How they did Forrest Gump

As we get deeper and deeper into after effects with this class I've really enjoyed figuring out how these special effects or movie magic actually worked. One of my favorite movies form when I was younger, Forrest Gump, was one of the films I consistently was stumped by. Between how they hid Lt. Dans legs, Forrest meeting John Lennon, Nixon, and JFK there was a lot to wonder about. But now that we're getting into rotoscoping and splicing ourselves into films it's becoming clearer to me. To confirm some of these curiosities, here is a site explaining each of the special effects in the film and how they pulled them off.

Movie Magic in Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump: The Animated Movie

Forrest Gump is quite the movie. Not only is it lovely story-wise, it features some pretty amazing CGI, from leg removal to ping pong ball addition and beyond. The quality of work in this movie was impressive in 1994 and continues to be amazing.

This video goes into the making of the ever-famous, super deep Feather Scene. The scene itself is often considered the ultimate metaphor for the whole movie, channeling the idea of “wherever the wind blows.” Funnily enough, the wind of this scene was completely choreographed. The graphics people working on Forrest Gump were able to composite a blue-screen video of someone controlling the flutter of the feather onto the exiting scene and meshing it to an actual feather that Forrest interacts with in the scene. Everything had to be planned and thought out extremely thoroughly for the scene to work. And boy did it work.

Another really cool part of Forrest Gump is whenever Forrest shows up in historical footage—meeting JFK, sitting with John Lennon. The behind the scenes video shows how much matching, masking, augmenting, and altering went in to realistically putting Tom Hanks in the scene. These scenes really show the magic of the green (or in this case blue) screen. Forrest Gump is quite the testament to CGI and animation in a movie that might not be immediately associated with animation.

A Journey through Culture

From the "Copa Sequence" in Goodfellas to Russian Ark, there is something truly beautiful and captivating about a well done single shot sequence. Recently, the Sunday Times of London released a brilliant commercial for their culture section that consists of one actors transitioning through several iconic scenes in one continuous shot. Obviously, due to the nature of such shots, extensive planning is necessary. Like a well-oiled machine, the actors, stage hands, camera man, etc, all work together to create the illusion of a seamless transition through times and space.

What I especially appreciated about this commercial is variety of media and art that was portrayed. From  Rodin's "Le Pensuer" to Madmen to Daft Punk, the commercial did a nice job of highlighting the diversity of subjects covered in the culture section of the paper. Interestingly, all of the scenes that were emulated were lit vary differently. As a result, lights had to be moved and turned on and off as the camera moved. It was also fascinating to see how the lead actor, much like a chameleon, was able to adopt the looks of several different characters while staying on camera the entire time.

Forrest Gump Rotoscoping

Continuing with the theme of our current project, "Forrest Gump," provides a great example of the use of keying and rotoscoping in major motion pictures. The following three scenes represent how motion graphics can be used to further a story and provide comedy. There is no other way in which Tom Hanks could have been placed in scenes with such historical people like LBJ and John Lennon other than the use of green screens and rotoscoping. I believe the makers of the film used ADR as well to create three, nearly seamless sequences.

Anchorman! And green screen

So I hope you guys are all as excited as I am for Anchorman 2!

But for something actually pertaining to class, let's talk green screen. Forrest Gump was the example Arturo used in class of putting yourself into old footage. For my project I am inserting myself into an old Three Stooges cartoon so it is similar in the style with black and white footage. The thing that makes the integration realistic in Forrest Gump is the grainy feel. Forrest fits right in the scene, the lighting on him is the same as the other characters and Forrest even casts a shadow on JFK as he shakes his hand. Paying attention to those little details in the scene is what makes the integration look realistic. I hope mine looks this good!

Top 50 Movie Special Effects Shots

I stumbled upon this page that had 50 of the top special effects scenes in movies. I definitely think there are some really awesome special effects scenes in movies that they are missing but this had some pretty cool ones. When you watch a movie you don't always realize all the special effects that go into it. I found some really interesting scenes on this site. I posted some of my favorites below but here is a link to the website.

The Road to Perdition - I thought this scene was cool because the special effects are very subtle. It really makes you feel like you are in Chicago in the 1930's



War of the Worlds - This movie is filled with special effects. This scene is a good example of some of the effects they used to create this movie.



Forrest Gump - I thought this scene was cool as well because you forget that they have to edit out the guys limbs.



These were just a few videos that I found interesting. There are more scenes from other movies like Jurassic Park, Alien, Star Trek, Star Wars, and many more.

Rotoscoping

Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, for use in animated films. Originally, recorded live-action film images were projected onto a frosted glass panel and re-drawn by an animator. This projection equipment is called a rotoscope, although this device has been replaced by computers in recent years. In the visual effects industry, the term rotoscoping refers to the technique of manually creating a matte for an element on a live-action plate so it may be composited over another background. Some of the top rotoscoping software includes after effects and mocha.

An example of rotoscoping everyone might recognize include the scenes from Forrest Gump. Rotoscoping was used to integrate Forrest into footage of famous events.

Here is a tutorial from the adobe website that utilizes after effects and photoshop together.



I also found tutorials from Creative Cow and forgingfire.com.