LA TIMES: ‘NEW MOON’ SPECIAL EFFECTS WITH PHIL TIPPETT
Posted November 27th, 2009 By: Evie 1 Comment »
The Los Angeles Times’ Hero Complex has a running column “Wizards of Hollywood”, where they look at the people who work behind the scenes to make the magic happen when we see it. This week they have a little chat with effects legend, Phil Tippett, the man responsible for bringing the wolves to life in New Moon. Read more below:
Darkness may be a visual effects artist’s best friend, but his biggest enemy isn’t bright sunlight — it’s the overcast day. So adding all those CG werewolves to scenes shot in cloudy Vancouver, Canada, was a particular challenge for “New Moon” visual effects supervisor Phil Tippett and his team. “On a sunny day, you get really nice contrasts, but with flat lighting and a furry thing — the fur really soaks up the light and everything appears flat,” Tippett said. “So to make it appear three-dimensional, we had to goose reality. We emphasized their shadows and used rim lights” to make the wolves stand out from the background. But that’s not the only way Tippett and company played with reality. When that wolf checks out Bella, it’s not a wolf’s eyes, it’s Jacob’s. “We brought Taylor [Lautner] in and had him haul his eyelids back as far as possible and shot close-ups.” They then added those eyes to the giant animated timber wolf used in the scene.
You can read more about the “Wizards of Hollywood” here.
(Thanks Boo!)
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