Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/837213
DEPARTMENT www.postmagazine.com 28 POST JUNE 2017 One is only a cap and a hand. Salazar himself — that is, actor Javier Bardem — wears prosthetic makeup that's enhanced digitally. "We also replaced his eyes to give Salazar a shadowed retina look, and took off the back of his head," Brozenich says. "The biggest challenge on the film was trying to work with Javier's perfor- mance in a supportive, non-disruptive way. We had to add so much onto him, we wanted to make sure we were supporting everything he was trying to do." But that wasn't the only challenge. This film's conceit is that all the ghosts are eternally trapped in an underwater environment. "We had to make actors shot at a normal 24-frames-per-second speed look as if they were floating in water," Brozenich says. "Everything that can float does. Medals on their chest. Their hair, clothing, rags, costumes." For reference, the crew spent a day filming a stunt actor wearing a period costume while un- derwater in a pool. "It's one thing to believe you understand what that would look like, and another to see it," Brozenich says. Once they knew what the characters would look like underwater in full costume, they had to figure out how to replicate the look on dry land. "Sheldon, Patrick and I spent a lot of time going through footage, trying to find the magic formula," Brozenich says. On set, all the performers wore partial cos- tumes to make it easier to add the digital cloth and run simulations later. Those who would appear in close-ups in long coats wore chopped coats that stopped at their rib cage. "All the ghosts also have CG hair and digital prosthetics on their bodies," Brozenich says. "Their legs, arms, hands might be digital. They are all a conglomeration of digital prosthetics and practical makeup and costumes. So, we made amazingly detailed and naturalized digi-doubles of all of them. In a lot of cases, it made sense to rotomate and add the necessary [digital] parts back in. It was really a harsh pipeline of people working at MPC in Bangalore getting in there and just doing it." Three of the four previous Pirates of the Caribbean films received Oscar nominations for best visual effects, with the 2006 film Dead Man's Chest winning the Oscar. And, all four films were box-office successes. The first, The Curse of the Black Pearl, earned $653 million; the second, Dead Man's Chest, and the fourth, On Stranger Tides, topped $1 billion worldwide; and the third, At World's End, brought in $958 million. This fifth film has a lot to live up to. But, like the ones before, it has unique, state-of-the-art visual effects powering the story and, of course, Jack Sparrow. As the irreverent trickster puts it, "No matter how difficult, I will always prevail." The State of the Art We asked MPC visual effects supervisor Patrick Ledda in what ways this film pushed the state of the art of visu- al effects. Globally, approximately 800 artists at MPC's studios worked on the film. In broad terms, artists in Montreal worked on the characters, while those in London developed tools for water simulation, parted the seas and created the third act. "For us at MPC in Montreal, it was the hair work, the tech- nical animation and the simulation of cloth and hair," he says. "The amount, the accuracy, the art direction needed was a first. We hadn't pushed that kind of work to that level. The simulation needed to be the main actor in a way. In London, the work they did on water was on the next level. It's really amazing." — By Barbara Robertson The ghostly pirate hunters always look as if they are underwater.