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"HERO"
A Study of Heroism and Power |
| Article By Kathie Berry | |
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A top grossing film in China, "Hero" opened in theaters across the United States thanks to Miramax Films™ and Quentin Tarantino. International superstar Jet Li plays a soldier out for revenge against enemies who massacred his people. The film includes an awesome martial arts scene pitting Li against Donnie Yen ("Iron Monkey", "Shanghai Knights"). Shot in spectacular locations from lakes high in the mountains through desert sands and into the gorgeous forests laced with vibrant fall colors, the film is a patchwork of visual treats that will sweep you away. Filmmaker Zhang Yimou examines the serious nature of heroism with his first venture into the world of martial arts. In the movie "Hero", Zhang depicts the somewhat complicated aspects of power along with the morality and ruthlessness that it involves.
"Hero" is a sweeping production. The filmmakers covered hundreds of miles in China with a large traveling crew. The rivals, while at opposing positions, still maintain a solemn respect for each other. The film's underlying theme depicts not only a battle of weapons but a battle of wills. Dying for a cause is just as important as living for one. Power is attained through the wielding of weapons as well as abandoning them and knowing when to do each. "Hero" gives us a broad sweeping view of the qualities that define a hero and shows us who qualifies to hold that title. Throughout the film you will delight in the vibrant colors and scenes rich with visual content. While the film incorporates stunning visual effects, it maintains an eye for realism that captures your imagination and attention. Your perception of who deserves the title of hero in the film will depend solely upon your morals and point of view. Jonathan Rothbart and the team at The Orphanage, his visual effects and film production studio he co-founded, were commissioned to work on "Hero". Jonathan happily found that he would be working again with a friend and former co-worker, Ellen Poon, who was visual effects supervisor on the film. Jonathan loved film and visual effects from a very early age and had always wanted to be involved in this area of the motion picture industry. His career began after he attended college and began working in graphic design as well as advertising. He also moved into game creation where he created animations and visual effects for various games. In 1995 he joined George Lucas' "Industrial Light and Magic®" (ILM) company in the art department. His first project at ILM was creating concept pieces for the movie "Twister" where he worked on introducing various still art images of tornadoes into plates to give reference for the CG artists. Most of his work at that time was in the animatics department working on feature films. After 18 months Jonathan and Stu Maschwitz led by John Wolfe started a group called the Rebel Mac Unit at ILM. They incorporated the idea of having a boutique shop at ILM that was outside of the mainstream pipeline. The theory behind the boutique was "one artist, one shot" which allowed them to model, paint, animate, light, and composite on their own shots. The end of May 2000, found Jonathan leaving ILM and forming "The Orphanage" with Stu Maschwitz. Their plan was to create not only a visual effects studio, but to do film production and incorporate a technology arm of the company as well. "The Orphanage" grew from 3 to 6 to 15 and more. They tripled their workforce each year for the first 4-5 years and now they have reached a plateau of around 160 people. After forming "The Orphanage" Jonathan and his partners took a year off from visual effects and started creating their own short films. Two of them were in the Sundance Film Festival and had wonderful success. At that point, they began building the production side of their company. The idea behind this move was visual effects as the service side that would help them to build the feature production side as well. The first commission found "The Orphanage" as a team working on "Mission to Mars". They just completed "Superman Returns" which required that Jonathan travel to Australia for three months of onsite shooting, as well as "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest". The company is also in the process of looking at a variety of shows coming down pipeline later in the year. In the technology side of their business, they have created a product called "Magic Bullet" which is a tool that allows for the transfer of digital video onto film. It contains a suite of tools that allow the user to perform in-camera and post-processes to apply optical and chemical effects on digital footage. The software is available as a retail product through Red Giant. The Orphanage just completed its first feature film entitled "Griffin and Phoenix" starring Amanda Peet and Dermot Mulroney. Jonathan's work now involves supervision of projects, developing plans for the company's future as well as marketing and sales. When asked about his first contact concerning their work on the film "Hero", Jonathan stated: "We were really excited about it because the director is very well known for his film making and we already knew of this film in particular. It was considered one of his best and he creates really beautiful films. We were very happy to be involved. At the time it was going to be one of the largest films ever coming out of the East so it was pretty exciting." They found that in order to achieve the look of realism that they needed it was going to take a specialized software with a wide variety of tools. CINEMA 4D™ was their choice in this case when they needed to create a realistic candle flame in one important scene in "Hero". Jonathan remembered:
In this instance they used CINEMA 4D primarily as an effects tool. They needed to create realistic digital flames and it quickly became necessary to use CINEMA 4D due to its control over noise functions and its open toolset which allowed for programming functions. They were then able to create a unique look in terms of shaders and other aspects. It was the right tool for the job. They used it for "Hero" in all of the shots that had a digital flame which needed to be animated and have character.
"We are trying to push the envelope on that end. Everyone just keeps pushing further with characters to get as photo realistic as possible." Jonathan loves the visual effects industry and it's important to him that people are excited about it. He offers: "A love of the industry more than compensates for the work involved while providing an opportunity to be extremely creative." As far as "The Orphanage" goes, they are now moving into the feature animation arena. It's a natural transition for their company. Jonathan feels that it's very much like Pixar or PDI where they began as visual effects facilities and moved onward. He feels that this is a great starting point for moving into digital features. They have a great team that melds seamlessly with the technical production pipeline that they've created over the past 6 years. Their offices are located in The Presidio in San Francisco just up the street from ILM, his former employer. When asked what advice he would give to artists just entering the field of visual effects, Jonathan replied; "The business has changed so much. It used to be that you worked in a facility and were there for years and years and the pay wasn't as good. Now the pay is better but people move from facility to facility and they can work on one show at one facility and on another show at another facility, so the community is very mobile now. I think that what's really important is to be an excellent communicator and have a broad range of talents. Don't be narrowed down into one talent. Otherwise it can really pigeon-hole your worth and make it harder for you to branch out later on." "The Orphanage" is moving onward and upward with a new version of "Magic Bullet" coming out soon as well as many more feature films, short films and visual effects projects. I know that we will be hearing about and seeing a lot of wonderful work coming out of "The Orphanage" over the next few years as well as phenomenal growth. If you haven't seen the film "Hero" you are in for a treat. Rich in atmosphere, bursting with action yet reaching inward to depict the struggle of understanding the true nature of heroism, the movie will reach you on many levels. I hope that you rent or purchase the movie and enjoy the beauty of China through the eyes and mind of director Zhang Yimou. You can visit The Orphange online here http://www.theorphanage.com to see more of Jonathan and his team's work. You can read about and purchase "Magic Bullet" online at http://www.redgiantsoftware.com I look forward to seeing much more of "The Orphanage" at work. Article by Kathie Berry Copyright 2006, PlanIt 3D | |||||||||
