Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1576
O nce upon a time in the 1980s, so the story goes, the US was sliding down the slippery slope toward nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Enter a group of retired crime fighters and cos- tumed superheroes who either had melted into everyday society a decade earlier after being outlawed or are working covertly for the government. e murder of a gov- ernment-sponsored superhero pulls these vigilantes, the Watchmen, back into ac- tion. As they investigate the murder, some of the Watchmen discover an evil plot by one of their own that could lead to nu- clear war, and they uncover a conspiracy aimed at killing them, one by one. Originally a 12-issue graphic novel cre- ated by Alan Moore (writer), Dave Gib- bons (artist), and John Higgins (colorist), and published by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987, the Watchmen have now leapt onto the big screen. Directed by Zack Sny- der of 300 fame, the Warner Bros. film brings to life the superheroes Ozymandias, Rorschach, Nite Owl, the Comedian, the Mystic, Silk Spectre II, her mother Silk Spectre, and Dr. Manhattan. Although called "superheroes," only one has super powers: Dr. Manhattan, the for- mer scientist Jon Osterman (actor Billy Crudup), who acquired his power when an intrinsic field subtractor accidentally zapped him. He still looks like Osterman (Crudup), but he's bigger, buck naked, blue, and he glows. Also, he can cause people to explode. In the film, once Osterman becomes Dr. Manhattan, he's CG, a character created at Sony Pictures Imageworks who stars in approximately 38 minutes of the film— mostly in close-ups. "It was ambitious, and scary," says Peter Travers, visual effects supervisor at Image- works. "Digital humans are so hard to do. When I read the graphic novel, I thought it was the weirdest comic I ever read. I said, 'We have to do Dr. Manhattan, and it has to be all CG.' DJ was on the same page." DJ is John Des Jardin, overall visual effects supervisor. ey reached that conclusion after first painting an actor blue. "He looked like what he was: like a member of the Blue Man Group," Travers says. "But, the direc- tor wanted to see his internal structure, and we could make him translucent. It was an opportunity for us to focus on one primary character." Although digital doubles, even blue dou- bles, are usually CG because the human actor can't do the superhero stunts called for in a film, this superhero isn't particu- larly action-oriented. "at's what makes him creepy and scary in the movie," Trav- ers says. "He does a subtle gesture with his hand and explodes people. What we had March 2009 32 n n n n Character Creation