BB Video: WATCHMEN movie CG tech with Zack Snyder (director), Des Jardin (VFX)
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In today's episode of Boing Boing Video, director Zack Snyder and visual effects supervisor John "DJ" Des Jardin give us a preview of the forthcoming movie "Watchmen" (Wikipedia, IMDB, trailer). On March 6, the hallowed graphic novel deemed "unfilmable" will hit theaters.
Will the long-awaited adaptation of writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons' dark eighties comic soar, or stink? The more intense the fandom around a classic, the more intense the fear that a filmmaker will screw it up, and few titles are as revered as this one. From what we saw during this preview with fans at the Apple store in Santa Monica, I am inclined to be very optimistic.
Both Snyder and Des Jardin spoke with us about the challenges of bringing "Watchmen" from novel to CG-driven feature form. In today's episode we explore that challenge through the making of one character: Dr. Manhattan. The filmmakers contended with interesting creative and technical obstacles, which involved the fact that Manhattan is (a) pretty much nude, and (b) luminous. Actor Billy Crudup plays the stoic, white-eyed protagonist, and they used a sort of LED bodysuit to create the melded "real"/CG persona we see on screen. Blue superhero man-junk was a subject of serious discussion.
Snyder revealed that a 3 hour and ten minute long director's cut of "Watchmen" will come out in July. A DVD will follow in the fall, which he described as the "Crazy Ultimate Freaky Edition" to include extras such as "Tales of the Black Freighter," the death of Hollis Mason, extra scenes with Dr. Manhattan on Mars, and more. MTV News has an item with details.
The event at which this Boing Boing Video episode was taped was a part of Apple's ongoing "Meet The Filmmaker" series hosted at Apple Stores throughout the US. The series is free, and this one was packed with trufans clutching copies of the comic, or wearing "Watchmen" smileyface shirts. It was fun to see fans get a chance to ask questions directly. There will be another event with members of the cast at the Apple Store SoHo on March 5.
Apple also has some cool "Watchmen" content offered through iTunes (trailers, cast video journals, a cool iPhone/iPod touch application available in the App Store, and so on.) And you can search for "Meet the Filmmaker" in the iTunes store for a podcast series which includes the raw audio feed from this event (I think it's about 2 hours long?) as well as podcasts from other "Watchmen" events.
As an aside: Des Jardin was the associate visual effects supervisor on Matrix 2 and 3, with John Gaeta, who has appeared in previous original video episodes on Boing Boing (parts 1, part 2).
Special thanks to all the Boing Boing friends on Twitter who submitted questions for Snyder and Des Jardin. Many of these made it into the episode!
And one more goodie: lots of photos at the Official Watchmen flickr stream.
Update: Wil Wheaton says the movie is "awesome," and here's his review, sans spoilers.
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That music sounds like Philip Glass, which I like. Nice presentation! I really like the movie stuff. Star Trek please.
I just started reading the graphic novel, literally right now. I'm about 30 pages in and I'm drawn.
I think the technical and design that has gone into this film is staggering, beautiful even.
I tend to view adaptations like cover songs. Sometimes they open a whole new and wonderful take on a piece of music, like Hendrix's version of Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower". Sometimes...well...you get "Rodeohead"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyzVXFIbSDM
Excellent job with the questions Xeni.
@noaml i stole all the questions from our Twitter friends. THat's the rolled up paper I'm holding in my hand, printouts of the questions people submitted on Twitter. I haven't had an original idea in like 5 years.
@2
no pun intended, right?
(womp waaaah)
Are John and Xeni related?
I'll be at the premiere on the 2nd, I'll let you all know how it is...
good times!
#1 JEFF: That's because it IS Philip Glass.
Hmmm....like a lot of movie adaptations this one has a rough road to follow because the base material is so deep and so inherently designed for the medium of print. I've read the graphic novel more than a dozen times...and every time I read it I get something new out of it....notice something new in a frame, or have some new insight into a situation or character. It's just really hard to follow that sort of brilliance in a movie adaptation. Hopefully it will be good enough not to let down the fans, while attracting new fans to the graphic novel.
