Twenty years ago such a challenge might seem impossible to most producers and studios. They would have likely passed on filming a book like Life of Pi.
Animal rights groups have cracked down heavily against animal mistreatment and have since required film companies to have an ASPCA representative on set whenever an animal is present. Also, animals are somewhat limited to what they can (or are willing) to do. Many animals (such as gorillas and certain species of chimpanzees) are difficult or illegal to train for entertainment purposes.
Digital technology solves a great deal of these problems.
The challenge of course is realism. It has to be believable to have dramatic impact. The digital artists and supervisors at California based visual effects house Rhythm and Hues have made major advancements in realistic animal animation. What is so challenging for effects artists is creating movement that seems natural.
Most artists have never seen large predatory cats up close and it would be somewhat difficult to put a motion capture suit on a tiger to get that realistic motion translated into the computer. After studying hours of footage of live tigers , it took months for the R and H artists to get the movements correct.
They managed to create a believable wild animal without the expense or potential danger or cruelty of using a live animal.
Digital technology of this type is still very expensive and many studios have difficulty maintaining the overhead to sustain the hardware and personnel to make such imagery. But comparatively speaking, its still easier, cheaper and more humane to go the digital route.
Cool,
ReplyDeleteThis is a wonderful entry. It says a lot about the evolution of the industry, but I do think that the Henson Company may have been called 20 years ago to build the Tiger. It may have been a very different movie, but then again movies from thirty years ago had a much more tangible aspect about them. I would love to read something about miniatures. Have they evolved or have they become a dead artform?