Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/815991
he first time you see Kong, all you see is his fist, a massive fist that he pounds down near two soldiers fighting on the ground. The ground shakes, and dirt flies up in the air. Kong's fist dwarfs the actors it lands beside. From that moment forward, it's clear that Kong is the star of this movie, and he is enormous. "Because they shot the movie anamor- phic, and because he's so tall, we have a lot of shots of just his feet or hands or head," says Industrial Light & Magic's Jeff White, the visual effects supervisor who led the team that created the CG character. "We knew the camera would look at every part of Kong." You see Kong backlit against a sunset. Blocking out the sun. With a giant moon behind his head. He walks through a swamp between tall, green islands, with water splashing up to his knees. His fur is bloody and wet, and filled with debris. He bends a little, reaches into the water, cups his hand, and scoops up a drink. Water pours down. He fights through an explosive scene set in a marsh, and his fur catches fire. He's on an island in the South Pacific, and he stares up into an aurora borealis. "There are shots in this film that you think won't work," White says. "Shots where you don't see him at first and then there's an explosion, and whoa, Kong is right there. There are striking shots, non-traditional for a tentpole film, but they really work. That's what I admire about Jordan. This film is so beautiful. Jordan didn't limit himself." "Jordan" is Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts, who brought his vision for this latest King Kong movie to the big screen. The Legend- ary Pictures film distributed by Warner Bros. stars Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, and John C. Reilly. It roared to $146 million at the worldwide box office opening weekend. Artists in ILM's San Francisco, Singapore, and Vancouver studios and those in two subcontractors, Rodeo FX and Hybride, han- dled about 750 shots. An in-house team at Legendary created approximately 300 shots. Stephen Rosenbaum was the senior ef- fects supervisor on the show. White led the work at ILM and supervised effects created at subcontractors Rodeo FX and Hybride. Most of the Skull Island environments, a gi- gantic storm, the gigantic Kong, and all but one of the strange creatures on Skull Island were handled at ILM. "One of the great things about this film was the variety of creatures, each so unique in their design," White says. ILM's creatures included Kong, all the Skull Crawlers, a water buffalo, a bam- boo-legged spider, a giant squid, and many varieties of prehistoric-looking birds. Artists at Hybride created and animated an odd creature that looked like a fallen log. Hybride's shots also included a scene with the actors staring up at an aurora borealis, a digital ship that brings the actors playing the Monarch research team toward ILM's storm, and the interiors of the helicopters that take the team through the storm and on to Skull Island. At Rodeo, artists created the complex and beautiful rotating paintings of Kong and the Skull Crawler in the village, the opening sequence with the World War II planes crashing, and scenes set in Washington, DC. Two mandates in particular set the tone for the visual effects work in the film. One, that the setting would be in Vietnam; the other, that Kong was a monster, not a gorilla. FILMING A MYTHIC ISLAND Even though film production took place on location in Hawaii, Australia, Vietnam, and Los Angeles, most of the film looks set in Vietnam. "Because Jordan [Vogt-Roberts] felt like Jurassic Park had put its stamp on Hawaii as a look, we replaced all the horizons that felt like Hawaii with Vietnam environments," White says. Skull Island begins with the flashback scene in which two World War II pilots, one Japanese and one American, crash onto a beach, fight each other, and meet Kong's fist. Fast forward to 1973 and a supposed scientific team under the auspices of "Monarch" head for a mysterious, mythic island shrouded by a storm created at ILM. When their helicopters break through the storm, they fly in formation over the island's dense jungle to the sounds of Credence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising." White dubs the sequence the Flight of the Valkeries in homage to Apoc- alypse Now. BE A STLY BE AUTIFUL F X Artists at Industrial Light & Magic create a mythic island, a monstrous Kong, and unique creatures for Kong: Skull Island By Barbara Robertson