THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE on Disney Blu-ray™ & DVD

Thursday, November 18, 2010 – 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM US Pacific Time

Q – What’s most difficult to create and animate: fire, fluid water, or creatures like that tiny animated dragon?
A – John Nelson: Animated characters like the little dragon need to act and are animated by character animators. Fire, water and the like are done with a technique known as fluid dynamic simulations. The simulations are tricky because they are not animated but governed by constraints and you can get everything right and then change one of the constraints and have it look completely different. For the little dragon, the challenge was to get the performance of the little guy while also keeping the metal looking like metal and not have it turn into plastic. I think he looks like real metal and gives a good performance.

Q – Would you say that today’s CG FX are more dependent upon a supervisor’s technical knowledge, artistic knowledge, or a third field I haven’t even thought of?
A – John Nelson: Being a good filmmaker is the most important, as you will know what will work cinematically. Next, knowing what you want creatively from the effect and how to achieve it technically. Finally, knowing the latest techniques and knowing what process is best to achieve your goal is also important (in addition to about a thousand other things).

Q – When you’re animating something as high-tech looking as “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” do you ever think back to the Ray Harryhausen era and marvel at how far visual effects have come? What would you say is responsible for the biggest leap in the creation of visual effects?
A – John Nelson: I am amazed all the time at what Ray did with his way of doing thing with little more than himself, shooting actors and then animating stop motion characters in front of those rear projected backgrounds. I think many in this field were inspired to do what we do by seeing Ray’s films and films like “2001.” When I am tired from working 18-hours days and a bit down, I often think of the fact of how easy I have it because I have all these tools, tools that the old masters like Ray did not have. Creative solutions never go out of style. That is why Ray’s films still captivate audiences. I also look at the old films like “Tora, Tora, Tora,” “Darby O’Gill” or “The Wizard of Oz” and still love them.

Q – Of the movies you HAVEN’T worked on, which do you think contain the most enviable visual effects, and why?
A – John Nelson: I loved “2001,” “Star Wars,” “Close Encounters,” “Spartacus,” “Darby O’Gill,” “The Aviator,” “Pirates 3,” (Davy Jones’ face!) “District 9,” “Inception,” “Avatar,” in addition to many others, both old and new. What makes me like a film with VFX is when I see clever filmmaking combined with realistic visual effects in a package that is solid storytelling. That can mean using an old effect in a new way or using a new effect to show something that hasn’t been seen before. The key is to be like a master musician and play just the right notes at just the right time.

Q – Roger Ebert singled out the scene where the dragon in a Chinatown parade and a steel eagle on top of the Chrysler Building come alive. Can you talk about the strategies and/or challenges of creating those scenes?
A – John Nelson: The Chinatown dragon was hard because of the crowds involved and the magic we were doing had many forms. First the sorcerer Sun Loc had to come out of the grimhold as a thousand butterflies that formed his body, then he had to bring the dragon on his breastplate to life and make it crawl off the breastplate and under his skin, then the paper dragon with people holding it had to turn into the real dragon, then the dragon had to chase Dave throughout Chinatown. For each of these steps, our approach was to shoot our background plates with the actors as quickly as possible and also shoot references of what the real dragon skin might look like in addition to clean plates and high dynamic range stills (and do all that as quickly as possible!). That way when we go to create the VFX in the computer we have all the tools and photographic reference to achieve realistic images. Beyond that, it is the acting experience of the animators that bring the digital characters to life. The process was similar with the Chrysler eagle but its surface was metal and needed to be appear as metal and not bend like skin or plastic.

Q – Could you explain how you put together the Tesla coil scenes?
A – John Nelson: We reviewed real Tesla coil footage and even shot some ourselves. Next we picked a song that the coils were to fire in sync with. Next we rigged a computer controlled lighting rig to fire interactive lights in sync with the music. Then we shot our backgrounds with the actors in that interactive light and went into post- production. In post-production we animated the Tesla coil arcs to match the music and interactive lights. We had to change some of the timings to make it work but, because we shot clean plates and had a complete digital copy of the set ,it was possible to do this.

Q – What was your contribution to “Iron Man?”
A – John Nelson: I was the Senior Visual Effects supervisor and responsible for every visual effect in the film. I had the same role on “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”

Q – Were there concerns over comparisons to effects in the Harry Potter series or did you know from the get-go you’d take a different route of sorts?
A – John Nelson: We felt we wanted the effects in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” to be more grounded than the magic in the “Harry Potter” films. Those films are great and the VFX work done in those films are great, but we wanted our magic to be more grounded in reality. It was really a stylistic choice.

