THE TRANSFORMERS

Chinese fans of special effects eagerly await the latest in the Planet of the Apes series.

Software-created on-screen magic has reached a new level with the sci-fi movie War for the Planet of the Apes. In clips of the new franchise movie, recently released by 20th Century Fox at a Beijing event, most viewers were amazed to see actor Andy Serkis’ seamless transformation into Caesar, the story’s leader of the apes.

When Serkis performs as an orangutan, he wears skin-tight clothing and his movements as well as emotions are captured with the help of sensors, making his act life-like. Though special effects have become a must-have for most big Hollywood movies, this film’s behind-the-scenes footage still enthralled Chinese viewers.

“The scenes look incredibly realistic,” says Lu Chuan, a Chinese film director who attended the event.

The third installment of the studio franchise the Planet of the Apes will hit Chinese mainland theaters on Sept 15, two months after its North American release.

In the new tale, Caesar and the other apes are forced into a war against a ruthless colonel and his soldiers. To avenge the murder of his wife and son, and rescue his captive fellow primates, Caesar embarks on a tough journey. So far, the movie is listed as one of the most anticipated films in September, according to the movie news portal mtime.com.

Anders Langlands, the visual effects supervisor of Weta Digital, a top company in the field from New Zealand, talks about how human actors are turned into primate fighters on screen.

“We spent a lot of time observing apes. A huge part of our job is just observing,” says Langlands, who led the visual effects teams for X-Men: Days of Future Past and The Martian.

As the major characters in War for the Planet of the Apes are chimpanzees, artists of Weta Digital researched the animals’ physical characteristics, moves and behavior. They used X-ray photos of some chimpanzees to get details about their skeleton and learn about their skin textures.

With nearly 1,000 people from Weta involved in the movie, the majority of the film was shot with visual effects. For the most complicated parts, more than 400 artists worked at the same time.

The hair on an ape’s body was processed by software to ensure that changes in the environment, such as snow or bonfire light, are shown on the skin.

“In this film, we see Caesar go from just being a leader to people into being a legend in the ape world. So the film takes on a much grander scope because it becomes sort of an epic mythical journey,” says Langlands.

One of his favorite characters is Bad Ape, an intelligent quiet chimpanzee who fled from a zoo.

“Bad Ape is such a different character ... He is so charming and he brings (out) very human and very innocent, curious qualities that the audience can identify with,” he says.

“When all of your main characters in the movie are digital, it requires a very close collaboration between the director and the visual effects people to bring that to life.”

US filmmaker Matt Reeves again directs this installment after he directed the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014).

Meanwhile, for China, where the movie industry has taken off only in the past decade, achieving world-class special effects in domestic productions is an aspiration.

Xu Fei, the founder of Illumina, a Beijing-based specialeffects studio, says, “The major problem is that most directors and producers don’t know how to make such a movie. It needs imagination and a lot of pre-production communication.”

But for some Chinese directors, a shortage of performing talent is the bigger problem.

Lu, the director of the effects-studded movie Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe (2015), says it’s difficult to persuade Chinese stars to play unconventional roles like the leader of apes, as they want their faces to be recognized by fans on the big screen only in mainstream roles.

“In Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe, for example, I had to play the monsters myself,” he says, adding that it did save him some time and money.

Li Yingxue contributed to the story.

We spent a lot of time observing apes. A huge part of our job is just observing.”

Anders Langlands,