By Iain Blair

Went to an early screening of The Day the Earth Stood Still, a contemporary reinvention of the 1951 science fiction classic, starring Keanu Reeves as the alien called Klaatu who travels across the universe to warn of an impending global crisis, and Jennifer Connelly as a renowned scientist who befriends him. Saw it in IMAX at the AMC in Century City—the only way to see a film like this where the visual effects are true co-stars (the script is the weakest link). They shot it in Vancouver, with the great David Tattersall, BSC ( Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith, The Green Mile, Die Another Day), giving it a very sleek, sinister look.

VFX include a lot of CGI. Director Scott Derrickson and visual effects supervisor Jeff Okun used a lot of VFX houses around the world to pull it all together, including Oscar-winning effects house Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand, which handled all elements relating to the huge robot Gort and his mechanism for destruction, the spheres and Klaatu’s “alien” form, with significant contributions to other facets of the film’s imagery made by Cinesite, Flash Filmworks and CosFX. Special effects makeup designer Todd Masters and his team created the seven-foot-tall prosthetic alien suit comprised of gray “flesh” that is surgically removed in the story to reveal Klaatu’s human body inside. If you can, see this in IMAX.

Share This

This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.