The Technology of Up
Posted: June 22, 2009 at 7:37 pm, by Isaac
Most Pixar films have had one area of groundbreaking technical achievement. Monsters Inc had a lot of new hair and fur simulations. Finding Nemo debuted a lot of new fluid dynamics. With Cars it was volumetric dust, and Wall-E made some serious advances in emulating light in physical camera lenses.
I wan’t sure what Up would bring to the table, since it used tech from all the previous films. The balloons cluster needed some seriously impressive collision detection, of course. Now the ballons themselves are basically simple spheres, so that’s easy math, but remember that each balloon is on a string. That’s where the hard math comes in.
In many ways, Up’s tech is just the latest generation of previous innovations. For example, a lot of the character and cloth work from Ratatouille has been improved for this film, as has the subsurface scattering from The Incredibles. And of course, the volumetric renderer has been beefed up for some seriously impressive clouds and atmospheres.
However, as far as pioneering goes, this is Pixar’s first stereoscopic film. There’s a lot of extra work to do for films that will be shown in 3D, but the extra dimension adds some new storytelling tools. The directors have complete control over how wide the depth of a shot really is, as well as whether objects push out of the plane of the screen or recede behind it, and how far.
For Up, this control is used subtly and well. For example, the altitude of the floating house is very apparent. The scene with Russell on the porch high above the ground had a much better sense of jeopardy and vertigo to it than when I’d seen it in the 2D trailer. Large objects like Muntz’s zeppelin seem more imposing because they can be huge on the screen and obviously far away at the same time, giving the audience a real understanding of their true scale.
More importantly, though, the film develops a cinematic language for 3D early on, and the audience picks up on this. The emotional moments are fairly shallow in their stereography; taking place in small spaces. This forces viewers to focus on the dialog there, and it makes the visual depth of the sweeping vistas in other scenes more breathtaking by comparison.
Unfortunately, the technology behind 3D films isn’t perfect. The circular polarization of the new Real D glasses easily beats the linear polarization and anaglyphic lenses of yesterday, and the 144hz refresh rate of the projectors beats trying to keep two reels synced, but there are still limitations.
For starters, the image was very dim through the glasses. 3D projectors need to throw more light at the screen since the polarized lenses block so much of it. During several scenes I had to take the glasses off just to get a better idea of what colors and tones the lighting technicians were using. And of course, fast horizontal motion will cause some ghosting in the image. Besides, to some extent, modern cinematic editing techniques need to be tweaked just to be watchable in 3D.
For example, high-energy films will often cut quickly back and forth between medium, wide, and extreme close-ups of action. Editing in 3D, the director now has a choice; he can jump the action closer to the audience when the camera cuts closer, which makes sense in physical space but forces the audience to constantly “refocus” as their focal point leaps back and forth in 3D space – or he can keep the action the same relative distance from the screen regardless of what the camera does, which looks strange but is less jarring to the viewer.
So, 3D films need to take these issues into consideration, and Up does a great job of that. Every shot is long enough for audiences to take in all the spatial data, and the cross-cutting nearly always happens along similar planes so the images don’t appear to leap forwards and backwards from the screen. Even the exciting chase scenes feature long, swooping camera moves that show off the 3D effect without fast cuts or the main action jerking around in frame.
In the past, the 3D element of 3D films was always a gimmick. It was really too crude to enhance the story , but now it’s coming into its own. Directors are learning how to use it, rather than work around it. Studios love it because it’s a powerful anti-piracy measure; as long as you can’t watch 3D movies at home you must go to the theater. Even audiences seem to like 3D movies, but that may not last, since they are really no longer a novelty.
As of this writing, I think all upcoming CG animated movies are being released in 3D. All the trailers before Up were shown in 3D, and they were almost all awful. Ice Age 3 fared the best because its teaser was basically a continuous short, but the others all pushed 3D further than they should have; extremely short shots, attempts to push the depth farther than it could be maintained, and too much fast motion. Also, since most trailers recut movie scenes, there was no spatial coherence between shots, which made the recutting more obvious.