Q – Can you talk about the intersection of visual effects, acting, and direction?
A – John Nelson: The director directs all components of the film including visual effects. Directing the actors in a big visual effect sequence is demanding in that you need to explain what the actors can see and what they can’t see — but will be added later so they can have a complete understanding of what it will ultimately look like. I particularly like to work the effects off the physical actions of the actors. It makes the effects more organic and character driven.

Q – What have today’s visual effects creators learned from cartoon animators, and what have they learned from the old masters of Hollywood stunt work?
A – John Nelson: You can always learn from the masters and in many ways old techniques combined with new techniques can be very powerful. The cartoon masters’ new squash and stretch, anticipation, exaggeration and body language in addition to staging and the like. The best computer animators are usually the ones trained in classical animation techniques. The stuntmen always amaze me. On this film we had George Marshall Ruge who is absolutely one of the best. A good example is the magic swordfight where one of George’s stuntmen was in a green suit and fought Nick Cage with a sword that was hanging in mid-air. For that we removed the green suited stuntman or added a CG sword as needed. The key for all of this is to get as much practical as you can and let the VFX do the stuff you cannot do with practical effects.

Q – Do you ever worry that the explanations you provide for the effects, like the ones we’re watching now from the DVD, might reduce a viewer’s awe at seeing a metal bull or a dragon?
A – John Nelson: Sometimes I feel like a magician giving away the secrets but I feel the people who view these explanations want to see what goes on behind the Wizard of Oz’s curtain.

Q – The vehicle chases in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” look pretty complicated, too. Where they tough to pull off?
A – John Nelson: We had to shoot all of the car chases going no more that 25 MPH because on our first night of shooting, a car had a slight mishap and one of our cars slid into sandwich shop window at midnight. No one was seriously hurt. What we had to do was speed up all the chase stuff after that and add digital cars and props where necessary. In some sequences, we created totally digital sections of New York so we could destroy it and when necessary reverse explosions, etc. Mirror world was particularly difficult in this way. It was a tremendously complex task that worked upon the stunt driving of George Ruge’s stunt team driving backgrounds and that were passed off to the talented animators at Asylum VFX (where lots of fully digital shots were added) to pull it off.

Q – How many of the effects in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” were CGI and how many were on-set practical effects and which type of effect do you prefer to work with?
A – John Nelson: I love to mix up practical effects with visual effect (usually made from CGI). The mix gives the effects more realism and uses the best parts of each technique to make the finished effect more real while also being able to achieve the fantastic.

Q – With “Terminator 2,” you were one of the pioneers with using CGI. How has the technology evolved?
A – John Nelson: Computer generated imagery is much more real now. With the advent of image-based rendering (where we shoot high dynamic range stills of each background and used them to light the CG objects), realism has taken a large step forward.

Q – I assume, when you started your career, you were mostly dealing with practical effects, because of the given technical options. Does that experience influence your approach in your work as a VFX supervisor today?
A – John Nelson: I really have been doing computer graphics for visual effects since 1983 so my career has paralleled the advance of CGI in our industry. I feel CGI can do anything but it is also the most complex and expensive way to achieve something. I come from being a cameraman so I like to photograph things. The easiest way to get a photo real picture is to photograph something. That is why I like to use as many real photographic elements as possible and only use CGI to get to achieve the stuff I can’t photograph.

Q – Are there certain body types or looks that lend themselves better to visual effects involving humans?
A – John Nelson: Not really. The most important things in making a digital character work is to rig the body correctly so an animator has good control and then have a talented animator who knows when to use motion capture and when to just go ahead and animate something that looks good. Different body types add different emotions. Some are funny, some are sinister. Look at animated characters and you will see this.

Q – What type of special effects do you specialize in?
A – John Nelson: I love the ones that are real and also elegant in the way they achieve their goals. History and comic books have always been an interest of mine so comic related and history related projects have always got me going. Really good stories get me going. One of the things I love about my job is that I get to research the reason why an effect might be useful to a story and then incorporate that reasoning into the way the effect works. In “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” we did this by saying the electrical charges the sorcerers can conjure is an extension of their neurological system which is electrically based. It is how we send signals from our brain to move our feet, etc. The only difference is that for our sorcerers, their neurological system is highly refined to channel large amounts of electricity.

Q – Any time there’s magic, there’s magic dust. Given the fact that Disney probably started it all with Pixie dust, is there more pressure to get that right than other visual effects?
A – John Nelson: We just like using the dust to denote the attraction of force that the sorcerers are channeling right before they unload a concussion blast or right after it to show the power moving through the volume of the room.