I swing wildly between optimism and pessimism with this film.
Initially, I mentally threw it on the pile with all the absurd or lifeless adaptations of Moore's work created thus far: From Hell, Constantine, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta... All trash.
Then I got hopeful, reading about the detail and dedications going into it's productions. Then I realised it was Zack "300" Snyder, and my heart sank again. Then I saw the trailer, and thought "Hmm, maybe...". Then I changed my mind.
It's been a rollercoaster, I tells ya.
But now, having seen that footage, I'm hovering somewhere over the fence. It has a satisfyingly distinct visual style, and it sounds insanely faithful (whether that's a good thing or not, I dunno).
But the ghosts of Moore Adaptations Past still haunt me.
I guess we'll wait and see.
@13strong, I, too, am avoiding irrational exuberance for the reasons you state. But while I have not seen the film as a whole, the parts I've seen are awfully beautiful.
XENI - surely you managed to wrangle a seat at the premiere?
Or you gonna join us proles in our Pepsi-sticky seats, wrist-deep in free Cheetos? :)
@13strong, I'm going to be in Africa when the film premieres, but I'll join you on Bittorrent from Lagos!
Wil Wheaton of geekdom fame was apparently able to see an advance screener.
Here's a link to the review on his blog:
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/
Would Ms Jardin sully her eyeballs with a dark, shaky CAM after having seen these beautifully detailed clips?
I am now tempted to wait for the long version - or the dvdscr...
But thank you for the very informative piece, and have fun in Africa.
The death of Hollis Mason only makes it into the "Crazy Ultimate Freaky Edition"? I was prepared for the Black Freighter's removal, but, you know...this movie is just not going to be able to satisfy me. The graphic novel is just too literary and postmodern and whatever to adapt in a way that will make me happy.
i Can't wait to see what they do to this Comic book. I remember being overly surprised at how well SIN CITY stayed with the pacing of the original stories; this one should be awesome.
Just what IS bb's business model? I mean, b/c Xeni seems to be asking great (but kinda pat) questions about a BIG movie, and bb's readership is big enuh and young enuh that alot on money stands to be made.
It's maybe been answered before, and maybe in better places, but if the NYtimes has to change how it gets its ad revenue I bloody well expect bb is mulling things over too. I heard like 15 minutes of news/ads for Iron Man 2 on NPR today. To me, commercials blended into content is kinda weird when it's juxtaposed with why torrents of movies are OK.
Just sayin'
@#11 13Strong: Don't necessarily view the director as a bad thing - sure, he made 300, but if you've checked out the source material, it's pretty brainless fare to begin with. And in his favour, he did do a virtually 100% comic-screen adaption there.
*cautiously optimistic about Watchmen*
I love graphic novels. I teach the political ones (that are on the "approved" California reading list) to high school kids, e.g.: 'Persepolis'. The few times that I've taught it now, I always get a really positive response from the students regarding the genre. Strangely, the kids never have heard of 'graphic novel' before my lessons. But that's the sad state of the Cali public ed system. I look forward to this movie coming out.
For the scholarly types, there's a bitchen book I got my mom for X-mas, on the cultural history of comic books in America and the McCarthyism of censorship they faced in the early days by David Hajdu. It's called, "The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America". Excellent read. My mother loved it. She was definitely one of those little kids always 'diming' her artist dad so she could get a comic.
Are American moviegoers really ready to see a glowing blue wiener on screen? Soon we will have the answer!
@teufelsdroch: This is not an ad.
This is editorial content, not an advertisement for the movie "Watchmen." When we air content that is an advertisement, and by advertisement I mean content for which we received money to promote a product, service, person, anything, you will clearly see the content labeled as such. This is an editorial segment in which we speak to the director and VFX supervisor of a movie, about the technology that went into making that movie.
commercials blended into content
Huh? There is no "commercial" in this content. We edited clips from the movie into this piece, as television news producers often do, to show you... um... the movie. Because this is a piece about the movie.
This episode is ad-free.
In other news, GIANT GLOWING BLUE MAN-JUNK.
In other news, GIANT GLOWING BLUE MAN-JUNK.