The 3D effect was far more satisfying when used by the Pixar team in small ways. For example, there’s a scene where Carl and Russell chat by a campfire. The camera is static, and the shots are long, but just seeing the stars in the deep background and the house slowly rotating in the wind gave the scene tremendous visual appeal. Also, the “chunkified” stopmotion-style props and sets were well suited to stereoscopic display; many establishing shots felt just like my old Disney View-Master discs.
In fact, it was so visually interesting that over the last few days I’ve done some of my own 3D tests in Lightwave. Keep an eye out for those next month. In the meantime, remember that in the same way that Pixar’s films are usually the best examples of the art serving the story, they also demonstrate how technology can serve the story as well. By doing so, the art and technology are far more interesting than they would be on their own.
All images copyright Disney/Pixar. This is the third in a series of articles which include the Story of Up and the Art of Up.
The Art of Up
Posted: June 15, 2009 at 8:52 pm, by Isaac
This is a follow-up to an article on The Story of Up.
One of the challenges that CGI artists and technical directors face is how much detail to add to their characters. Especially for the types of stories that animated films generally tell, too much realism could be a distraction (or even disturbing). But at the same time, not enough detail makes for a blander image and might not be as engaging to audiences.
Pixar’s Renderman is the software that’s responsible for most of the photoreal images in modern film effects, so there’s certainly no technical limit to the complexity that Pixar could be adding to their films, but their art direction has always tried to find a balance. With Up, they’ve gone for an approach which they call ‘simplexity,’ adding detailed textures to simple objects.
More importantly, the simple shapes they’ve used help to tell the story better. Carl Fredrickson is a square. Every aspect of his anatomy, from his jaw to his glasses to his fingers, is cubic. Carl’s chair is a cube and his pictures are in square frames. His wife Ellie is different, slim and curvy and has a round head. Her furniture is curvy and her pictures are in oval frames.
When Russell comes on the scene, his roundness also complements Carl’s squareness visually, and their different body shapes help to communicate their character differences to viewers. When they meet up with Dug and Kevin, the shapes of the tall thin bird and the short fat dog make for an aesthetically pleasing lineup with clearly recognizable silhouettes.
This kind of design is very important to creating strong and memorable characters, but more than that, the rounded design similarities between the oppositely-built Ellie and Russell remind us of Carl’s emotional needs. At Pixar, story is king, and much of the four or five-year production process focuses on reworking the script and story reels. However, they also spend much of that time working on the art design of the project.
Since every single element of an animated film is created by hand, the director and art department have far more control over every frame than they would with any live-action film. To make the most of this opportunity, Pixar artists like Lou Romano will create thousands of sketches and paintings to develop the look of the film before any animation begins. You can see a tiny fraction of this amazing work on his blog.
Characters, sets, environments, props are designed and redesigned around and in the context of the story. Shot composition and camera moves are built and tested as the script and storyboards come together. Color keys and production stills flesh these designs out further for the texture painters and lighting technicians. Every shot is a work of art, because each shot has dozens of sketches and studies and lesser works of art behind it.
And the film is more than just the sum of its shots. The color design plots out the look of the movie over time. As Carl’s warmly nostalgic past fades into modern day, his life becomes desaturated. Not as an special effect in post, but naturally, as the paint on his house fades and the colorful surroundings are replaced by grey construction lots. Then, a brightly dressed scout, brilliant skies, and lush jungles explode onto the screen once the adventures start.
This is more nuanced than a simple Wizard of Oz shift towards color; dark caves, mist-shrouded plateaus, and stormclouds keep both the hue and saturation of scenes changing to match the storyline and compliment the emotional arcs of the story. This is all worked out in pre-production to maximize the power of the story’s message.
To learn more about this process and see more of the brilliant production art that was created, you can buy the Disney/Pixar book The Art of Up now. It’s a beautiful hardcover with 160 pages of tremendous work, everything from napkin sketches by Pete Docter to amazing character designs and digital paintings by Daniel López Muñoz.
All images copyright Disney/Pixar. This is the third in a series of articles which include the Story of Up and the Technology of Up.
The Story of Up
Posted: June 8, 2009 at 11:32 am, by Isaac
Pixar is a film company that is redefining family movies, but they are also forcing the rest of us to redefine how we classify movies in general. Up is a perfect example of this. At first glance, it has all the tired clichés of almost every other animated movie: the grumpy old man, the spunky kid, the gravel-voiced Britishy villain, and the dopey comedy relief animal sidekicks. Fortunately, Up is really nothing like any other movie.
