DRAMA | THE L ION K I NG
preserve that reality for the animals that we created within the computer, we wanted to create that feeling that the camera operator is surprised at what they’re doing. The performance is different than what might have been expected, and that creates a wonderful jolt of excitement and understanding of the character.” According to Deschanel, the trip to Africa both garnered footage that would later help artists create authentic characters, and helped guide camera movement that would mirror the real world, too. “There were times when I was following an animal and it would fool me. I’d make mistakes. Those elements later became part of the structure of how we made the movie.” Favreau says, “Generally, with the higher tech films, they would use motion capture for the performances and then work the cameras with essentially digital tools because that gives you maximum freedom. But we didn’t capture the performances because it’s all animals and is key-framed. We captured the camera movement. We’re putting all of our work into capturing the camera data and showing that the virtual camera is being driven by humans while allowing the naturalism of the performances to come from the artistry of the animators.” The data obtained during the virtual production was utilised by the animation team. Scenes and recordings were exported to editorial as video files, and to visual effects as data files that gave clear direction to the visual effects crews around the world who crafted the film’s photoreal aesthetic. Preserving the invisible hand of the filmmakers throughout maintained the film’s live-action style.
Even though the sensor is the size of a hockey puck, we built it onto a real dolly and a real dolly track
that emulates a Steadicam and something that emulates a handheld by having the proper weighting and balance on this equipment,” he says. Legato says, “In real photography, the cinematographer can tell which cameraman operates a shot while you’re into the nuance of watching dailies. We want to inherit all those happy accidents, all those human idiosyncrasies. How do you infuse emotion and humanity? It comes from the humanity of the people operating the equipment.” Although Deschanel had never shot a film created totally within the computer, his live-action experience was exactly what the project required. “My experience in photography is capturing images of real things happening,” he says. “In a way, my job is to preserve the reality of what normally goes on in front of the camera – to understand what light does and how the camera behaves. “When you’re filming wild animals, obviously you have no idea what they’re going to do,” he continues. “In order to
of filmmaker is sensitive to this. I find my peer group has the same standard where we want it to feel like something that was photographed, so instead of designing a camera move as you would in pre-viz on a computer, we lay dolly track down in the virtual environment. “And so, even though the sensor is the size of a hockey puck, we built it onto a real dolly and a real dolly track,” continues Favreau. “And we have a real dolly grip pushing it that is then interacting with Caleb Deschanel, our cinematographer, who is working real wheels that encode that data and move the camera in virtual space. There are a lot of little idiosyncrasies that occur that you would never have the wherewithal to include in a digital shot. That goes for the crane work, and it also goes for flying shots.” VIRTUAL HELICOPTER Favreau was the designated virtual helicopter operator on the crew. “We also developed new rigs for something
THE LION KING IS ON GENERAL RELEASE WORLDWIDE
32 DEF I N I T ION | SEPTEMBER 20 1 9
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