Gone
are the days when visual effects artists, supervisors and producers say they
work in "post production." As The Tattooist proved, the VFX contribution to
a film can start as early as when the project is still in development.
Back
in 2005 producer Robin Scholes (Once Were Warriors) approached Peter McCully,
VFX supervisor and owner of Auckland VFX company Albedo, with a question: Can
you create a tattoo that grows on someone's skin and can you make it seem that
the tattoo is spreading from the inside, out? The answer was not untypical: "We're
sure we can, we just need to figure out how"
What
McCully helped to develop became an integral part of the pitch pack, assisting
the film's producers in their quest to acquire production and financing
partners. Being
involved at the development stage is useful for a number of reasons. For a
horror concept film, such as Tattooist, is helps external parties visualise the
film and can provide a point of unity amongst the partners about the type of
film they are all working towards. In relatively advanced script development,
involving VFX creatives can offer useful feedback about what is possible within
the likely budget, which may curb some dramatic notions, but may also open up
other avenues the writer never thought to consider because they didn't imagine
that idea was possible to achieve. And once the director is on board, working
closely with them to develop the look and strategy helps to move things along. In
the case of The Tattooist, first-time director Peter Burger had a clear idea of
what he wanted.
The visual effects fell into three camps: the growing tattoos
with their splitting skin and blood and ink pouring out, the manipulation of ink
in water in a variety of situations, and the more stock standard clean-ups -
day-for-night transformations, greenscreen, etc. Albedo created two teams of
artists to work with tattoos and ink in water, and set about the R&D.
Ink
and blood in water was a big part of the script and wherever possible Albedo's
approach was to use filmed elements. We filmed these in HD in a variety of
mid-sized refillable tanks. Useful elements were keyed out and individual
tendrils isolated so that they could be manipulated in a compositing program.
In the case of the evil ink, which slides along the bathroom floor to get lead
character Jake (Jason Behr), these filmed tank elements were added to digital
layers, creating the illusion that the ink was moving through a puddle of water
on the floor.
To
achieve this Albedo used reference created by the film's very talented tattoo
designers to generate a series of six or seven designs that would creep along
an ink tendril through the floor puddle. A simple, but labor intensive 2D matte
painting technique was used to paint these into the shot plate and then reveal
them through a series of animated masks. The rest of the ink was real footage
of tendrils layered up in a compositing program with countless deformers on
them to control their speed and shape. To top it off, extra liquid effects and
specular highlights were added, and some layers were graded red to match the
blood in the scene.
Of
the more straight VFX shots, one interesting shot is from the Singaporean
opening sequence. For this open, an exterior pull out shot of the hotel that
Jason is staying in was shot from another building on a dolly. Through the
editorial process it became necessary for this day shot to be changed to dusk
or night, but as this scene had been shot in Singapore, it was impossible to
simply pick it up.
Albedo was called upon to grade it to night and add extra
city lights. The original shot needed to be stabilized, but quickly it became
apparent that simply stabilizing and tracking the shot was not going to give a
realistic result. It was decided to deconstruct the original plate entirely and
map the plate's footage onto 3D geometry to create a new aerial camera move.
The shot could then be used as a story device, as it rapidly transitioned from
dusk to night. Little touches helped to sell the shot, including an airplane
flying through the night sky. As
for the live tattoos growing on people, well, that would be telling. The film
is scheduled for North American release in the fall of 2008.
Albedo's
contribution to The Tattooist began pre-financing, moved through on-set
supervision and organically grew in post as the needs of the film were
clarified during the edit. Delivery to the DI at Park Road Post in Wellington
was via the usual precious cargo of a harddrive and after supervising the VFX
delivery and seeing it reintroduced into the body of the film.
You
can see the trailer at:http://www.thetattooistmovie.com/home.htm