Sold!
Hey Xeni,
This is actually one film I'll shell out £7.00 to go see one the big screen, though I'll head to my indie cinema rather than the UBERMEGAMULTIMULTIPLEX.
Have an awesome time in Lagos - I hear it's both maddeningly chaotic, wincingly expensive, and fantastically exciting. We have research partners there, but I'm yet to go.
Is this BB related, or something else?
Regardless, have an amazing time.
@13strong I am very fearfull as well that this might come out as "clean" lifeless hollywood action trash like all the others - I really really hope I am wrong and its more dirty (visually and storywise) then it seems.
I almost don't care whether the film is any good - it looks so beautiful. And I can see some people are already starting to do the old 'it won't be as good as the original' thing. Films are films, books are books, and graphic novels are graphic novels. They will always be different because they use different languages - even Alan Moore unfortunately doesn't seem to get this. Everyone will still be able to read Watchmen (I still do regularly!); this is another new and sleek artifact in its own right. The only question (if I can take my eyes of the lush neon cityscapes) is whether it works as a film...
@ FLYING MONKEY:
Obviously they're two different mediums, but you want a film adaptation of a book to at least be as good a film as the book was a book.
And given the previous Moore adaptations, it's fair enough for people to be cautious.
In other news, GIANT GLOWING BLUE MAN-JUNK.
Finally, a "Mystique" counterpart for the straight chicks and gay dudes out there. Thank you, Hollywood!
I'm sorry, I thought I heard you introduce a film called "The Watchman?" Is that also coming out in March? :)
@ars_moriendi, yes, mister pedantic-pants, I did insert a superfluous "the." BLAME IT ON THE BLUE MAN-JUNK.
Eh. It's difficult for me to listen to them talk about how much they revere Alan Moore and how faithful they've been to his work -- only, you know, except for the ending. The cognitive dissonance implied by those statements amazes me, kind of like saying that your adaptation of "Tale of Two Cities" is incredibly faithful to Dickens -- except everyone lives at the end.
(And yes, I've heard the argument that the ending is somehow "unfilmable," but I don't buy that for a heartbeat, particularly when you can somehow manage to get glowing blue junk on screen.)
@30, I'm embarrassed to say that is why I popped into the comments on this thread, to see if anyone caught that.
I guess that's a sign I don't have enough to do today.
The movie Watchmen was made without the consent or participation of the writer of the book, Alan Moore.
Out of respect for Mr. Moore, why not consider waiting at least one week (preferably more) after the theatrical release of Watchmen to watch it, as a small protest to the consistently poor treatment of Mr. Moore by Time Warner and DC Comics? DC comics, it should be noted, has a long and notorious history of poor treatment of cartoonists, going back at least to screwing a couple of teenagers out of the rights to Superman.
I am not arguing that it is wrong to go see the Watchmen movie if you really want to. I am just suggesting you wait a bit to see it, out of RESPECT for the person who wrote it, as his wishes for it are not being honored.
I repeat... this is an issue of RESPECT. It is not a legal issue. It is not an issue of artistic merit, or lack thereof. It is not even an issue of being completely sick of seeing marketing for this movie everywhere, even though I certainly am. It is an issue of respecting the intent of an artist whose works you respect.
Furthermore, a week is a VERY small time to wait if you really want to see this thing. It is an important time to the Time Warner Corporation, however, as how a movie is received in its first week very much effects how successful it is overall.
I've read many objections to Mr. Moore's complaints about the film. Yes, Mr. Moore was doing work for hire... yes, he sold the rights to Watchmen. It was certainly a bad business deal.
Mr. Moore signed a contract where the rights to Watchmen would return to him after the book had been out of print for a designated period of time. At the time Watchmen came out, there was no precedent for a graphic novel NOT going out of print. Watchmen, Dark Knight and Maus changed that. Mr. Moore naively thought at the time he signed the contract that he would get the rights back, and DC Comics was happy to exploit him.
Regardless of whatever mistakes Mr. Moore has made in this instance, his works have greatly enriched my life. Out of respect for him, I don't think it is asking a lot to wait a week or two to see whatever travesty they have made of his book on the screen... or, better yet, you could choose not to see it at all.