Yes, there are many similarities. There have been movies that revolve around the despair and emptiness that a husband feels after his wife has died, and there have been movies where talking dogs perpetrate goofy high-jinks in pursuit of treats – but this is surely the first time that a film truly supports and truly needs both plotlines.
In fact, it’s a great testimony to the storytelling talent behind Pixar’s team that Up takes place in a world where childlessness, eminent domain, and death are painfully real, and yet thrilling zeppelin chases through the trackless jungle are also real. It’s an impressive feat, but not only does the great fun and great depth perfectly mesh, each aspect of the film is strengthened by the others, however incongruous they might seem at first.
Note: This story analysis contains many spoilers.
The film opens with Carl Fredrickson’s whole life, shown flashing by from early childhood to old age. He is a man defined by his love for his wife, and by their combined thirst for adventure – adventure in the classic swashbuckling style – but the joys and tragedies of everyday life postpone all of their grand plans until Carl is a tired old widower. He never gave his wife what he thought she wanted, his house is surrounded by skyscrapers, and civil busybodies are trying to ship him off to a retirement home.
With nothing left to lose, he launches his house on a last bid to fulfill his promise to his wife Ellie; to go on their big adventure to South America. With her pictures on the wall and her adventure journal in hand, he discovers a small snag. Russell, the eight-year-old urban boy scout, has accidentally stowed away on the porch.
When the house lands in South America, Carl is torn between his desire to reach his adventurous final destination and his mundane duty to keep an eye on Russell. Irritated by every wonderful distraction along the way, his spirits are lifted only when he meets his childhood hero, the elderly but still bold and intrepid dirigible pilot Charles Muntz.
However, decades of hunting an elusive quarry with only his canine guards for company have changed Muntz from a charmingly eccentric explorer into a glory-obsessed madman. This betrayal is yet another broken dream for Carl, and he and Russell have to flee for their lives.
However, these heightened stakes force Carl to take his responsibilities more seriously, and from this perspective he begins to realize what Ellie knew all along. As he pages through her adventure journal, he sees photographs of their lives. She wasn’t waiting for a trip to a far-off location to provide adventure – her life with Carl was an adventure. This is the film’s message; adventure doesn’t require some epic trek or exotic holy grail goal because life’s true adventures exist in everyday events and experiences and relationships.
This suddenly understood truth makes Carl a new man. Now he can be the father-figure that Russell needs, stand up to Muntz, and make dogs obey his commands! Ironically, it’s the realization that adventures don’t need to be action-packed quests that actually catapults Carl into the giant swashbuckling finale, but nevertheless, the lesson is still clear.
Another strong theme of the film is one of fatherhood. Ellie’s inability to have children is the first setback of the film, and this is presented as being almost as tragic as her death. Likewise, it turns out that the apparently wilderness-loving scout Russell is only desperate to win his final badge because the awarding ceremony is one of the few times he can see his divorced father.
In a very poignant moment, he reveals how he treasures the quiet and “boring” moments with his Dad afterwards far more than the exciting process of actually winning the badges. This is an extremely thought-provoking statement for Carl, and it helps him to understand the nobility of the commonplace and that he and Russell both need each other.
And so, what looks like a crazy cartoon movie about the wilderness of South America is one of the strongest depictions of family and purpose ever put on film. In fact, a five-minute montage at the top of the film has more to say about love and marriage, joy and loss, and dreams and sacrifice than any film of the last decade, and that’s without any dialog.
The Toy Story films, Monsters Inc, and Finding Nemo have all had strong themes related to the brevity of childhood and often a fear of growing old. Even Cars revolved around a nostalgic take on the forgotten past. As powerful as those themes are, Up seems to be past that. After all, Carl is already an old man. This does not matter; he’s going to continue having adventures with Russell, and any change is part of the adventure. Carl’s past sorrows are still there, but there’s no wistful apprehension about the future. In this way, Up is a very hopeful film.
