They also reflect on being part of the Wicked universe.
With Jon M. Chu’s Wicked: For Good out soon, production visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman from Industrial Light & Magic and Framestore animation supervisor Dale Newton gave audience members in Italy a glimpse of what’s to come.
The pair presented at VIEW Conference in Turin, providing a comprehensive look behind the scenes of the first Wicked, while also hinting at the extent of the visual effects in the sequel. This included the CG creature work, such as for the Cowardly Lion.
After their presentation, befores & afters sat down with Helman and Newton to reflect on their Wicked experiences and how they approached the beloved characters and material over two films.
b&a: The first film has so many great characters, environments, and obviously the flying scenes. Was it a ramp up for the second film?
Dale Newton: It absolutely was. It certainly multiplied the amount of characters, and the amount of characters in shots. There was more complexity in environments. All of that went upwards. It was great to go from film one to film two with people that we’d already established a good rapport with internally at Framestore, and then obviously with Pablo and everyone else on the client side. Pushing that all into film two was ratcheting up another order of complexity.
Pablo Helman: It’s an interesting question because when you talk about visual effects or a visual effects movie, usually if you take a look at the finals, you graph that and the curve is really up towards the end, in terms of deliveries. You might say, well, that’s because you have to get used to the director, you have to get used to the content, you have to get used to the rhythm of the movie.
On the first movie, the curve went way up right towards the last six weeks of the film. We finished 800 shots in that period and the whole movie was about 2000 shots. So, from my point of view, it’s like, okay, well, we’ve got two movies here, so maybe there’s a way not to have that curve on the second movie?
This new movie is more or less the same amount of shots. So, we were initially thinking, well, we’re going to pick up where we left off. Not so. We found the same thing happened. It takes a long time to pick up the pace, not necessarily because we didn’t know each other, but because you’re still trying to find the movie, you still want to be able to collaborate and contribute and you want to make it the best movie you can possibly make.
Then, as you go against the calendar that is coming towards you, you just want to just take the time to make the movie the best you can. So, we did know each other, we could finish each other’s sentences, but it was very labor intensive. The work was more complicated. It’s the kind of movie that has everything in—environments, creatures, crowds, atmospherics, everything. I mean, this movie has a tornado sequence. This movie has hundreds of creatures that interact with humans or Ozians. Plus, all of that is in the context of a musical. The music is liberating in some ways and in other ways it boxes you into a specific playpen that you cannot change.
b&a: Something I would not normally ask visual effects supervisors or animation supervisors is about getting swept up in the world they’re working in. Wicked transformed audiences, I think. It got people more into the original material. The Sphere experience has also happened. Is there something you could say, now you’ve had this experience on both films and from everything else that comes with Wizard of Oz, about that? Has that felt different than other projects?
Dale Newton: Well, it’s special because it feels like you’re a part of a bigger story. It’s much, much bigger than any of us, and we’re just bit players, really. But it’s nice to be a part of that. It’s wonderful to be a part of that.
Pablo Helman: Yes, you put yourself in the characters’ shoes a lot. The themes are so universal. It’s uncanny to think about how this is a book that is from the 1900s and a movie from 1939, and a new book in 1995. Here we are a hundred years later and we’re still talking about the same things!
When you get an opportunity to do a project like this, you latch onto it and you do the best you can. I have to say that Jon Chu was the one who was bringing the tone of the movie. I mean, the director really is the person who brings the tone of the movie alive. If the tone is not there, you’ve got a problem. John has done that to a T. It’s been great working with him and understanding where the characters are coming from.
This is a big deal. Motivation is something we talk a lot about, just using single sentences. So, for example, when it comes to animation, we use words like ambiguity or redemption or guilt or happiness—all those single words could be translated into one specific pose for a creature.
b&a: Actually, on that creature work. Dale, what lessons might Framestore have taken from doing so many creatures from the first film into the second film?
