Animation tricks create modern 'Star Trek' Enterprise
ILM visual effects and animation teams had to employ some of the latest tricks in the industry to make the new "Star Trek" film feel both realistic and true to the classic franchise. Among the biggest challenges was updating the Starship Enterprise for 2009.
(Credit: Industrial Light & Magic)SAN FRANCISCO--For Paul Kavanagh, the animation supervisor on the new "Star Trek" movie, one technical element of the film was particularly challenging.
During live-action filming, director J.J. Abrams had done something unusual: In a bid to incorporate a shaky, handheld effect, Abrams would frequently sit behind the camera and literally tap on the back of it with his fingers. But "Star Trek" is jam-packed with computer graphics, and for Kavanagh, it was imperative to find a way to replicate the effect of that finger tapping, even in the purely digital sequences. Not to do so, he said, would have created a visual inconsistency that threatened to disrupt the audience's experience.
Back at Industrial Light & Magic, where Kavanagh works, he considered several ways to solve the problem. He talked to the people in ILM's motion-capture department, who showed him a number of 3D mo-cap cameras and techniques, but he felt those were too time-consuming and expensive.
Still, the mo-cap folks had another technology that was both simple and cheap: an orientation sensor that could be plugged into a computer with a simple USB connection and used to record motion. So Kavanagh and his animation team figured out that if they tapped on a desk while filming scenes with CG cameras--on-screen camera viewers that incorporate realistic lenses--and layered the motion from the orientation sensors underneath, they could get the same effect as Abrams got with live-action.
"J.J. did come down to visit us, and he loved it," Kavanagh recalled. "He definitely wanted the same kind of handheld look, but (what we did) was a big surprise for him. He loved that the look carried across the shots."
As you might imagine, "Star Trek" is a feast of effects and animation. According to ILM's Roger Guyett, the film's visual effects supervisor, it has a full hour of visual effects in all. "Every aspect of (the effects has) to be planned and thought through," Guyett said. "It's easy to underestimate the amount of work that goes into creating" an entire world.
Yet Abrams wanted a very tactile feel to the movie, Guyett said, and that meant filming as much as possible and adding in visual effects, rather than relying entirely on CG. "It was closer to the model of the original 'Star Wars' movie"--building actual sets that audiences can react to--"not filling in all the blanks (with CG) later on."
For example, when considering how to create a shuttle hangar, Abrams decided he wanted an actual set, rather than crafting it digitally. That meant finding a suitable space and then lighting it to match the look and feel of the rest of the film.
One benefit of that, Guyett said, is that it helped the actors to have a real set to work on, because they had to imagine less. "You've got actual wind blowing in your face," he said, rather than having to act like there's wind.
For Guyett and his team, another big challenge was figuring out how to handle a massive amount of destruction in the film.
For example, he said, they had to bring photo-realism to the way two colliding spaceships would fall apart. But the physics involved in something like that happening in space are far different than they would be inside the Earth's atmosphere. Similarly, the team needed to figure out how to realistically show what the explosion from a missile hitting the Enterprise would look like.
"The rules of physics aren't the same" in outer space, Guyett said. "Explosions behave in a different way."
Making the physics of an explosion in space look right was no easy task. But Guyett said one of the biggest advantages of working at ILM is that the company is rife with "geniuses" who he can consult with on just about any kind of scientific conundrum.
"You can e-mail a guy," Guyett said, "and say, 'When a ship explodes in space, what actually happens?'"
Then, because of ILM's latest tools--which accurately model the way gravity, or the lack of it, would affect an explosion in space--the filmmakers can find a way to make it look as close as possible to what the in-house science experts say it should.
Guyett explained that ILM's computers allow teams like his to simulate happenings like a nuclear explosion on film and not have it be prohibitively expensive. Just four or five years ago, he said, such a thing wouldn't have been possible. As an example, he said that creating a crash sequence in "Men in Black" had been very expensive because it involved breaking up a costly model. On top of that, they'd had only one chance at getting the shot. But back then, he added, doing it in CG wouldn't have worked because the technology didn't yet exist to get the physics right.
Another challenge, Guyett said, was finding a way to update iconic "Star Trek" elements for a 2009 film without upsetting hard-core Trekkies.
For example, he said that he and Abrams had labored endlessly to try to create a transporter effect. "It's a very iconic thing in the 'Star Trek' world," Guyett said. "It's a sound that everyone knows."
One problem they had to solve was that the transporter ended up looking different on each of the different sets were used in the film. "So we'd just have to adjust it (each time)," Guyett said. "The seemingly smaller challenges can take the longest to figure out."
In animating the new "Star Trek" film, animation supervisor Paul Kavanagh crafted a unique hybrid team of animators interested in camera work and camera department people interested in animation. Each member of the group would be given responsibility for working on individual shots.
