P I NOCCH IO | DRAMA
You shouldn’t be able to tell where prosthetics end and CG begins. They need to blend into one and move as one
then use them. Knowing there is an entire database automatically recorded and easily accessible meant less time organising and more time making beautiful images.” When creating the young puppet’s nose as it grew in response to his lies, Demiris used lens metadata to ensure a seamless image. He explains: “We had to perfectly track the camera movements as well as Pinocchio’s head and torso in order to then replace the nose and parts of the head. The result is a mixture of prosthetics and VFX that is so well-integrated it’s very difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins.” Pinocchio’s long wooden conk is charmingly done here, with little CG woodpeckers sitting serenely on top of it. BEAUTIFUL ITALY Trusting the working-class settings and sympathies of his source material, Garrone crafted a fable set in feudal Tuscany, where much of the film was shot. “I think that’s also why it looks so nice, there’s authenticity to the visuals,” enthuses Demiris. “Some other scenes were shot in Puglia and Rome, but it is all Italy-based. It’s Italian in its soul. There is also the exception of the breaching of the whale that swallows Pinocchio, and the 40-second shot of the drowning donkey being enveloped by fish. Those had to be CG, of course.” Pinocchio has been nominated for Italy’s David di Donatello VFX Award and will hopefully translate into a solid box office hit outside of its home territory. PINOCCHIO WAS THEATRICALLY RELEASED IN ITALY ON 19 DECEMBER 2019, BUT IS YET TO HAVE A RELEASE DATE ELSEWHERE
LEFT Federico Ielapi was transformed into Pinocchio using prosthetics, makeup and VFX
Nicolai Brüel throughout the shoot, for creating these hybrid characters. “We have had similar metadata delivered to us with image sequences before, but this was the first time we were fully in control of the workflow from start to finish and were able to properly integrate the technology into our pipeline,” he says. “It all comes down to recreating the exact movement and properties of the camera in the digital world, and having access to all of that information meant that we could quickly solve the camera and recreate it with precision.” Demiris found that the most useful lens data elements were focal length, focal distance, lens model and lens serial number. “The benefit of having all that data is that it never lies. Any other way is prone to error. You can rely on handwritten data sheets taken on set, but people are often tired and make mistakes and, of course, it takes time. Time to write them down, time to dig them up and log them, time to access them and
steps for creating a realistic creature, which involves building it from the ground up; starting with bones and muscle, then adding skin and fur before finally animating it.” He reveals that this was less complicated than working on half-prosthetic, half-digital characters, because with those there is no clear connection point. “You shouldn’t be able to tell where prosthetics end and CG begins. They need to blend into one and move as one. Lombardi, who played the tuna, for example, he wouldn’t move like a fish, he would move like a human. My job was to take his performance and add a moving fish behind him and somehow make the whole thing work as one character,” he explains. LENS DATA Demiris trusted Cooke’s /i Technology lens metadata, which was supplied by DOP
JUNE 2020 | DEF I N I T ION 13
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