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8 cgw j u ly . a u g u s t 2 0 1 4 played the anthropomorphic reptiles in three live-action fi lms, and animated versions of the superheroes starred in a 2007 CG animated feature. So, what's next? Live action with CG charac- ters. Produced by Michael Bay of Transformers fame and di- rected by Jonathan Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans, The Killing Room), Paramount Pictures' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles features the four superhero turtles, their sensei rat Splinter, and their nemesis Shredder, all CG characters. Artists at Industrial Light & Magic worked on 428 of the fi lm's total 726 visual eff ects shots, including 396 with ani- mated characters. Working with ILM was strategic partner BASE FX as well as Hybride, Image Engine, Atomic Fiction, and Virtuos. Tippett Studios artists created young CG turtles. Animators started with data captured on location and in stu- dios using the latest evolution of ILM's proprietary iMocap sys- tem for body capture and Muse, the studio's new state-of-the- art system, for facial capture. Each CG character had an actor on set who performed the narrative scenes and a counterpart stunt actor for the action scenes. Alan Ritchson is Raphael, Noel Fisher is Michel- angelo, and Jeremy Howard is Donatello. Pete Ploszek played Leonardo on set and Johnny Knoxville provided his voice. Danny Woodburn played Splin- ter on set and Tony Shalhoub provided his voice. The CG turtles look buff , tough, and every inch a super- hero. They wear their shells like shields. They stand about six inches taller than the actors who portray them. They practice martial arts. And, they talk. So, how do you make a turtle talk? "It starts with a science proj- ect," says Pablo Helman, visual eff ect supervisor. "We had to extract high-fi delity data with a lot of subtlety from an actor's performance. Then, we had to reinterpret it with artistry to end up with a performance that is relevant to the story we wanted to tell and fi ts with a creature whose design is pretty diff erent from the actor." P E R F O R M A N C E C A P T U R E On location, the actors playing the CG characters wore gray suits printed with unique mark- ers that ILM's iMocap system would later recognize and translate into body performance data for the animators. For facial capture, the actors wore snug helmets molded to a 3D scan of their heads and fi tted with dual HD cameras. One camera pointed toward the le side of the face and the other toward the right. Painted on the actors' faces were 128 dots that, once recorded, ILM's Muse system could track. A battery pack powered the system, and a hard drive collected the data. The actors wore both on their backs. "The head rig also had lights," says Robert Weaver, associate visual eff ects super- visor. "So we could capture in a variety of situations – even on a roo op in the pitch of night." The lights were eight tiny LEDs over each camera. Because the turtles would be about six inches taller than the actors, the actors stood on six-inch platforms or wore three-inch platform shoes for dialog-driven scenes. "When they wear the shoes, we put Ping-Pong balls three inches above their eyes so everyone would know where to look for eyelines," says Tim Har- rington, animation supervisor. Thirty-seven-year-old Director Jonathan Liebes- man has been a Ninja Tur- tles fan since childhood. "I grew up with the cartoon as a child in South Africa," Liebesman says. "I was a fan of the fi rst fi lm and "The Secret of the Ooze." Because I have a brother, I was instinctively drawn to the camaraderie and strong sense of friend- ship that exists between the Turtles. The best thing about this movie is that we've retained the origi- nal charm and fun of the Turtles while staying true to their characters." Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is Liebesman's fi rst production that utilized motion-capture technology, but it will probably not be the last. "I love the technical side of VFX fi lmmaking, and TMNT allowed me to explore that passion," he says. "ILM set up an incredible pipeline with tracking suits and HD facial-capture technology that allowed us to shoot actors on any location and record their performances to be decoded and translat- ed in anim. It was like being a kid in a candy store – being able use the technology I had only read about or seen in the Planet of the Apes fi lms. It's incredible to see how advanced the technolo- gy has become." The technology gave Liebesman a new kind of directorial freedom. "Directing CG characters takes a diff erent sort of imagination," he says. "It takes a certain kind of faith while you are shooting for everyone to be confi dent that the fi nal product will turn out to be what you ini- tially imagined. But, looking at the fi lm and scenes in a diff erent manner can foster new, fresh ideas. And, if you come up with a new idea, it is easier to implement that idea, basically speaking, because so much of the fi lm is fi nalized in postproduc- tion. To have a partner like ILM and Pablo Helman was incredible. I would absolute- ly use the process again. The technology is getting better and better each day, which, in turn, increases the pos- sibilities exponentially. The turtles look amazing!" – Barbara Robertson Directing CG Ninja Turtles ANIMATORS AND VISUAL EFFECTS ARTISTS SENT THE NINJA TURTLES INTO EXPLOSIVE ACTION SHOTS.