(Credit: Industrial Light & Magic)For animation supervisor Kavanagh, working on "Star Trek" presented the chance to do something he'd never done before: create a single working group of animators interested in camera work and people from the camera department interested in animation, and let individuals take responsibility for individual shots.
"We haven't tried that before at ILM," Kavanagh said.
He explained that for his eventual team, "Star Trek" was start-to-finish crunch time. They had to work on 860 shots in less than six months, and sometimes Abrams would toss in wild cards by deciding to change the story during sequences, and ask the animation department to do their own pre-visualization, something the director is usually in charge of.
In the past, it would have taken too much time, but because Kavanagh had created his hybrid working group, they were up to the task. "The benefits that came from it is that we came up with new camera techniques for all-CG shots," he said.
One of Kavanagh's favorite sequences is one in which Captain Kirk is banished to an ice planet and ends up in a battle with a beast known as a polarilla.
Crafted in CG and meant to be a hybrid of a polar bear and a gorilla, the polarilla was the animation team's responsibility, and Kavanagh said it was up to them to find a way to both breathe life into the creature and give it character.
He said they did a number of animation tests on the polarilla, trying to find the best creatures to base it on from a series of reference sources, including the BBC's Motion Gallery, YouTube, and visits to the San Francisco Zoo. In the end, they decided it would run like a polar bear, but have the rear quarters and hanging knuckles of a gorilla. It would also feature the weight of a grizzly bear.
In the sequence, however, they had to animate another creature, known as Big Red, a lobster/crab hybrid that jumps up through the ice to challenge the polarilla for the chance to attack Kirk.
Big Red "was fantastically fun to animate," Kavanagh said of the beast, which has 120 eyes in the back of its head.
As the chase sequence evolves, he recalled, they had to figure out how Big Red would reach out to grab Kirk's leg, as spelled out in the script. But because the creature's mouth was "so long," the animation team felt it didn't work to have it grab Kirk with its arm.
"We thought, what if its tongue is what grabs Kirk's leg?" Kavanagh said. "We had to figure out how that creatively looks. And that's really the fun part of the job."
They decided to have it slip and slide, Kavanagh said, but no so much "that it looks comical.
It seems that in the end, that was a challenge that both Guyett's visual effects team and Kavanagh's hybrid animation team had to tackle. But in updating "Star Trek" for 2009, will true Trekkies recognize the latest iteration of the franchise?
Judging by the mostly enthusiastic reviews, the answer seems to be yes. But Guyett's less interested in reviews than whether he did his job.
"Oh yeah," he said. "There are nods to the history of the series, what has happened and what will happen....But we just made it contemporary."
On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South and North Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel. 
Not sure why a growing number of directors think that the tight-shot, fast-pan, gratuitous-zoom-in-and-out, shaking-all-over effects emulate the human vision system. That's not how my eyes see the world - is that how others do?
I guess this is a way to get the 20-something, 50-nanosecond attention span crowd to look your way? This movie didn't need that - it was an great show on its own merits.
Pull back from the tight shots and steady the cam on occasion. That way, I (and I would imagine others) can actually see what's going on in a scene, as opposed to having to look away to avoid motion sickness.
- Bill
Plus, the next time you're moving around at all, tell me that your eyesight is completely steady. Very rarely are you ever keeping your eyesight steady. Normally its moving around and if a lot is going on around you, it'll be moving around really fast.
Films like Blair Witch and Cloverfield were meant to look like it was coming from someone running with a camera. This is also quite a different effect than what your seeing in movies like Star Trek however.
Also, I've never had any problem with motion sickness in movies. However, Cloverfield annoyed the hell out of me.
I am a fan of Battlestar Galactica, and they use a lot of "Steady Cam" in that show, even in the visual effects, but the cam shake is smoother, and looks like the camera man is hand holding the camera, but taking care to keep it fairly steady.
I know it creates tension, but lot's of it just creates annoyance and eventually nausea...and there was waaaayyy too much of it.
But, overall I loved the visuals. Well done ILM.
BSG has been able to carry it off without it becoming too distracting (though I still often find it too annoying) and this sort of shake effect CAN NEVER approach anything realistic -- it looks like what it is: a shaky camera.
As well, some of these camera shakers appear to follow some sort of directive that says: "OK tap the camera once every 15 seconds", which inevitably turns into some sort of beat/rhythm which again gives me a sense of something contrived and totally unnatural.
Anyway, with a new filmpack in my profoundly expensive camera during an important, maybe one-time scene opportunity, if I caught some dope pounding on the thing I'd likely have him taken out and shot.
"That's not how my eyes see the world - is that how others do?" Yes it is. The only difference is that in real life your brain controls the tracking of your eyes. In the movie it is the director.
