Digital technology frames new moving pictures

You settle into your seat with a bucket of popcorn and a soda, and in minutes you’re transported to the year 10,000 B.C. You’re standing beside a young Spartan warrior as he faces off against a fearsome wolf, so close you can see the saliva dripping off of its fangs. You’re cringing while massive tentacles hundreds of feet long rise from the deep and smash a pirate ship to pieces.

What makes it possible? Digital technology.

By Chris Ulicne,

Senior Staff Writer

You settle into your seat with a bucket of popcorn and a soda, and in minutes you’re transported to the year 10,000 B.C. You’re standing beside a young Spartan warrior as he faces off against a fearsome wolf, so close you can see the saliva dripping off of its fangs. You’re cringing while massive tentacles hundreds of feet long rise from the deep and smash a pirate ship to pieces.

What makes it possible? Digital technology.

Modern cinema is as much a product of computers as it is a product of directors’ minds. They are limited only by their imaginations. People, places, visual effects-it can all be produced with digital cameras and some talented geeks.

But it’s harder than it sounds.

According to an article in Popular Mechanics, the teams that did most of the visual effects for the recent epic 10,000 B.C. took two years to develop and polish all the computer graphics used in the movie. Particularly challenging, said team supervisor Alex Wuttke, were the photo-realistic animals, especially the saber-toothed tiger. The team had to use special computer software, “hundreds of hours of HD video of living animals,” and “thousands of photos” to make it all happen.

What made 10,000 B.C. even more intimidating as a computer graphics project was the fact that many of the creatures in the film have been extinct for thousands of years.

Wuttke’s team had to create full 3D models using veterinary books that detailed the modern tiger’s anatomy and then rig them with “virtual bones” that tell the models’ skin how to react when the creatures move.

Visual effects teams face unique challenges like this all the time while working on computer graphics for fantasy or horror movies.

Double Negative Visual Effects, the company responsible for the work Wuttke’s team did for 10,000 B.C., has also done similar effects work for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Cloverfield, Batman Begins, Atonement, and a slew of other films.

In fact, the term “film” is becoming outdated in Hollywood as more and more movies are produced entirely with digital cameras that eliminate the need for film at all. It’s a change for the better – at least, as far as visual effects are concerned – because the process of adding computer-generated graphics to film causes a loss of picture quality.

Digital cinema technology continues to improve every year, and thanks to the endless possibilities of computer graphics, movies are able to take us to new times and places in a way never before possible. Modern cinema has practically transformed into a new medium.

The next time you plop down in your local theater, who knows where you might end up?