Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/426320
28 cgw n o v e m b e r . d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 entry. No one has to know how to use Maya. Anyone in the room can move the props. We just have to set it up, which is a five- to 10-minute process." C H A S I N G T H R O U G H V E N I C E Designs for the chase through the Venice canals provided the perfect opportunity to put the room in play. "It was brilliant for the Venice chase," Smith says. "The modeling department had built amazing sections of real-look- ing, but Madagascar-style, areas in Venice, and then we picked our places. We couldn't go everywhere, so we mapped out two canals that would work and scattered out, piece by piece, the general choreography of gags – a physical gag here, a verbal gag there, a stereo gag here. Nothing can compare with being on location and working out the choreography, screen direction, and the lighting." To help with that mapping, Low's crew had linked one of the props in the room to a gondola. "We wanted to know how wide to make the canal," Low says. "So we put a prop linked to the gondola on a chair with wheels and moved it around the room. We looked at the set through a [virtual] 35mm lens to see if the canal was wide enough to maneuver or too narrow." In addition to moving physical objects in the scene and exper- imenting with camera lenses and positions, they could also change the lighting. "We are lighting now in previs," Low says. "We can give a road map for where the key light comes from in the environment, given a time of day. For Venice, we figured out that when we had light from one spot and the characters moving in one direc- tion, we could have the building department build only the side of the set we were shooting. It helped refine the scope of what they had to build. And, we could see what the lighting did as we moved through the set. So, we could strategically place buildings. Rather than 20 lighting scenarios, we came up with five." In another, pivotal scene, the penguins and the North Wind agents move around a campfire while trying to look at virtual holograms displayed on a transparent dome. Again, the camera-capture room helped the crew design the sequence. "It was critical to set up a clear line with the characters so the audience felt grounded in the set," Low explains. "It was great to use the props to place the characters and figure out where the cameras should be." That sequence is one of Smith's favorites. "It has the best acting I've seen DreamWorks do," Smith says. "There are such lovely sub- tleties to the acting. It's fun in places – so 'Penguin.' And then there is this tone at the end you don't see coming." " Nothing CAN COMPARE WITH BEING ON LOCATION AND WORKING OUT THE CHOREOGRAPHY, SCREEN DIRECTION, AND THE LIGHTING." A PROP IN THE CAMERA-CAPTURE ROOM WAS LINKED TO THE GONDOLA, LETTING THE CREW EXPERIMENT WITH MOVING IT DOWN THE CANAL.