Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/83694
Stop-Motion Visual Effects n n n n Skies painted by visual effects artists lifted the storytelling into the environment. T The good news is that the visual effects crew working on Tim Burton's Frankenweenie didn't need to create CG characters that matched puppets for the stop-motion film or remove seams from puppet faces. The bad news—or the interesting challenge, if you pre- fer—is that they still ended up producing 1200 visual effects shots. The reason was unique. moval, is hidden," says Visual Effects Supervisor Tim Ledbury. "The difference between Frankenweenie and other films was the scale of the puppets. They had to be big because of the mechanics in Sparky [the dog]. And that meant we ran out of stage space. So we had to do more digital environments." More, as in nearly everything. The sets included houses for the main character and a neighbor, and the school. "Everything else is CG," Ledbury says, "houses, streets, lampposts, cars." A crew that topped 40 artists at peak worked for more than two "With every stop-motion film, much of the work, like rig re- years on the show creating the environments. They also swam invis- ible fish through digital water, cast light from torches and flashlight beams, ignited various electrical effects that appear throughout the film, and burned a windmill with digital flames. Of the 1200 visual effects shots, only around 200 had rig removals alone. Size Matters The stop-motion animated feature, a remake of Burton's 1984 live- action short, stars a young boy—a child scientist named Victor Franken stein (voiced by actor Charlie Tahan). It's a parody of and homage to the 1931 film Frankenstein: When Victor's dog Sparky dies in a car accident, Victor revives him. "The story is based on something so dear to Tim [Burton]," says for doing all the stuff that gets him into trouble." All the puppets are silicon with mechanical steel armatures inside. The animators performed the puppets on "ones," that is, they moved the puppets into unique poses for each frame; 24 poses for each sec- ond of film. Sparky determined the scale. "You base the scale on the smallest important actor," says Rick Heinrichs, production designer. "And that was the dog." Although "revived," Sparky still acts like a dog in the film. He isn't an anthropomorphic character or a monster. "Tim wanted a dog that was dog-like, and to get a happy, charming little guy with personality was a real challenge," Thomas says. "The animators had to make this little puppet that has only dog emotions come off like a living thing. We had to make him larger to get expressions." To fit Sparky with an internal armature complex enough for these producer Allison Abbate, who has produced numerous animated films and worked with Burton on Corpse Bride. "It was born of a time when he lost his beloved dog. And, he loved horror movies." In the animated feature, Victor is an outcast. Sparky is his only friend. "The whole film is about a boy and his dog," says Super- vising Animator Trey Thomas. "It's about the purity of their re- lationship. Victor drives the story. But, Sparky is Victor's reason precise performances, the puppet needed to stand three-and-a-half inches high from his head to his toes, and five inches long. That meant the boy Victor was a foot tall, and Victor's parents grew to 16 to 18 inches tall. "So when you do a house scaled to a character that size, you're talking about a fairly large house," Heinrichs says. "And we had a whole neighborhood." More than one whole neighborhood. During production, in- dividual animators worked simultaneously on 35 sets. Thus, the neighborhood became the province of a visual effects crew that cre- ated set extensions and, for some wide shots, an entire digital town. "We had 800 greenscreen shots," Ledbury says. "And, we had differ- ent scales of miniatures that we had to comp." In one shot, for example, a Godzilla-like turtle monster stomps on a miniature of the town center, and crowds of puppets run away. "We decided to make the miniature go with the turtle and compos- ite puppets shot on greenscreen for the crowds." To rotoscope the puppets, the artists used The Foundry's Nuke and Autodesk's Maya. The crew also used Maya to build the town, creating a "New Hol- to CG. But, it only makes it look more CG and stark. We added a d immediately say it would lend itself August/September 2012 land" kit based on 18 house styles. "This is suburbia," Ledbury says, "clean, flat, and boring. So you' 39 Images ©2012 Disney Enterprises, Inc.