Who else however Wētā FX might pull off turning English rock star Robbie Williams right into a chimp for Michael Gracey’s “Higher Man” musical biopic? In any case, Peter Jackson’s New Zealand VFX studio is the king of CG ape films, which finds itself in a simian face-off this awards season with “Higher Man” and “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.”
However the animated ape types are polar opposites. Whereas the chimps have developed into changing into extra human-like throughout all 4 “Planet of the Apes” movies, Williams merely resembles a chimp whereas being completely human in the way in which he acts, sings, and clothes. That’s as a result of Williams noticed himself as a educated monkey whereas changing into well-known because the youngest member of the boyband Take That. Gracey seized on the metaphor to depict Williams as unevolved all through his tumultuous rise and fall and closing redemption.
“‘Higher Man’ is sort of a human being represented as an ape,” Wētā VFX supervisor Luke Millar advised IndieWire. This necessitated the creation of 226 totally different costumes and 50 totally different hairstyles for Williams within the movie, together with peroxide blond protecting his complete physique.
“ However one factor which was fairly totally different is that Robbie’s the one digital character within the image — all the things else is actual and human,” added Millar.
Nonetheless, this created a significant technical drawback for the efficiency seize of actor Jonno Davies (who performs Williams between the ages of seven and 30) in the course of the musical numbers the place he interacts with a number of different actors. Since Davies’ head cam and the witness cameras picked up too many distracting objects on set (reminiscent of increase mics), this both interrupted his efficiency or was too tough to color out in publish.
Because of this, Wētā was pressured to take away Davies’ head cam and transfer the witness cameras farther again. This meant they nonetheless captured the efficiency of his physique however used the facial seize footage primarily as reference. It was then as much as the animators (underneath the supervision of Dave Clayton) to match Davies’ efficiency precisely, counting on their very own performing talents to get higher nuance within the keyframe animation.
“We did clear up among the faces,” Millar mentioned. “It wasn’t all hand finished. However it was simply a big quantity due to the character of the movie. Michael created a tough draft that had Jonno in the entire frames, and that was the efficiency clearly that he beloved. However the animation workforce was in a position to embellish moments. There have been sure issues the place Jonno would smile, however Michael wished a smile that was extra Robbie Williams. We known as them ‘Robbie-isms’ that have been injected all through the image. And that’s simply to create that quintessential likeness to the particular person we’re representing.”
Nice care was taken to recreate Williams’ eyes, brows, and tattoos when constructing his ape mannequin, utilizing reference captured when Williams visited the set to keep up his likeness and recognizability. “Michael wished individuals to have the ability to take a look at Robbie the ape and see Robbie the singer,” Millar added. “So we labored up numerous idea work making an attempt to lean into the human facets. We tried human tooth, human hairstyles, human eyes, human all the things, and we in a short time received into a really unusual place the place we have been beginning to lose the chimp at that time, creating one thing which might bump individuals out of the film.
“And my pitch to Michael was to lean into Robbie’s eyes and eyebrows as a result of a lot of the reference to the character is from that space. After which we simply went into the chimp with the remainder of the face, however we ended up sticking with the chimp tooth. We simply made them look very cared for as a result of this man’s a multi-million greenback rock star.”
The interactions between the furry digital Williams and his real-life counterparts and environments have been so central to the VFX that Millar and the Wētā workforce did previs variations of 10 musical numbers, which Gracey used to safe funding for his indie characteristic. These ranged from “Let Me Entertain You,” the recreation of Williams’ famed 2003 Knebworth Park live performance (filmed in Serbia that includes 108,000 digital extras and a dreamlike sequence the place Williams battles 110,000 CG apes as previous variations of himself); “She’s the One,” a dance quantity on a yacht in Saint-Tropez, the place he meets his future fiancée, Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno), a member of All Saints; and the “My Manner” finale, partially filmed at Royal Albert Corridor, with the actual Williams performing stay in entrance of a packed crowd for higher authenticity.
Nonetheless, probably the most spectacular sequence was “Rock DJ,” the extremely choreographed one-shot lasting 3:42 minutes and filmed on London’s Regent Road over 4 evenings. It boasts 5 digital costume adjustments and 500 dancers and wanted probably the most work to match the previs.
It additionally required new tech that enabled Wētā’s VFX pipeline to obtain knowledge information from live performance stage lightboards to precisely recreate them digitally. ”The variety of fixtures that make up fixed lighting is usually over 100 lights, and so they change colour and publicity,” Millar mentioned. “ It’s a really sophisticated mild rig. So I talked to the lighting board operator after which handed it off to one of many workforce members again at Wētā to see if they may reconstruct the knowledge. We have been in a position to recreate, from that lighting board knowledge, the entire motion of all these lights.”
Seems, although, that “Rock DJ” didn’t begin out nicely. Not solely was the final day of rehearsal lower quick due to the demise of Queen Elizabeth II, however they couldn’t cowl all of Regent Road with their mocap cameras. So, they mounted two offset cameras to the primary digital camera to get a stereo view of Davies’ efficiency. This was accompanied by witness cameras on ladder pods that have been mounted farther again.
The sequence, which stitched collectively the choreographed dancing all through the road right into a single shot, took 4 months to shoot. For Wētā, it started with learning dance movies from choreographer Ashley Warren. “ We movement captured them at a earlier stage, after which we have been in a position to block out the dance right down to basically a easy model of the road that we had,” Millar mentioned.
“As soon as we had one thing Michael was proud of,” he added, “that received handed again to Erik Wilson, the DP, who took some dancers onto Regent Road with an iPhone and began to see if they may do the identical path down the road. After which we needed to make some changes as a result of our previs didn’t have a telephone sales space or a avenue lamp like could be there on the day. Erik refined the digital camera path and we prevised once more to the brand new achievable digital camera.
As soon as they’d the timing mapped for the digital camera, Wētā began the entire digital work on high of that, together with store fronts and site visitors. Plus, there have been the gumball machines, Christmas lights, and iconic commercials you’d see on Piccadilly Circus within the ’90s: fluorescent tubes that may mild up and be animated.
“Then there was the entire hand-match shifting of Jonno’s avenue dancing,” Millar mentioned. “ He’s not a educated dancer, however he discovered all of the dance strikes and was the one performing it on the road. After which we had stunt performers doing a break dance on high of a piano and a stunt parkour performer who did the leap. That needed to be stitched into Jonno’s efficiency, clearly integrating his animated character with all of his stay efficiency.
“I feel ‘Rock DJ’s’ in all probability received the Wētā file for probably the most quantity of roto duties and paint tiles ever created for the shoot,” Millar added. “And there’s little to no blue display screen in any respect as a result of we needed to see all the things.”
“Higher Man,” now enjoying in choose theaters, opens large on January 10.