Monkeying around
Weta up for Oscar
Wellington visual effects company Weta Digital is up for an Oscar, Bafta and two Visual Effects Society Awards for its work on The Jungle Book.
Directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man), the film is a live-action reboot of Disney’s 1967 animated classic of the same name, featuring beloved characters Mowgli, Baloo, and the larger-than-life King Louie.
Weta Digital was responsible for bringing the regal orangutan and his loyal troop of various primate species to life, while London visual effects studio Moving Picture Company took care of the other characters.
Dan Lemmon, visual effects supervisor at Weta, credits his team’s great work on Rise and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes as having helped secure the Jungle Book job.
‘‘I think Apes was the calling card that got us in the door for this gig, it wasn’t a month after the release that I was in LA taking to Jon Favreau,’’ Lemmon says, joking about the prospect of being pigeonholed as Hollywood’s go-to ape creators.
There were two main sources of inspiration for King Louie Christopher Walken, and a giant ape species that became extinct thousands of years ago.
‘‘King Louie was a super fun one and we knew early on that Christopher Walken was going to voice that character.’’
‘‘Part of the challenge was figuring out what are the distinct Christopher Walken traits that we could kind of shoehorn onto the face of this gigantic primate. He was based on an 11-foot-tall animal called the Gigantopithecuss that’s been extinct for 60,000 years and used to roam South East Asia.’’
While Weta Digital have become well known for their motion capture prowess - the method that uses dots or stickers on actors - The Jungle Book used key frame, a more traditional Disney style, Lemmon says.
Weta was able to instead refer to Walken’s body of work, as well as video recordings of him delivering his King Louie lines, tapping into his mouth, eye, and hand movements.
Weta’s next big briefing from Favreau was to explore King Louie’s ’’fatness’’.
‘‘He wanted it to feel like he was just morbidly obese, like he hasn’t moved from his throne in maybe 100 years, so when he gets up and starts moving around, it’s a big sloppy event, and once he gets going he’s almost like a runaway train that can’t be stopped.’’
A lot of time was also spent making King Louie’s fur as convincing as possible.
‘‘Our technology for sculpting or grooming hair has evolved a lot in the last eight years, we’ve come in leaps and bounds. Just the way it behaves in light and its optical properties is something we’ve really worked hard to push for.’’
Research for the film also involved studying live apes.
‘‘We’ve been lucky that we’ve got a really good relationship with Wellington Zoo, they’ve been really accommodating in helping us get the best possible reference of what these animals look like and behave.
‘‘Wellington only has their troop of chimpanzees, but some of our artists also went to Borneo and got some great reference pictures of orangutans at their wildlife reserves, and also the LA Zoo and Sydney Zoo.’’
Lemmon finds apes a particularly fascinating animal to bring to life on screen.
‘‘There’s so much humanity in them. I think that’s one of the reasons they’re so engaging, they’re our closest cousins in the animal kingdom, capable of great gentleness, and terrifying violence too, just like humans.’’
Lemmon will soon be packing his awards season suit for the Baftas on February 12, taking place at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
He is confident about his team’s efforts, but not getting ahead of himself.
‘‘Having been through the process a few times before, and feeling like we we’re in a strong position and still managing to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory, I would hesitate make any predictions about who will win,’’ he says.
‘‘But just being part of the contest is a huge honour, especially this year, there’s been a lot of good work in the visual effects arena from a lot of companies all over the world, it’s really fantastic to be included in the mix.’’
As well as the Academy Awards and Baftas, he is just as excited for the Visual Effects Society Awards on February 7 at The Beverly Hilton Hotel.
‘‘They are certainly big prizes, known far and wide.
‘‘But for us, the jury of our peers is the VES, it’s voted on by the people who are the most knowledgeable and discriminating in our craft, so that’s a big honour in its own right.’’