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Subject: Behind the Scenes: 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest'
Time: 12:18:00 PM EST
Author: summermovieblog
Hi there. It's Patricia again, here to talk a little
about the special effects on 'Pirates
of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest,' which comes out on DVD
on December 5. The two-disc DVD contains loads of fun extras -- over five hours' worth in all -- like "Bloopers of the
Caribbean," "Meet Davy Jones" and "Creating the Kraken," and the animators at Industrial Light & Magic were gracious enough to provide a sneak peek of some of the more technical features when I visited their offices about a month ago. Herewith, some of the things I learned:
All Animators Could Use the Wisdom of Yoda: OK, this has nothing to do with 'Pirates.' But the first thing you see when you approach the year-old ILM offices in San Francisco's Presidio (the park and former military base where 'The Presidio' was filmed) is Yoda himself, perched atop a water fountain. ILM, of course, was founded by 'Star Wars' guru George Lucas, and the shop created the special effects for all the 'Star Wars' films as well as almost every cool-looking movie ever made since then. It's comforting to know that Yoda is watching over all of ILM's projects, don't you think? I love this picture so much I'm thinking of turning the full-size version into my wallpaper. Aaaanyway.
Davy Jones Owes a Debt to Godzilla: According to ILM animation supervisor Hal Hickel, the hardest thing about creating the computer-generated character of Captain Jack Sparrow's nemesis, Davy Jones, was the tentacles. To figure out the look and behavior of Davy's beard (as well as, to some extent, the monstrous Kraken), Hickel looked for images of octopuses out of the water and ended up consulting an unlikely reference source. "I had a hazy memory of a 'Godzilla' film from my
childhood that had a real octopus in it," he says. "Turns out it was 'King Kong vs. Godzilla.'
And they have a great big red octopus that they turn loose on a Polynesian village,
and the footage is fantastic. That ended up being one of the best pieces of
reference we could find." 
It's Lonely Being a CG Character -- Unless You're in 'Pirates': Most films with CG characters use motion-capture technology to bring those characters to life: The actor is isolated on a stage, and his or her movements are recorded in front of a bluescreen. But with 18 digital characters in 'Dead Man's Chest,' the animators wanted to be able to film the actors on-set. So they used performance capture, in which the actors wore special suits -- they looked like unitards with Nicoderm patches all over them -- that could be tracked in three different views. That way, the live actors (Johnny Depp, et al.) could interact opposite the computer-generated characters (Davy Jones and his crew) instead of talking to the air, as you may have seen in behind-the-scenes segments for other CG-heavy films. I mean really, how are you supposed to turn in an intense dramatic performance if you're only emoting to your imaginary friend?
POST: Are you excited for the 'Pirates' DVD?
GET IT: Buy or rent the 'Pirates' DVD (starting Dec. 5)
Tags: Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest, Davy Jones, Bill Nighy,computer animation, ILM, movies
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omg i cannot wait for this movie i didn't get to see it in the theaters so i reakky wanna see this one!!!!
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this is withour doubt the best movie of the year, and should be nominated for all of the oscars in the book!!!! 5 stars
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LOVED THE FIRST PIRATES MOVIE --CAN'T WAIT FOR THE SECOND AND HOPE FOR A SERIES. IS THIS EVEN CONSIDERED? WHY NOT !!!
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i am sooooooo excited about the movie i am gonna get it before school starts
12/5/06 1:27 PM