Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/371911
18 cgw j u ly . a u g u s t 2 0 1 4 D I G I T A L C H A R A C T E R S from Rise farther down the road. "We knew rain played into the story," Winquist says. "Matt [Reeves] was very interested in playing the apes living as one with nature. And, we knew they would fi lm in the springtime in rainy Vancouver and hot, humid New Orleans." A new motion-capture sys- tem gave the Weta Digital crew the ability to gather perfor- mance-capture data from the actors in extreme locations and weather. "We took the same tools we use on stage and made them mobile," Lemmon says. "We worked with Standard Deviation to have wireless motion-capture systems that we could freely place around the set without being tethered to switches and boxes; they are more weatherproof and robust. Some sat 10 feet from walls of fi re and explosions, and still de- livered good capture data. They were in rain, sleet, and snow." That gave the crew a huge advantage over the setup they had used for Rise, which entailed putting the gear on a frame. "We could strap cameras to trees," Winquist says, "put them on stands off -camera… wherever we wanted without worrying about routing cables to a production cart like we had to do on the last fi lm. That allowed us to avoid holding up production, and it gave us loads of great data because we could sneak into tight corners." Even so, the crew typically used a familiar confi guration. "We'd try to set up the cam- eras similar to what we'd do on a stage, to get as much coverage as we could and avoid occlu- sion," Lemmon says. "We'd use eight to 40 cameras, depending on the scene and how much time we had to set up. As we moved from wide to tight shots, we'd o en add more cameras for more detail and coverage. For wide shots, the data could be sparse because we knew we'd fi ll in background characters with studio performance-cap- ture sessions. The great thing about having an accommodat- ing production crew is that we became friends with the greens department. They would use bits of moss or hanging vines to cover the cameras." Whenever someone on the crew added or moved a cam- era, the team would re-cali- brate the system. "We needed to have at least a wand with a set of markers that we could swing through the volume for each new setup," Lemmon says. "In some cases, if we were just adding a couple cameras, we could adjust the calibration. And, in the same way that a cinematographer would pre-light a scene, we would jump ahead and try to pre-rig as much as we could." In addition to the wireless cameras, Weta Digital worked with Standard Deviation for other equipment. "We use a lot of their gear," Lemmon says. "The mo- tion-capture cameras, the equipment the actors wear on their helmets to record facial movement, and the equip- ment that drives their active motion-capture markers. The markers are LEDs encased in rubber and silicon that run on an infrared spectrum. They fl ash short bursts just as the motion-capture camera opens its shutter. The data goes to the mobile command center along with the witness camera footage, all wireless as well." The witness cameras are THE ORANGUTAN MAURICE (PICTURED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FRONT ROW) HAS 900,000 HAIRS COMPARED TO A HORSE'S 3.2 MILLION, WHICH MADE FUR COMPUTATION TRICKIER FOR THE HORSES. ANIMATORS WORKED FROM MOTION CAPTURE FOR ALL APES IN SMALL CROWDS SUCH AS THIS. "THESE HUMAN ACTORS WORKING WITH THE DIRECTOR ARE THE BACKBONE OF THE DIGITAL CHARACTERS."