KIWI SHEEN: Weta artists breathed life into the character of the Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer. Subscribe to Archivestuff Have your say New Zealand's computer graphics experts at Weta Digital have turned their talents to one of the classic superheroes of Marvel Comics the Silver Surfer. In the new Fantastic Four movie, actor Doug Jones a fish-man in Hellboy and the title satyr in the Oscar-winning Pan's Labyrinth provided the motion-capture for the film, the New York Daily News reported.
Special effects producer John Kilkenny said Jones a former contortionist and mime gave a great physical performance which he then took to Peter Jackson's Wellington Weta effects shop. "I knew they could pull this off," said Kilkenny, who rejected having the Silver Surfer as totally reflective because it hid facial features and muscle movement. Weta's experts came up with CGI software that tweaked the Surfer's gleam on a shot-by-shot basis, from glistening for high-energy scenes to toned-down for closer, more intimate shots.
Kilkenny said the computer graphics were like directing the actor without any human physical limitations. "We actually went to a very minute level of muscle manipulation. So 'action-wise' when the Surfer needed to cut a corner, all it took was a slight flex of his calf muscle.
" The Surfer's voice had been dubbed by Matrix star Laurence Fishburne, and many iconic images have been lifted straight out of the Fantastic Four and later Silver Surfer comics. Since his 1966 debut in Fantastic Four comic book No48, the Silver Surfer has been bouncing around the Marvel universe on a cosmic-powered surfboard. The noble and tormented alien who can absorb and manipulate the universe's cosmic energies has his tendency to destroy planets while being held in the thrall of the god-like adversary Galactus and it's up to the Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba) Mr Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd), the Thing (Michael Chiklis) and the Human Torch (Chris Evans) to stop him.
KIWI SHEEN: Weta artists breathed life into the character of the Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer.
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