WETA's Joe Letteri Talks About Visual Effects For Zack Snyder's MAN OF STEEL
The visual effects supervisor Joe Letteri, who worked on such films as Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Lord of the Rings, has revealed that he is also working on Zack Snyder's Superman reboot. Hit the jump to see what he had to say...
Avatar, The Lord of the Rings (The Two Towers and The Return of the King), King Kong, X-Men: The Last Stand are just a couple of big movies Weta Digital's visual effects supervisor Joe Letteri has worked on. Recently, he worked closely with Rupert Wyatt on Rise of the Planet of the Apes, where he and the whole team brought Caesar to life via Andy Serkis' incredible motion capture performance. Now, talking to The Playlist, Letteri revealed that he is working on Zack Snyder's Superman reboot Man of Steel. He said that Snyder is very much focusing on practical effects rather than going full digital, which is something different than what he usually does with his CGI-heavy movies:
"Zack’s going for pretty much everything in-camera as much as he can. I mean, the reason to think about Superman in CGI, you don’t need him full CGI as a character, because he’s basically a full person. But you just don’t want the flying scenes to look like he’s on a wire. So [the question is] how do you use CG to make that happen, and that’s still kind of being played with right now."
On the flying scenes and how there is still a lot to be done with practical effects, he said:
"I think it could still be refined. Because there’s always room for interpretation there. The idea of a human flying, because you can’t actually tell how they’re powering themselves, leaves it open to trying different things."
Even though he didn't reveal anything about the flying sequences, The Playlist added:
"While Letteri didn’t reveal exactly how they were depicting Superman’s flying sequences, he said that they were primarily focusing on what was in the script and what Snyder wanted rather than referring to the decades upon decades of comic book images they could potentially draw upon as a reference point."
About doing these kind of scenes, Letteri also said:
"That’s completely story-driven. That’s going to depend on your shot and your composition, and the performance, and in that case, that’s kind of Zack’s call – what is he looking for there?"
This is the first time we are hearing that Letteri is connected to Man of Steel, so is this a confirmation that WETA is one of the companies that will work on visual effects? To see what he had to say about Avatar 2 and updating technology for that, click HERE.
Starring Henry Cavill, Michael Shannon, Amy Adams, Russell Crowe, Laurence Fishburne, Kevin Costner and Ayelet Zorer, Man of Steel is set to hit theatres on June 14, 2013.