Pan's Labyrinth - Physical and Digital Special Effects

Pan's Labyrinth has long been one of my favorite films. Premiering in 2006 by director Guillermo Del Toro (who also directed Hellboy and Pacific Rim), Pan's Labyrinth is a beautiful combination of makeup and physical special effects blended with computer effects.

Considering Del Toro has a background in special effects makeup, it's no surprise that he tends to want all effects to be present in the set. While shooting his latest film, Crimson Peak, Del Toro remarked that having a set built, instead of green screen, allowed the actors to give better performances and the final product to have a more lifelike quality.

Some great scenes where the digital effects really bring the fantasy to life include a scene at the beginning where a stick bug emerges from a broken statue, the stones walls of the Labyrinth opening up for the main character as she makes her way through the maze, and a scene in a courtroom of magical people. Another effect that is remarkable is that for the faun, his costume was built, but many aspects of the human anatomy don't mesh with a faun's, so the team had to create green screen wraps for certain body parts and they would fix it in post, creating a creature that looks completely fantastical.

Pan's Labyrinth will always be a favorite of mine and Del Toro will always be one of my favorite directors. His monster's and dark fairy tales are exactly what I want to explore further, and I can not wait to see what he has planned.

Pan's Labyrinth and Special Effects



One of my favorite scenes:

Steve Viola and Captain America: The First Avenger title sequence

       
            Steve Viola is a creative director, title designer and head of Method Design (formerly Rok!t Studio), located in Santa Monica, California. Viola has some elite title sequences working as both creative director and or title designer including The Avengers, Captain America: The First Avenger, Madea's Big Happy Family, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. One of his latest title sequences Captain America: The First Avenger began when Rok!t's EP David Garber collaborated with the director of The Wolfman, Joe Johnston, to generate ideas and eventually pitch the idea to Marvel. The idea behind the title sequence is a spin on the black and white Nazi propaganda films. The really cool part about this sequence is how the production team of Rok!t Studio's took existing Nazi propaganda to create the stereoscopic effect. While this might be a little advanced for our class an animation with depth like this one should be something to strive for in the future. The team created the title sequence by using Adobe Photoshop, After effects,  Illustrator, 3D was done in Autodesk Maya and all 2D /3D composting was done in Nuke. Viola stated, "As a team we took a lot from Joe himself. From a concept perspective we tried to take inspiration from the WWII period and abstract/environment-based titles like the Bond title sequences and Thank You for Smoking." Here is the Captain America: The First Avenger title sequence, Enjoy!

                     

  Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) — Art of the Title

Here is The Wolfman intro title sequence created in Adobe After Effects by Joe Johnston and his team, Johnston again was the director of the title sequence for Captain America: The First Avenger.


                            

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Costume and make-up design has always been one of my passions. I have also been a huge fan of science fiction. So when I heard The Rise of the Planet of the Apes "prequel"movie was coming out this summer, I was quite excited... until I learned there were no actual animals on set since they were all animated.

Now from a movie-maker's standpoint I completely understand why this decision was made. First of all animals are difficult to work with on a set, so having over 100 apes running free would probably be a huge liability. Second of all, trying to get the proper emotion from an animal that doesn't necessarily speak English can't be the easiest job. Now even if they didn't use apes but instead humans, like in the 1968 and 2011 movies, the production company would have to pay for all of the make-up and costume materials as well as the actors themselves. Plus, rather than just having a make-up or costume designer, you would have to pay for someone on set to manually create the cast of 100 apes. So, CG animation it is.

My issue is, while CG has come quite far in its development, I'm not sure if I would rather have a man in a monkey suit that looks physically stable, than a creature who may have the proper dimensions of an ape, but looks like a computer-generated hologram.

However, after experiencing the character development of Caesar, I realize that the acting done by Andy Serkis and the rest of the cast would not have been nearly as effective if he were physically restricted by an ape-suit. With CG, Andy Serkis was able to fully explore his body movements, since he could move around with greater ease, and show a variety of emotions that wouldn't have been possible if he had latex put on his face. Having a background in make-up, I must say that the spirit gum and mask required would have lowered his ability to move his cheeks, lips, and eyes, resulting in a weaker performance and personification of Caesar.

With the technology used to create the movie, the actors had greater control over their body and faces, which allowed them to further the character development necessary for the plot of this film. So while others who may be aesthetically displeased with CG like me, we need to remember that story telling is the most important element in our industry, and so long as we continue to advance our production quality but follow through with the plot, films should continue to amaze and astound the audience.