Dale Newton: Well, there’s the type of Ozzification to consider. This was for us to define along the way. We had a good feeling for the sort of world that we had created in film one, so we knew what the rules were and there was a process already established. So that made life a bit easier.
b&a: Yes, I was also thinking, on the first film you had to solve Dr. Dillamond, for example, who is a goat but also talks. When you came to do the Cowardly Lion for this new film, is that the same problem to solve, or something different?
Dale Newton: It is roughly the same problem to solve. It’s to find the gestures that fit in with the tone of the movie. We’re not making a cartoon with the movie. It’d be so easy to go down that track. But if you’re going to try not to break that spell, everything has to be grounded in some sort of a physical way, but yet you still have to get a glimpse into this character’s head. You still have to make the audience believe that he is a lion, that he’s not an actor.
Pablo Helman: I think a lot of it, too, has to do with references and taking a look at other animals and getting a sense of what they’re telling you. I mean, with a lion, you have to work out whether a look a lion is giving means he’s going to eat you or not. How do you do that without breaking that rule, which is, you don’t want to make a cartoon out of that reference. That’s part of the conversation that we had with Jon at the beginning of the project, which was, what kind of animals do we have here? Basically they’re animals. They just behave in a specific way.
In animation takes, we would cast a wide net in which we would say, well, you can go this way, which is a completely anthropomorphic way, or you can go this way, which is a completely natural way where maybe it doesn’t portray exactly the emotion that you want, but it does it in a very animalistic kind of way. It’s just about finding the middle of it and then also trying to find the audience. How does the audience take what you’re presenting? Sometimes you would think that because the lion in the movie picks up the tail and he’s crying that it’s going to take you out. Well, we tried it, it doesn’t, it’s just part of it. So it’s about finding the characters. I think it’s the same way as when the director casts a movie, ie., when they cast an actor. Yes, the director has an incredible vision for what that character is, but also directors are counting on those casting choices to bring something else to the picture.
Dale Newton: What’s really interesting is trying to find that vision, but with a team of animators. Again, we’re trying to cast the right animator to work on specific creatures. Each of those animators might have various strengths, but we also need to come out at the end of the day with a consistent performance that doesn’t feel like it breaks at some points because one animator is particularly good at this, that or the other.
b&a: Pablo, one thing you said in your talk here at VIEW was about collaboration—production design, costumes, stunts, special effects, visual effects, everything. I think it’s always great to remind audiences that all these disciplines come together to make a film.
Pablo Helman: I think this speaks to the strength of the director to be able to use all the tools that you have in the toolbox. I would say cinematography is one tool, production design is another one, and stunts and performances and visual effects and special effects and hair and make-up and wardrobe.
It’s like a canvas where you have a bunch of brushes and you take one brush, and that might be production design. You can take painting with that brush up to a certain point, and then you pick up another brush, which could be visual effects. It’s all a combination and a collaboration. It’s kind of silly sometimes when you hear somebody saying, ‘This is real, there’s no visual effects here,’ when in reality, production design, say, it’s not real either!
It’s the same as if you’re saying a book is not a book because we use a typewriter, or because we use a computer, or because we use a pencil. It’s actually to your advantage as a filmmaker to be able to identify those tools and to collaborate with those departments to tell the story that you want to tell.
The one thing about filmmaking is that it is one of the most collaborative art disciplines. There’s a reason for that. Think about the opposite. Think about a film by a filmmaking person who does everything. You probably end up with something that is very flat. The nice thing about collaboration is collaborating. It’s really important to be able to use all of these areas to tell a story. So, we’re not using visual effects only, we’re not using production design only.
I’m all for using everybody and to get as much as possible in-camera, even if we’re not using it, because it gives you a sense of what the camera is doing with the physicality of it. All those kinds of things are important for the audience to feel something. At the end of the day, you want the audience to feel something, to feel what you wanted to tell. You have to use every tool to do that.