Two years ago I wrote a review of Ratatouille which mentioned how I thought that Pixar’s own story might have influenced their take on Gusteau’s almost-successor. Up is their second post-Disney project, and I think it may reflect a more settled, hopeful position, and certainly a more mature storytelling style. Pete Docter and Bob Peterson have excelled themselves technically, and artistically, and in doing so, made one of the most pro-family, pro-children, pro-happiness films ever.
They’ve done what most movies don’t dare attempt. Most comedy genre films, almost by definition, can’t depict real tragedy; setbacks have to be minor, temporary, or presented as uncomfortable jokes in and of themselves. Modern tragedies tend to communicate sadness with inevitable despair and utter hopelessness, and any jokes must be grim and dark to preserve the mood. Through superior writing, Up manages to show us both without weakening the message.
Plus, because the film takes place in an emotionally-realistic setting, rather than rose-colored screwball world of constant comedy, the jokes are actually funnier. And in this world where funny things happen naturally, sad events are genuinely sad, and far more tragic than they would be in a genre where total gloom is the universal constant. Maintaining this delicate of balance of emotional truth is tough, especially in a film with goofy birds and balloon-carried houses, but Up never wavers.
All images copyright Disney/Pixar. This is the third in a series of articles which include the Art of Up and the Technology of Up.
New Music Blog Online
Posted: May 18, 2009 at 11:03 pm, by Isaac
A lot of the posts on this blog have to do with cinematography and cameras and creating pictures for film. But, as the saying goes, sound is half of picture, and music is more than half of sound. I don’t think I’ve mentioned film soundtracks since we made the Men O’ War short, but it’s too important to ignore.
Fortunately, my brother Ben has just updated his website to include a blog, and he’ll be posting articles on everything from how to study a film score to reviews of different composers. Right now he’s got posts on the power of music, and a list of the top five pirate scores of all time. Check it out.
Another aspect of filmmaking that I rarely mention is acting. For my San Antonio readers, there’s a unique opportunity to study acting this July. Paul Tinder and Vaughn Taylor, who I first met at the SAICFF, will putting on a series of week-long acting workshops. Click here more information.
The Power of Teamwork
Posted: March 21, 2009 at 9:46 pm, by Isaac
In late May of 1977, George Lucas was on vacation in Hawaii, partly resting after the grueling production of Star Wars, and partly hiding from the media after its unprecedented and largely unexpected success. There he met Steven Spielberg, who was taking a short break from shooting Close Encounters and had just hit box-office gold with Jaws two years before. It was the beginning of a beautifully profitable friendship.
Between them they claim 8 of the 20 top-grossing movies of all time, including their closest collaboration, a story that they discussed there on the Maui beach. Lucas had an idea to revisit the old film serials, which appealed to Spielberg’s taste for classic adventure. Together, they worked out the rough idea for Raiders of the Lost Ark, and a few months later, they chose Lawrence Kasdan as the screenwriter for the project.
The interesting part is that they recorded their discussions as they worked over the story ideas and had them transcribed for reference. A few days ago, 126 pages of these transcribed conversations appeared on the web. You can read them here or download a pdf file here.
(For those who don’t know, Lawrence Kasdan went on to write The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, being given the contract before Lucas had even read his first Raiders draft, and from there began directing his own films, such as the excellent western Silverado and the somewhat less inspiring Wyatt Earp.)
The first part of the story conference is Lucas explaining all the ideas that he, Spielberg and Phil Kaufman had come up with so far. He does most of the talking, with Spielberg occasionally chiming in to correct or clarify certain points. Kasdan doesn’t say much until all the existing material has been covered, and then the brainstorming starts.
For the record, I’m not really a George Lucas fan. I don’t like anything he’s made since about 1981. In fact, my opinion is that from then on, the quality of his work and the clarity of his judgment has steadily declined. More on this later.
So, that being said, one of the things that surprised me is how so many of my favorite Raiders moments came from George Lucas. For example, the red-hot headpiece branding a German so the Nazis get the inscription (although the trick of double-sided instructions came later) is all his – one of the all-time greatest setups in movie history.
The genius of Lucas is evident in the conversations, but not all of his ideas are winners. He continually pours out content as thoughts come to him, and the rest of the group embellishes on the good stuff and moves past the awkward material. In many ways it’s the perfect team – a wild-eyed visionary producer with big ideas, a well-grounded director with a knack for the human touch, and a writer with an unerring sense of structure and simplicity.