Q – “The Pelican Brief” and “In the Line of Fire” don’t come to mind as special effects movies. What sort of effects did you work on for these films?
A – John Nelson: For “Pelican Brief,” we did a Lear jet in the clouds at night (something that would be hard to photograph) and for “In the Line of Fire,” we shot political rallies of Bush and Clinton, removed Bush and Clinton, and added Clint Eastwood and other characters from our story. People said these rallies looked real because they were real.

Q – What did you first think you might do when you got this job to do VFX on this film and what changed from that in the final filming? Is it normal on all films to change ideas as you film or do you always have a good hand on what you will do before you shoot the first scene?
A – John Nelson: The script is always changing but the ideas behind the script tend to be somewhat constant. You read the script and design the VFX work to satisfy the needs of the script and prep with all the other departments (stunts, camera, art dept, practical effects) to be ready so when we shoot the pages of the script all the components work together to work as well as possible and be shot as quickly as possible. In post-production, we will add what we need to but with each day of principal photography costing so much money, we try to get as much in the camera as we can! It is important to define what is important about the effect and have a firm idea of how to achieve that so when the specifics change you will be able to quickly re-organize your mind to get the correct photographic plates (background with actors). You can draw it or pre-visualize it and all of that helps especially for extremely complex work. The actual shots are defined when the director sees the actors rehearse their actions and then everything is adjusted to work how he wants to cover it.

Q – 1251 VFX shots seem impressive – do you know which movie is the record holder in that department at the time? How many VFX shots were in that record and what’s the average of VFX shots per modern theatrically released movie?
A – John Nelson: In the old days, a 400 shot show was a lot of VFX shots. Now the big films usually have over 1000 shots. The biggest ones are shows like “Lord of the Rings” or the new “Star Wars” films which have 1600 or more. Of course “Avatar” reached new heights as every shot was a visual effect shot.

Q – Why do some CGIs look convincing, while others look as if they’ve been made from a PlayStation 2?
A – John Nelson: Usually realism depends on how well the backgrounds (and what reference) were shot combined with using CG techniques such as advanced lighting models that use high dynamic range imagery for image based rendering. Getting the specular reflections (the sheen reflected off the surface of an object) correct is the most important thing in making a CG object look real. Also keeping the digital camera moves looking like something a real camera could do is very important.

Q – You worked on the visual effects for “Iron Man.” Can you talk about what you perceive as significant steps that you’ve taken in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” that have upped the visual effects ante?

A – John Nelson: We were making a PG movie and that required us to make effects that were not too intense for younger viewers.  For example, when Alfred Molina comes out of the grimhold he is made of cockroaches that begin to form a human shape. We shot Alfred rising up into position even though at the beginning of the sequence the shape was not human but rather that of thousands of insects forming a mound. In each shot that follows, the transition takes place as the mound becomes more and more human shaped, ending with the insects crawling under Alfred’s skin and making him

up. Making that effect without loosing our PG rating was very difficult but we did it.

Q – How much chroma key was used vs. digital compositing? Which do you prefer working with?

A – John Nelson: We only used digital compositing and if we needed to pull a key off blue or greenscreen we did that digitally. If there was any cleanup, we would rotoscope as necessary or use a luminance matte (based on light intensity not 

color).

Q – One of the more intriguing sequences in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is the “attack” of the brooms because they each have personalities. How did you and your crew put the scene together and how long did it take?

A – John Nelson: We did testing to figure out how much we wanted to “anthropomorphize” (make human) the brooms and mops to show performance and emotion. We wanted each of the characters to appear as real mops, but also perform in a way to endear their performance to the viewer. The mops just want to do what they have been magically told to do and there is not stopping them. We tested this in rhythm to the music and it seemed to work. We developed this aspect of the possessed mops and brooms but stopped when their performance drew too much attention to them

as individuals. We wanted them to act as a crowd.

Q – This is probably an off-center angle, but did you reference any old films with magic and also comic book series such as, say Marvel’s Dr. Strange or DC’s Dr. Fate?

A – John Nelson: We looked at lots of stuff but the stuff that was the most influential was the script along with the concept about the sorcerer’s neurological system is more developed than normal people.  And also the Arthur C. Clarke quote that, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Q – John, any final thoughts on The Sorcerer’s Apprentice?

A – John Nelson: It has been great answering all your questions. As you can see this is all takes an amazing amount of effort to get right. I hope you enjoy the Blu-ray with all the behind the scenes stuff.