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...Paul Campion, lead texture painter at WETA Digital, who is working on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Despite being a little nervous (this was only his second try at public speaking) he was very open and gave a wonderful talk which covered all the different types of effects, from digital doubles to Massive stuff. A lot of the clips he showed were on the recent 4-disc DVD set, but some was stuff I had not seen before. His job was specifically 'painting' the textures onto the large CG creatures, such as the Balrog, Cave Troll, Oliphaunts (he gave them a different name), Fell Beasts, and Shelob. He also did quite a bit of work on Gollum. A few questions were asked by the audience at the end, and he was happy to answer most of them. Some, specifically those about films two and three, had to be declined. Here's some of the tid-bits I picked up:
- when the Nazgul enter Bree and break the door down, one of the horses is digital (although he didn't say which one)
- somewhere in the digital matte paintings is a naked lady and a Christmas tree (his own personal touch)
- there was originally a lot of decapitation in TTT, but most has been cut; it's not known whether it will be restored on the DVD
- he has worked on some of the scenes which are being saved for the extended DVD, and says they're awesome; he refers to the extended version as the 'proper version', as there is just so much missing from the theatrical version
- originally, at Helm's Deep, Aragon goes mental on an Uruk and disembowells him completely; it was considered too intense by all, as it looked Viggo just lost it!
- he wasn't happy with some of the compositing in TTT; I asked him about this further, and he mentioned the Warg attack specifically
- when Legolas swings up onto the horse with Gimli, that is a digital double; Paul wasn't happy with this either, although he thought it looked OK
- Gollum's skin texture uses new technology which diffuses light through the flesh, like with real skin
- everyone at WETA wants to do The Hobbit; it's just a matter of time until a director picks it up, although a different company owns the rights, so using the same actors and crew might not be possible
- in Return of the King, we will see a huge battle with Oliphaunts and horses going at it, with many horse deaths
- they are currently working on motion-capturing a horse, as currently they are animated using keyframes
- compared to Fellowship, TTT uses Massive loads more; by comparison to that, ROTK uses it extensively, doing away with painstaking keyframing
- some of the Massive soldiers at Helm's Deep were so close to the 'camera' that they filled the frame, so extensive digital paint and lighting work had to be done to make them look convincing
- the shot of thousands of Uruk-Hai walking through Mordor seen in the first Internet Trailer was simply a test, although New Line loved it enough to show the public
- Shelob will be covered in warts, and kick the Balrog's ass
- most of Gimli's stunt work was done by a woman
- he admits that some stuff was ropey, including the 'people riding on creatures' shots; there are more in TTT, but less in ROTK
I'll try to remember more. Overall he was a really cool guy and stuck around to answer questions. He said he'd like to come back next year to talk about TTT more. I was a bit star-struck talking to him, but he was very welcoming of questions and seemed a genuine fan of LOTR. I mentioned TheOneRing.net, and his face lit up. We talked about the footage of TTT online, including the newest trailer, but he wouldn't divulge info on the Ents, or Gollum.



cool uni you got there, what are you studying ?



I'm at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth. The lecture was actually held at the University right next door. Paul Campion did an MA at the Arts Institute in Fine Art.



Heya, I live in Bournemouth, currently doing media and film at the College. What's the arts institute like then? Wish we had a LOTR guy come and do a talk with us!!!!



Are you at 6th form college? The Arts Institute is pretty good - small, but well run. It depends what course you want. The facilities are generally good, but the course can be a little slow at times. Socially it's not bad, but doesn't have the atmosphere of the Uni next door. Overall it's great if you want to learn, say, how to edit (that's what I'm doing), and not much more. However, if you want to come out with an academic qualification that actually MEANS something, you'll be wasting your time and money. There are few other courses that give you so much training for the industry, but unless you're 100% up for going into a specialism, forget about it!



Interesting post SithLordSi (well for me anyway :dork: )
Makes me want to get into film as I had originally intended after leaving Uni in '97 instead of p1ssing about with web stuff...