Together, they fleshed out the story and characters in an impressively short amount of time. They also came up with a great bit involving Indy retrieving an artifact from a Chinese gangster in Shanghai, an escape from an abandoned plane involving a life raft and a snow-topped mountain, a thrilling mine-car chase, and an annoying child sidekick. These ideas didn’t quite fit, and so of course popped up in Temple of Doom.
It’s fun reading, especially when you see the personalities of the men appear between the lines. For example, when Lucas introduces the concept of the iconic whip, he spends several paragraphs extolling it as a mythological weapon, a parallel to a Samurai sword, a representation of the coiled snake, a deadly force, a hidden power, etc, etc… and all the while Kasdan and Spielberg are tossing out gags where Indy could use it to reel Marion back after she leaves in a huff, or to snag himself beers without getting up. Later, Spielberg points out, “With Nazis you have to use your fists, because they’re despicable people.”
And while Lucas is very verbose, thinking as he talks, often repeating himself, using lots of circular sentences and pontification on multiple possibilities, Spielberg is very precise and an extremely effective communicator. Kasdan’s greatest skill is the ability to quickly grasp nub of an idea and hone it into an effective scene, condensing other ideas and solving problems with elegant simplicity.
When Marion started to get the way, he suggested faking her death, giving Indy further motivation and several scenes where he and Sallah can work alone. When some explanation is needed for why the Nazis take her on the U-boat, he made Belloq interested in her, solving a number of problems relating to the plot and characters.
But the most interesting aspect to me is how they treat the main McGuffin, the Ark of the Covenant. Spielberg sees it as a genuine Hebrew artifact, with Belloq expiring after looking on the face of God. Lucas had a more pragmatic vision, drawing directly from Von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods, which suggests that the Ark is a transmitter; a radio for speaking to our extra-terrestrial forebears.
The idea that the Ark is merely an electric box is not new, but Kasdan and Spielberg’s choice to go with a supernatural reality that audiences would be familiar with adds depth to the plot, menace to the enemy, and a solid arc to Indiana’s character. The latest Indy adventure, which abandons Biblical artifacts for Von Däniken’s “ancient astronauts” hooey, has none of these things.
Which brings me back to the decline and fall of George Lucas. The man is clearly a creative giant, but his best work is from the beginning of his career, when he was surrounded by peers and even superiors who could filter out his sillier ideas and make him focus his efforts on the solid content. As his fame grew, his peers either moved on or became yes-men, and his financial and technical resources grew large enough to remove even his practical limitations.
The result is enough power (and a sufficient lack of judgment) to push a film like Attack of the Clones through production apparently without even a cursory dialog pass. What he needs is what he had in 1978 when he was hashing out Raiders; guys whose strengths correspond to his weaknesses, who can inspire him with ideas that are as good as his, and who have the objectivity to keep only the good material.
Unfortunately, after 30 years of fame and fortune, Lucas believes all his own PR, so I doubt he sees this need. But we can learn from it.
Color Theory for Cinematographers
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 10:36 pm, by Isaac
At this year’s San Antonio Film Academy, I gave two lectures on three Cs of cinematography, composition, contrast, and color. Color is often overlooked by beginning DPs, and it is an extremely powerful tool. I described color in cinematography as “the use of analogous or complimentary color tones to create contrasts between elements in the frame and communicate emotional ideas to the audience.”
Not a great description, but good enough for starters. Color can be used to communicate information to audiences in all kinds of ways. For example, the storyline in Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic takes place in three different places, each of which is a very different color. Viewers can instantly tell where characters are and what part of the story they are watching. This is a very obvious way to communicate basic information.
Color can also communicate emotional information. Certain cinematic conventions have developed which help with this, for example warm lighting to convey safety and cool lighting to suggest danger are about as standard as shadows to convey mystery and brightness to signify security. Some directors, like James Cameron, stick to these conventions religiously, but others are willing to shake things up.
It can be very helpful to depart from the expected if your film requires it. Spielberg flipped the light=good/shadows=bad expectation on its head for E.T., and Ridley Scott changed all the normal colors rules for Black Hawk Down. Because these films are more complex than say, a standard comedy, forcing the audience to adjust to and rethink the world of the film is very effective.
