'Planet of the Apes 3' visual wizard shares secrets
- By Zhang Rui
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E-mail China.org.cn, August 26, 2017
A veteran visual effects guru was in Beijing on Thursday to share the secrets of how his team made the stunning scenes for "War for the Planet of the Apes".
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Anders Langlands, visual effects supervisor at Weta Digital, speaks at a master class in Beijing, Aug. 24, 2017. The event was part of promotional campaign for "War for the Planet of the Apes" set to release in China in mid-September. [Photo/ China.org.cn] |
Anders Langlands, the visual effects supervisor at Weta Digital, held a master class in the Chinese capital as part of promotional events for critically acclaimed ape vs human sci-fi action film.
He showed footage from the film and told the audience how the delicate visual effects were achieved, including the eyes, hair and expressions of the orangutans as well as snowflakes, as vivid as the real thing by using motion capture and other technologies.
Langlands has credits in many major blockbusters including "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1," "Clash of the Titans," "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," "Wrath of the Titans" and "Man of Steel." His work on "X-Men: Days of Future Past" earned him a BAFTA nomination, and in 2016 he was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the Academy Awards for his work on "The Martian."
He revealed there were 998 personnel from Weta participating in the post-production of "War for the Planet of the Apes" while their computers' CPU processing time for the visual effects totaled 190 million hours, equal to 5,400 years.
There are 1,440 visual effects shots in "War for the Planet of the Apes", representing 95 percent of the total shots of the movie.
The visual effects guru also complimented the real actors such as the legendary Andy Serkis for their work. "Andy is so incredible, nobody could come close to what he did," he said, "You can't ignore the actor's amazing performance on the big screen though there are so many special effects."
Langlands said the Weta team strived to create images so real that nobody could recognize they were actually special effects.
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Chinese director Lu Chuan talks with Anders Langlands at a special effects master class in Beijing, Aug. 24, 2017. [Photo/ China.org.cn] |
Among the audience seeking to learn from him were several heavyweight Chinese directors, Lu Chuan ("Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe," "City of Life and Death"), Lu Yang ("Brotherhood of Blades"), Han Yan ("Go Away Mr. Tumor"), Yang Qing ("Chongqing Hot Pot"), Barbara Wong ("Girls"), sci-fi writer Chen Qiufan and another visual effects supervisor Peter G. Travers.
During a discussion, director Lu said he envied the fact foreign filmmakers and special effects people could have the great actors such as Andy Serkis, "In China, such great actors are hard to find. When I was filming 'Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe,' we also used motion capture technology, and I acted as the monster myself, so that's bad!" His revelation aroused much laughter.
"I talked to Matt Reeves, director of 'War for the Planet of the Apes' and discussed filmmaking issues," Han Yan remembered, "However, when we talked about the special effects issue, he had only one advise -- if you have any difficulties, go to Weta! "
Han followed that advice and his new film project "Animal World" is a collaboration with Weta Digital.
Director Lu Yang also said he learned a lot, "and when I saw 'War for the Planet of the Apes,' I saw many possibilities. Technologies are just tools, the wisdom, creativity and logic of the visual effects creators help make the film look better. "
"War for the Planet of the Apes" is set to debut in China on Sept. 15. It received rave reviews and has grossed US$346.3 million worldwide as of Aug. 20 even before reaching the second largest film market of the world.
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