An excerpt from befores & afters print magazine.
In Wicked, the audience learns of the birth of Elphaba and her unnaturally green skin, and her subsequent upbringing by the nanny, Dulcibear (a talking bear voiced by Sharon D. Clarke). ILM was responsible for this character. Looking to maintain a sense of anthropomorphism to Dulcibear, ILM kept her locomotion on all fours as much as possible, discusses ILM animation supervisor David Shirk.
“When motion studies showed that cradling a baby in one arm resulted in a three-legged motion that resembled a limp, she was allowed to rise to her hind legs, but real-world bears are quite adept at walking on two legs, resulting in a strong ‘person in a suit’ vibe. This was remedied by intentionally giving her a slightly exaggerated, lumbering gait.”
“Dulcibear had a quick screen introduction and needed to quickly establish as a nurturing and appealing character,” adds Shirk. “To support this, subtle but important tweaks were made to her physical characteristics—her face and snout rounded, teeth reduced by varying degrees from shot to shot, and her claws rounded, smoothed, and shortened, and carefully posed to avoid direct contact with the baby in shots. In addition, we gave her the ability to twist her wrist to cradle and a small separation in her toes that allowed the impression of a thumb.”
The facial animation for Dulcibear was tailored for delivering musical dialogue with custom shapes designed to allow rapid phrasing weighted to the front of her snout. Says Shirk: “This avoided excessive movement from her very large mouth and always with an overlay of characteristic bear nuances and movement in her facial animation to ground her as an animal. It was very helpful that bear nose movement is also quite appealing! Her non-singing acting was heavily based on human reference for overall timing and nuance. In Dulcibear’s interactions with the children, we always tried to balance realistic handling of her size and weight with a gentle style of moving.”
ILM’s creature work extended further to the wolf doctor in Elphaba’s birth scene, as Shirk discusses. “For our wolf doctor, we made a creative adjustment as natural wolf movement tends to strongly indicate their predatory nature, so she was instead mainly based on domesticated dogs like huskies, featuring a relaxed and less controlled way of moving.”