When we first see Scott’s Somalia it looks like this – dirty, grungy, and brown. A greeny-orangey tobacco-filter brown. This is not the rich golden Africa of Sahara or Gladiator, but a dingy and dangerous place. Diesel smoke makes even the sky grubby. So far, so good.
By contrast, US soldiers live in high-tech steel barracks lit by cool halogen lights and laptop screens. Remember, cinematic convention usually says that warm tones indicate a cosy safe place and harsh blues like these mean cold clinical uncertainty, but not in Black Hawk Down. This color palette is unfamiliar territory, just like Somalia.
When Task Force Ranger goes into Mogadishu they go into the warm, brown, dangerous sunlight and bad things happen. This bright warm orange light is not safe. This is different. The audience has been thrown a curve ball, just like our heroes.
Even the command center has warmer light in it during the attacks than it did previously. The monitors are still blue, so the fill light is cool, but the key light on JSOC officers is warm, like on their men in the field. Command is just as messed up as the operation.
Ever since Saving Private Ryan war movies have tended towards a very desaturated bleach-bypass look, especially for combat scenes (including the opening scene of Gladiator). Ridley Scott and DP Slawomir Idziak have bucked the trend here as well, and it is very effective.
Finally, our men begin to find cover. Inexplicably, the basements of the abandoned slums they hide in have a very cool lighting scheme. Subconsciously, even though this is not conventional color use, the audience knows that they are safer here that outside in the brown. By now, all our viewers have picked up on how the palette works.
As time ticks away the odds get worse, the situation becomes more and more dangerous. Even that deadly warm sunlight is trying to invade the cool blue safe house. Every part of the film, including the color palette, is communicating jeopardy to the audience.
Traditionally, nighttime is communicated on film by desaturation and an ever-present blue moonlight, but once again Ridley Scott has a better idea. Somalian night is spooky green, and the tracers and explosions add orange to the scene. It’s the same sickly warm tone as the daytime, but brighter and scarier. There is no blue here; no safety.
But fortunately, a relief convey is rolling out. The 10th Mountain Division brings bright blue halogen lights to banish the orange and green of danger. By amplifying the saturation of these night scenes far beyond what is “normal,” the audience finds them very unsettling. This is the perfect emotion for what is being depicted.
Up until now, most of the scenes have been almost monochromatic, despite being highly saturated. Only at the climax do all of our colors really collide. These soldiers are pinned between threatening orange fire behind them and the uncertain dark green night in front of them, but safe blue headlights are coming in from the right. It’s final showdown time.
And of course, the battle ends just as the blue light of dawn makes everything safe and secure. The grueling Mogadishu Mile becomes almost a victory lap with this new color palette. The Rangers are back to their normal hue, and all is well… pretty much.
Ridley Scott does a tremendous job with this film through clever color use. It might be a little surprising, since everyone wears the same clothing, all the buildings are the same shade, and a lot of the film takes place at night, but I think this film makes better use of color as a storytelling tool than even Gladiator.
To see how closely color is tied to the events of the film, take a look at the chart below. Brendan Dawes has come up with a great new way to examine the pacing and overall color of films, and here are a few more color charts to look through.
As you can see, since the colors are tied directly to the moods of the film, clear trends are visible as different things happen in the film. We can see the film’s acts and turning points highlighted clearly. I am certain that Ridley Scott and Slawomir Idziak created a color chart like the stripe I made on the right to plan things out, and by analyzing this chart (slightly cropped for clarity), we can see a coherent vision appear.
Color is such a powerful part of cinema storytelling that we should never neglect it. And despite the power of modern color correction tools, we can never leave it to chance or expect to come up with a highly effective Ridley-Scott-style color script in post. All the Cs of cinematography take careful thought and a lot of planning to use properly, but when plotted out, they add a tremendous amount of storytelling power.
Unfortunately, the technology behind 3D films isn’t perfect. The circular polarization of the new Real D glasses easily beats the linear polarization and anaglyphic lenses of yesterday, and the 144hz refresh rate of the projectors beats trying to keep two reels synced, but there are still limitations. 