The book is still on the shelf, and will always be the best way to experience this masterpiece of comics fiction. Why not do yourself a favor and read it instead of watching the Hollywood aberration?
If you've ever read and enjoyed any of the wonderful works of Alan Moore, please consider affording him this extremely small favor.
Join the Wait a Week to Watch the Watchmen Facebook group here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=128815745124
I can't wait for the scene with the Giant Squid.
...oh wait there isn't one.
@34 Steven Stwalley - I too love Alan Moore's work. But you've got to admit, he's is a right difficult so-and-so and a hard man to please!
I remember reading William Gibson's thoughts on adapting Jonny Mnemonic - he ended up giving in to the sheer silliness of Hollywood and just writing impossible things into the screenplay for a laugh... it's a different world, Hollywood, and I'm thankful we've got a Watchman film that at least has some artistic flair to it. It's more than I was expectin
1) "Watchmen" not "The Watchmen"
2) Chapter IV, which Snyder is discussing in his interview is where I suddenly became a *huge* fan of the novel. That chapter is one of the most moving things ever written.
3) What is with all the "300" hating? Do you people own the novel? Explain to me how Snyder's version is anything but a pristine motion picture version of Miller's original work? I'm a *huge* Miller fan, starting back in the early 80's when he created Elektra in DD. I followed her through The Saga, in Assassin and have Miller-signed copies of the Ronin mini. I personally thought the Snyder adaptation of "300" had the highest fidelity of any comic movie in history. It didn't add anything that wasn't in the novel, didn't make changes and the first time I saw it I was amazed at how many shots were moving versions of exact panels from the Miller/Varley art. You people need to step back and rethink your bitching.
@Steven S:
As you allready ought to know, Alan Moore distances himself from any and all movies that are derived from his work. This is a blanket policy that he adopted after his bad experience with The Leauge, not something related to this movie.
The only people that might get affected in any way from some weird-ass facebook coupe to mess with the opening numbers are Alan Moore's very good friend Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore's possibly biggest fan, Zack Snyder.
Seriously, dude, you throw the word "respect" around a lot, but you haven't even aquainted yourself enough with Alan Moore to properly understand his motivations for distancing himself from Watchmen, before you run off to start a facebook group presuming to do his bidding.
Your "protest" would have been slightly less nonsensical if you had staged it in connection with V for vendetta. Now it is only armchair activism at it's very worst.
@37:
re #3... The parts of 300 with the Queen of Sparta were added, and of course stuck out from the main story, but other than that I agree.
Eeyorex, if Zack Snyder were Alan Moore's biggest fan, he would not be making a movie of Watchmen that Moore didn't approve of.
Dave Gibbons is receiving all of the profits from the movie Alan Moore would have been receiving. Moore has indeed disowned any film adaptations of his work... he plans to give the profits from any adaptations of his work he would have made to his collaborators.
"Seriously, dude," what are your understandings of Moore's motivations for distancing himself from Watchmen? Please elaborate, because you have explained absolutely nothing, and clearly you have inside information.
I fail to see how this is armchair activism when it is encouraging people to take an action in the real world. For some, it seems, missing the opening day of a movie is harder than climbing Mount Everest.
@39 - Valid. I'll concede that.
@40 Steven, He's not the only one. I don't think anyone else here can see the point or purpose of your 'protest' - and I don't think Alan Moore would either. He thinks on a rather different level than this.
I sometimes forget Alan Moore is the only human alive capable of writing a decent story (or was back in the 80s).
Flying Monkey, you should note that Alan Moore apparently cast a magical curse on the movie.
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/watchmen/news/?a=5042
So, that would be the different level he is thinking on.
Me, I'm just suggesting waiting to see it since the guy who wrote it has been treated extremely shabbily by the people making it.
@44 Steven - I know. That's the point. He is not the kind of person who needs this kind of 'help' when he believes in higher powers than yours!
Referenced your article in my latest cartoon entry.
http://bearmancartoons.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/bearman-cartoon-dont-watch-man/
- Bearman