Q&A with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Visual Effects Supervisor Ben Snow

Australian native Ben Snow of Industrial Light and Magic has been responsible for some of the most iconic cinematic visual effects of recent times. His first job was creating the CGI Enterprise for Star Trek: Generations, and he later went on to work on films including Twister, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, The Mummy, and Galaxy Quest. He has been nominated for Academy Awards for his work on Pearl Harbor, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Iron Man, andIron Man 2. For his latest project, he took to the high seas for the latest Jack Sparrow adventure Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Among his challenges were bringing mermaids to life and melding CGI effects into a real-world environment.

Q. When producing the mermaids-scenes, what where your inspirations for their movement and the general "look" of the mermaids?
Snow: We wanted to avoid the classic 'woman in a mono-fin' that has been seen in past mermaid films so we studied a variety of marine mammals and fish for the motion of the mermaids. We also had synchronized swimmers and professional athletes that we filmed on set to help guide the animation. As for the look, we were trying to create something different than what you've seen before but keep it rooted in reality. We used reference of sea life, human skin, etc. and also bought some fish at the fish market and photographed the heck out of them. In the end, the mermaids had a scaly body with a membrane of sheer, almost jelly-fish like, tendrils.

Q. How much influence did filming in 3D have on your workflow, and which problems / possibilities did you have with that?
Snow: We were excited by the prospect of 3D. ILM's 3D pipeline was fairly solid after our work on Disney's Star Tours 3D and Avatar, and we did some initial work to make sure the 3D set-up for visual effects was rock solid. Creatively we played with the concept of adding more depth for the underwater scenes. We also made sure we were viewing our work in the largest theater at ILM because with 3D the size of the image is important when reviewing work - we always want to see it as an audience would.

Q. If you compare your work on Pirates of the Caribbean to Iron Man, and before that to The Mummy (for example), what are the most notable differences in your workflow and in the tools you use?

Snow: Pirates had more organic creatures rather than the metallic hard surfaces of Iron Man , so it had some of the challenges of The Mummy . However today's tools have advanced a long way since I worked on that film. We were still experimenting with facial motion capture on that film and since then it has become a useful and reliable technique. Our abilities to capture the motions of performers on real sets or locations is far more advanced now than what we had for The Mummy . We were able to leverage improvements we had made to those techniques for Iron Man and other films and push them even further to get a seamless blend between the actresses' bodies and the mermaid tails.

Q. If you compare Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides to the other parts of the franchise, where do you think are the main visual differences?
Snow: We were conscious of fitting into the world of the Pirates films and to live up to the quality of the effects that had been established in previous entries. However, Rob Marshall brought his own visual sense to the series. He wanted to be sure that the most fantastical elements also were rooted in reality, and brought a grittiness to the film. He also emphasized the story and characters in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and the visuals, though still high quality, are in more of a supporting role this time 'round - it's more about the adventure and the story.

Q. What's the most fun part of your job?
Snow: The best part of my job is coming up with what something is going to look and move like, and then how on earth we're going to execute it. And the mermaids represented a tremendous opportunity in that way. I've been a fan of mermaids for years and particularly liked the fact these were predatory rather than the friendly mermaids. The biggest challenge was maintaining their beauty while making them scary. Working with Rob Marshall, Charlie Gibson and the team to come up with the look was a lot of fun, and the enthusiasm of Astrid Berges-Frisby, who came to ILM and let us photograph and scan her and have her do motion tests to help us make a better mermaid, was infectious. Working out how to best capture the performances on set and apply them to our CG mermaid was very cool because it involved using all our latest motion tracking tools and some new ones we invented as well.

Q. Ben, you have a wonderful career in working with a good number of popular blockbusters but what are your favorite films that you have worked on in your career?
Snow: I loved working on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Even with the challenges of finding the right look for the mermaids. I also had a lot of fun on Galaxy Quest, which is a film I still enjoy watching. The Iron Man films were also a blast because we got to collaborate with Jon Favreau and Marvel in coming up with the filmic persona of a new hero and helped launch a franchise. And my work on Star Wars Episode 2 was both a great opportunity in terms of career and also gave me a lot of freedom to come up with new ways of doing effects because of the sheer amount of the work and the collaborative relationship George Lucas fostered.

Q. Where did you get the ideas for the look of the mermaids from?
Snow: The look of the mermaids followed a lengthy discussion process with Rob Marshall and a lot of concept art exploration. In talking to Rob he showed us some previous design work that had been done as well as some classic paintings of mermaids, underwater fashion photography and even a couple of mermaid pinups. He told Aaron McBride, our VFX art director, and myself what he liked and didn't like about this material. One image he liked had a woman in a sheer fabric tail that you could still see the outline of her legs through. He also talked a lot about the beauty of Astrid Berges-Frisby and how some of the previous concepts had been too creature-like. At the same time we had been looking at different types of marine life, and trying to tie the mermaid into the marine life feel of previous Pirates characters we wanted to integrate, and also discussed how she might actually transform. So we came up with a slightly scaly body covered with a sheer membrane. The idea was that when she was wet the membrane was transparent and you could see flashes of scales, but as she dried it became more like human skin. It was a fun process to invent the science behind these characters.

Q. Do you involve the actors in your work and if so, how?
Snow: Yes, we depend upon the collaboration of the actors in our work. One of the sequences we worked on had Jack Sparrow playing with a droplet of water and I had to draw dots on Johnny Depp's fingers with a sharpie. He was very helpful and tolerant. Johnny and several of the other actors went through an elaborate photographic and scanning process so we could make digital versions of them if needed. For the mermaids, it was even more elaborate but they were great about it. We'd put them in these psychedelic bathing suits we had designed to make tracking them easier and blending the tails with their bodies, and painted dots all over their faces. Astrid Berges-Frisbey (the key mermaid) was a little concerned when we had to paint dots on her face for a key emotional scene (she was originally going to transform at the end of it) but I promised her they'd be painted out and no one would know. Thank goodness for our talented roto and paint crew who were able to paint out every single dot, and in 3D no less.

Q. When you look at all the films you have made, has post production and Visual effects changed its role in film making in general? Has the perception of "those FX-guys" changed to a more creative part in the production, or does it slowly develop into something that is "sourced out and forgotten"?
Snow: We're still a creative part of production and in some ways have more respect afforded to us in recent years since the visual effects are such a big part of the process now. Of course our credits are still way down in the end of the film and I'm hoping that will change. It's certainly never outsourced and forgotten because on a project like Pirates the visual effects are such a key part of the film.

Q. Besides the mermaids, you also were involved in the shrinking ships in bottles. What could you explain to us about this?

Snow: This was a fun sequence that was done by our Singapore ILM studio under my supervision. We shot some ships in bottle props on set and then replaced the ships in the closer shots with a full environment with the Black Pearl, stormy CG water, lightning and so on. In one shot we used a real monkey and in others it was a digital monkey.

Q. Did Disney give you any guidelines as to how scary or dark you could go with the mermaids?
Snow: Yes, they actually encouraged us to really explore the scary side. In the end, Rob Marshall decided to reign back a little on the more creaturesque aspects and go for something which preserved more of the beauty of the original actresses. And I think this was the right decision - they still seem plenty scary enough.

This is an excerpt of the Q&A with Ben Snow. To read the entire Q&A, visit The Movie Pool by clicking here .