People go to movies for escape and fun, they don't care if the sound effects are realistic or not. If people wanted realism then Sci-Fi movies like Star Trek or Star Wars would have had much less appeal. Sound effects have a dramatic impact on a movie as does the visuals. Seeing an explosion in space without any gratuitous sound effects would just be dull. Do you really think people would have enjoyed those movies better if they were silent?
OR explode!
Sure it looked good, but the plot/story simply wasn't.
While it did extremely well over this past weekend, and time will tell if it will have legs to carry it for several weeks or even months (ala The Dark Knight), if one goes to the movie for a story, some will be disappointed.
Loved the art direction of this movie too. I'm also am usually not a fan of the shaky camera effect, but I actually liked it in this movie. It gave it a sense of urgency during the tense scenes.
In terms of reboot/prequel, it definitely does a much better job than the Star Wars reboots/prequels did, especially episode 1&2. I can't wait to see what Abrams will do if their is a sequel.
Krel os'a hmi va ta!
Thanks for f-ing up the movie.
The shaky cam was overdone, especially on the fight scenes. I found them confusing, rather than exciting. It was as though the cameraman got beat up and shot with a phaser. Shaky cam, like autotune in music, needs to be done in a subtle way, or else it becomes the focal point.
All in all, though, the shaky cam wasn't enough to spoil a great summer film.
- by Flinxi May 11, 2009 5:14 PM PDT
- GREAT MOVIE??? hmmmm.... depends on your mindset when you watch it.
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- by viper396 May 11, 2009 5:42 PM PDT
- I guess you missed the entire scene and dialogue with Spock (the Leonard Nimoy version) about how going back in time and changing the past creates an alternate timeline thus making it plausible for events in this movie to not affect events in the other Movies and TV shows..
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- by Flinxi May 11, 2009 5:56 PM PDT
- to: viper396
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- by viper396 May 12, 2009 10:24 AM PDT
- @Flinxi. Nero went back in time and killed Kirk's father. The fact that Spock has a dialogue about how, in his timeline, Kirk's father was alive clearly puts the events in this movie in an alternative timeline.
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- by Scott Gardener May 13, 2009 8:33 PM PDT
- This was a reboot, but one that tactfully acknowledged the original timeline. It took me a bit to catch on that this was a new timeline, at first being bothered by the fact that Federation members knew what Romulans looked like (albeit ones with gangsta tattoos on their faces), but the moment they blew up Vulcan, I figured that the familiar movies 1-10, TNG, DS9, and Voyager timeline, the one that has kept so many of us from dating for so many years, was now relegated to alternate timeline status. But, considering how the franchise was stagnating and how exhilerating the movie was, I conceded that it had to be done.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (61 Comments)A few have commented on sticking to the original characters. Somone said the story needed a plot.
If you watch this movie on it's own, with NO reference to the original series (which is where the characters come from) or the past movies..... then yes, it's a great movie.... with GREAT CG effects and animation.
BUT... this film was supposed to be about HOW the crew of the Enterprise came to be together. meaning it's a prequel to the original series. How often did the orignal crew talk of or even visit Vulcan? MANY times. How often was Spock's human mother on the original series? MANY times. Vulcan is totally DESTROYED in this movie. Spock's mother DIES in this movie. How can either of these events happen if this is a prequel to the series?? Next... time travel.... Spock meets himself in the end of this movie... and gives himself advice to be remembered.... yet... in the series and in the movies (concerning original crew)... Spock not only has to figure out HOW to time travel (after having to realize it's possible)... but has NO RECOLLECTION that he had met his future, older self.
Now, for fans of the original series... the story of this movie should be DEVASTATING!! In any other prequel movie I've ever seen, they do at least try to keep consistency in trying to lead up to what it's a prequel to... fill in missing elements of character, etc. This film does not.
It's fairly obvious that you haven't watched Star Trek or at least don't pay attention. Time travel and alternate timelines were a common plot point in several episodes of all Star Trek series. Most fans should already be accustomed to alternate timelines as a way to explain story differences.
as I stated... this was supposed to be a prequel to how the crew came together... NOT how they came together in an alternate timeline (where Vulcan is destroyed, and Spock's mother dies)...
Yes, if they go back and change anything, the timeline is affected... which means... Scotty never joins the crew, Kirk never becomes the Captain.
This film did NOTHING to unite the crew in the timeline in which we are all familiar!
As for watching the original series and movies... "Assignment Earth" (which greatly deals with time travel and possibly changing a major event) is my favorite episode.
Maybe you should see the movie again and just drop the pre-dispode misconceptions of what you think the movie was suppose to be. The movie was marketed as a reboot, not a prequel.