout the movie, also the middle is a challenge because you don't want people to relax and not understand the base of the mov- ie. So I think everything is a challenge. That's why storytelling has a beginning, middle, and end—you need to hit those things or else you're not going to have storytelling. j u ly • a u g u s t • s e p t e m b e r 2 0 2 5 c g w 9

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