Ghost in the shell
Trevor Hogg speaks to VFX supervisor Guillaume Rocheron about creating an immersive and futuristic cyber universe
We discover how VFX supervisor Guillaume Rocheron created a cyber universe for this futuristic new sci-fi film
Under the direction of Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman) and benefiting from the Oscar-winning visual effects expertise of Guillaume Rocheron (Life of Pi), anime classic Ghost in the Shell gets a live-action upgrade. “In total we had 1,200 shots,” states Guillaume, who had four months of post-production to complete the visual effects. “MPC did 900, Atomic Fiction was responsible for 70, and MPC Creative in London [the graphic design branch of MPC] did a lot of the holographic work. It has been a great film with a reduced post-production time.”
Ghost in the Shell revolves around covert law enforcement cyborg (Scarlett Johansson) hunting an internet terrorist (Michael Pitt) in futuristic New Port City, where inhabitants are cyber-enhanced. “One of the big design elements of the original is Hong Kong at some point in the future,” remarks Guillaume. “When we shot there for three weeks it was more like guerrillastyle filmmaking. I don’t think I put up a single green screen in Hong Kong. The assumption was that we would replace everything in the shot except the main actor, but it gave us a great canvas to work from. We also had a team of photographers go through for six weeks to enable us to recreate the contemporary city. On top of that, we added all of our modern architecture, elevated highways and futuristic traffic.”
Colouring the details
“In terms of the aesthetic, we wanted to pay homage to the source material as much as we could,” says Guillaume. “We did a lot of that with the colours. Jess Hall, the DP, had a brilliant idea. He lit the entire movie with LEDS. The great thing with LED lights is that you can have a lighting board and pre-program colours. During pre-production, Jess went through the original Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, and sampled colours from them. He then came up with a palette of 32 colours that he would use to light the entire film and these were maintained down the line in the visual effects,” he adds.
Today’s technology does not make an appearance. “The original was made in 1995, and at that time Wi-fi didn’t exist, so our movie is filled with cables and people plugging in at neck ports.”
An emphasis was placed upon shooting practical effects, with Weta Workshop building a 1:1 scale skeleton of Major (Scarlett Johansson) and a 1.5 scaled skeletal head with a brain. “We spent ten days with the second unit and the team at Weta Workshop with blue screen sets smoked up to do dry for wet and puppeteered the animatronics for the Shelling Sequence,” reveals Guillaume. “It evolved into a more organic body, fluid motions and wide shots resulting in
IN TERMS OF THE AESTHETIC, WE WANTED TO PAY HOMAGE TO THE ORIGINAL AS MUCH AS WE COULD
Guillaume Rocheron, VFX supervisor, Ghost in the Shell
us transitioning to CG, which is better at doing that than animatronics.” Miniatures were constructed of the buildings. “What is complicated is shooting them. You need to light them, have enough of them and have a motion control rig. Our approach was to kitbash. We would walk in with Rupert and Jan Roelfs [production designer], look at them, make some quick iterations, and when they were happy with the design, the miniatures were then shot by a huge photogrammetry rig with 150 DSLRS. The photogrammetry was sent to MPC, who built digital replicas,” he explains.
wrinkle-free and iridescent.” Extensive R&D was conducted on the transparency effect. “We played with that idea of the camera being cyber-enhanced so the thermoptic suit works like camouflage and can bend the light waves. It glitches the perception of your cyber eyes.”
Making a splash
“The Water Fight was a cool scene to recreate because it’s an invisible person fighting in water in front of a Hong Kong cityscape that is impossible to shoot!” says Guillaume. “We ended up building a 60x60ft water pond with 180 degrees of green screen around it. The idea was what we needed to capture water interaction and the reactions of Skinny Man [Daniel Henshall], who is the opponent of the [invisible and digitally created] Major. The whole fight is only beautiful and interesting if you see a water arc and suddenly, boom! It becomes a punch or a kick to the chest. We did a lot of shots with the Phantom 4K and at 600fps so you get water droplets and can speed ramp things in and out. I did the reference pass with Daniel fighting against the stunt person. Then we did the empty pass with Daniel on his own remaking the punches or kicks that he received. It was a great element to get for the water splashes and the design of the scene. The scene was cut together using the two passes allowing the choreography to be reviewed and approved before doing our effects.”
The art of memory
Major plugs into a robot geisha to investigate her memories. “People reconstruct memories based on a point of view that is influenced by the interest and emotion that certain individuals inspire in you,” explains Guillaume. “Major walks into the room containing 25 people who are in mid-action and recreated in CG. We amped up our photogrammetry rig with additional Canon 5DS cameras to capture super high-resolution faces and clean scans. We created a map of where everyone needed to be and shot the whole scene empty with just Scarlett walking through the place mimicking what she was going to do. Then I took all of the actors who were in that scene and brought them into the photogrammetry rig. I said, ‘You
THE TANK WAS AN INTERESTING ANIMATION CHALLENGE BECAUSE IT NEEDED TO LOOK HEAVY AND MOVE FAST
Guillaume Rocheron, VFX supervisor, in the Shell
were sitting on the chair and pointing your finger like this’. I recreated some basic lighting on them and made a frozen version of them. It would become a cyber scan. Back in post, I positioned all of those cyber scans. We started to cut people in half. This guy has one side of his face reconstructed but not the other side. That was the first layer of what is our POV. Then there’s the proximity, which is going to define how well it is going to be reconstructed. That’s when Rupert had the idea that memories degrade, so faces would disintegrate and melt into sand.
“A small section of the Spider Tank was built on a gimbal because there’s a moment where Major rips off the lid and, like in the anime, her arm explodes and she loses her body,” remarks Guillaume. “Other than that, the tank is a digital vehicle, which was an interesting animation challenge because it needed to look heavy and move fast enough. We went back and forth as to how the tank was operated as a device in the story. Do you want something like AI with lots of personality or is it controlled by someone? The digital double animation was also a challenge because you can’t hide too much. You have to be good with the physics and poses. Luckily, we had an amazing stunt
team on the film that always gave me reference even on shots we knew would have digital doubles.”
Undoubtedly, Ghost in the Shell will be compared to a sci-fi classic about a government-sanctioned assassin executing renegade androids. “Blade Runner is a landmark of a dystopian vision,” acknowledges Guillaume. “Hong Kong is a vibrant, colourful city and since it was our blueprint, we didn’t want to put rain, smoke and steam in every shot. Our world is more about cyber enhancements and how technology has become invasive to the point that you have cyber-enhanced eyes, nails, and brains.” Ghost in the Shell is defined by genre, not by its place of origin. “Even though there is a Japanese aesthetic it is still sci- fi.” The production was a collaborative effort determined to capture interesting shots and elements. “Scarlett knows what it takes to do these types of films. Michael wanted to understand what I was going to do to his character, which was great. As a team, Rupert, Jess, Jan and I were on board with the vision and the visual style with the agreement that we would try to make Ghost in the Shell in a way that gave it an organic feeling, and in that we succeeded.”