The San Diego Comic-Con International is one of the biggest and most popular comic conventions in the world. Every year the geeks, freaks, nerds, and the just plain curious are drawn through its doors by the hundreds. This year, pushing past the hopeful Jedi and the anime enthusiasts were pirates.
LOTS of pirates. It seemed you couldn't walk two booths without running into pirate-themed merchandise or attendees decked out in pirate garb.
Even one of Keep To The Code's favorite Jack Sparrows was there, sashaying and grinning his way through folks eager for a picture.
Crowds were perpetually wandering through the official Disney area at the Con.
On display were items from groups like Master Replicas, merchandise from the first movie, and items hinting at the Asian influence of the third.
Every hour on the hour drew more people who eagerly reached out as large bags with images from the Dead Man's Chest posters and Jack running for his life were handed out.
The biggest display of pirate spirit, however, was at a presentation held on Saturday in Hall H of the convention center. The title of the presentation was "Disney Previews: From Narnia to the Caribbean." While the Narnia portion of the presentation had a sizeable crowd, the room ended up packed by the time the first mention of 'Pirates' was made.
All attention focused when a man walked out onto the stage with a laptop. The man was John Knoll, ILM Visual Effects Supevisor; a man who had movies like Star Trek: First Contact, Star Wars I-III, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl under his belt. Before we knew it, giant size images from Dead Man's Chest appeared on the screens hanging above the crowd and things really got going.
John Knoll started out by answering a question that's been floating around lately: how much of Davy Jones and his crew is CG (computer generated)? The answer: everything. Even Davy Jones' eyes were created digitally. Gore Verbinski had been worried about the eyes and wanted the option of using Bill Nighy's real eyes if he didn't like the CG ones. They never had to test using the real thing. Davy Jones and his crew were another step forward for the world of digital creation.
Bill Nighy as Davy Jones during his transformation from live actor to CG character. Images © Disney.
Creating purely digital characters that seemed absolutely believable posed a challenge to ILM with Dead Man's Chest. They wanted to have the actors who modeled the movements and expressions of the crew to be on set, but the movie's filming took place in a lot of locations, some very out of the way. This problem meant they would have trouble using regular motion-capture techniques. Normally motion-capture requires a lot of cameras and everything to be just right environmentally.
So what did they do? They created something new to solve their problem.
The solution was named iMocap. The technology is an on-set, low impact motion-capture. The system only requires two cameras on set and it's not as fussy at picking up the signals from the actors in motion-capture suits. It can also be used for multiple character scenes. The technology is smarter and has the capability to fill in the gaps that might occur when filming tricky scenes where they might lose the connection or a lighting effect might throw the cameras off. iMocap helped ILM keep their characters' movements more fluid and human while allowing the actors to be on set playing opposite other characters when necessary.
Bill Nighy as Davy Jones and his crew during their transformation from live actors to CG characters. Images © Disney.
After the basics of the technology were explained, the presentation centered on the character of Davy Jones. We were treated to breakdowns of the character going from live-action Bill Nighy, to the computer generated roughs, to the finished product. There were several scenes shown in split-screen with Nighy acting on one side and Davy on the other. I can safely say that Nighy IS Davy Jones. The expressions, down to a subtle crease of an eyebrow, were mimicked.
As for Davy's beard, there were 46 individual tentacles writhing about. John explained how each tentacle was broken down into segments in the computer and each segment was motorized. There were a lot of things to consider with the tentacles, and they programmed them to do things such as stick slightly to each other and have a certain "springiness" so that their interactions appeared realistic.
Bill Nighy as Davy Jones during his transformation from live actor to CG character. Images © Disney.
The serious explanation and showcasing of ILMs masterpieces over, John decided to show us some digital gags and spoofs. There is nothing like seeing the movie's water-wheel programmed in to look like a giant donut or seeing the Davy Jones crew bouncing around doing Riverdance.
Then John announced one final treat to the audience. We were going to be viewing what was the equivalent of a rough trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean 3. The stunned audience watched Singapore pirates, half-finished CG ship battle scenes, and all of the characters you would expect to return in the third installment. Some people even seemed to forget the "no photos or recording" rule and were promptly dragged out by security. Let's just say there is good reason to be excited for the release next year.
We walked out, grinning like idiots, clutching our tickets for a free gift. We went upstairs to redeem whatever we were getting for attending and were each handed a large poster with a breakdown of every member of the Davy Jones crew. The poster is absolutely frame-worthy.
I feel I must give a heartfelt apology to any Pirate fans not at Comic-Con. I won't tell you that you didn't miss anything because then I would be lying. I just hope that this has given you a good glimpse at the workings of Dead Man's Chest, and excitement for the release of Pirates 3 on 5/25/07.
Arrr!
ed note: The report above was filed by KTTC's own Captain Lequatte and Lady Killigrew, who attended Comic-Con on behalf of DizHub and KeepToTheCode.com. Unless otherwise noted, text and images © DizHub.com/KeepToTheCode.com and may not be reproduced without prior written permission.
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