CG Characters for live action Feature work.

THE EVIL HANKY

A great project to work on for Sam Raimi. Ended up animating most all of the Evil Hanky (one of the main characters) in the feature DRAG ME TO HELL. We started with just 7 shots but ended up replacing all but one of the practical puppet shots, because Sam felt our CG hanky moved more realistically than the practical puppet. Upper shows the original plate with Alison Lohman acting/ miming without any prop and lower shows the finished shot with our CGI hanky integrated into the shot.

Below are the two series of shot we did. The first where the hanky which belonged to the old witch-like lady first shows itself to be alive and threatening, then the second where it tries to suffocate her.

The sequence where she first sees the old lady's hanky.

The sequence where the hanky tries to fill her throat but she kills him.

Sam asked if we could make it look like the Hanky was "swimming", by Alison's driver's side window as she tried to get away. He would struggle to gain on her, and she would accelerate harder etc.. We did a quick version for a look-see with the hanky using a kind of breast stroke and Sam couldn’t stop laughing. It was supposed to be a "camp-horror" he said, and this was too funny. So much so in fact, that he asked his editor to just keep playing it over and over until his editor told him “Enough” and for Sam to sit down so they could move on. Sam obliged but after a couple of minutes was behind his editor again, massaging his shoulders and telling him, “Come on, just one more time?” LOL!

A THRILLER TO WORK ON

Michael Jackson's stage show "This Is It" was to use a 100 foot wide by 30 feet high polarized screen on stage, with all the content we delivered being created in 3D stereo to bring the visuals out into and over the audience. Here is a bat sequence from Thriller. In the theater, the bat which comes to the screen in this shot, in stereo appearing to be out over the audience, would have measured 97 feet wide on the screen! Technically difficult shots to achieve as the bats' distance from the viewers eye had to correlate perfectly to the bats' position in the set as they flew around and over the gravestones. A really interesting project to create. Sadly the stage show would never happen with Michael's passing and the film version never used 3D stereo.

Finally a cycling bat, which comes to the screen and snaps at the audience, to be used as a transition device at various times during the stage show. We also worked on Smooth Criminal for which unfortunately we don't have for a sample.