Hollywood’s most vicious villain this summer isn’t a dastardly Brit in "The Patriot", but the killer surge in "The Perfect Storm" rendered by cutting edge digital technology. In a graphic scene stealing performance it conspires to wreak havoc for the crew of the fishing vessel the 'Andrea Gail'.
"The Perfect Storm" director Wolfgang Petersen enlisted the help of the prolific digital effects team at Industrial Light and Magic, and Stefen Fangmeir who was responsible for the effects in "Twister". Fangmeir consulted ocean experts to see how gigantic waves behaved. No miniatures were used in the film - even the 'Andrea Gail' was recreated digitally when it confronts a climactic 150 foot crest.
However the real challenge for director Wolfgang Petersen was marrying live action sequences in a water tank with digital effects that would be added later. He recalls that the big problem digitally was to combine the real water in the tank with the computer generated seascape in the background. He says, "The connection with where our water stops and their water starts looks seamless."
Before the footage could be programmed into the computers the action had to be staged as authentically as possible in front of a blue screen on the largest Warners Brothers soundstage in California. John C Reilly who plays one of the crew members says they went to elaborate lengths. He recalls, "There was all these wave machines and dunk tanks. They would articulate the movement of the boat, it was pretty realistic."
Not only do the effects upstage the actors in the film, at one point they are deployed to body double for the leading man. As George Clooney’s character tries to detach the boat’s anchor, a computer generated figure is used for some of the stunt. As CG Imagery continues to advance at a rate of knots this digital character substitute could be a hint at the direction this new technology is taking.
Read how the actors prepared for the movie.
Read about the people who were in the real storm the movie is based on.
