The VFX of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
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The VFX of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Report by: Leonard Teo, 11 July 2003It’s been a while since anyone has attempted to create a swashbuckling pirate movie, and if someone was going to do it properly, you’d expect Disney to rise up to the challenge. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, is a tribute to the famous Disney theme park attraction. Disney approached Jerry Bruckheimer, the renowned filmmaker from other blockbusters such as Armageddon and Pearl Harbor, to produce the film, which was directed by Gore Verbinski. Visual Effects was handled by Industrial Light and Magic, with industry veteran John Knoll at the helm of the project.
Pirates of the Caribbean is about a roguish, yet charming Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) whose idyllic pirate life capsizes after his nemesis Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) steals his ship, the Black Pearl. Barbossa attacks the town of Port Royal and kidnaps the Governor’s daughter, Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley). Elizabeth’s childhood friend Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) rocks up and joins forces with Jack to rescue her, but their crew are pursued by Elizabeth’s betrothed Commodore Norrington (Jack Davenport). Unknown to everyone is that a cursed treasure has doomed Barbossa and his crew to live forever as the undead, with the moonlight transforming them into living skeletons (complete with decomposing flesh).
“We have an added ingredient in this film,” says Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of the film. “And that’s the supernatural aspect of the story. It lends itself to incredible visual effects, so we went to ILM because they’ve done a great job for us in the past.”
“The effect of the pirates turning into living skeletons in the moonlight adds to the level of excitement on screen,” says Gore Verbinski, director of Pirates of the Caribbean. “It allowed us to have even more fun with the genre and the characters.”
Above: Industrial Light + Magic Visual Effects Supervisor for Pirates of the Caribbean John Knoll (shown with Temura Morrison during principal photography for Star Wars: Episode II). Photo by Paul Tiller. 
Unreal VFX
For ILM, the visual effects for Pirates of the Caribbean fell into three categories: the matte paintings, the ships at sea (since there weren’t complete ships for the Black Pearl and the Dauntless), and the skeletal pirates.A large portion of the digital effects for Pirates of the Caribbean involved the pirates turning into living skeletons in the moonlight, and the full CGI undead pirates. John Knoll’s team at ILM were entrusted with the job of bringing these undead to life (no pun intended). Under an intensive deadline, Knoll and Animation Supervisor Hal Hickel started with sketches and an animatronic sample. Knoll, Bruckheimer, Verbinski and Bruce Hendricks spent countless hours discussing just how to go about illustrating the pirates to find the perfect balance between being alive yet decomposing.
Digital effects are used not only when the actors are seen transforming into skeletons, but also when each character becomes a completely animated skeleton. As the filmmakers did not want to use animatronics or stop motion photography, full CGI skeletons had to be built and animated.
“John Knoll and his team came up with some unique images that really impressed us,” says Bruckheimer. “The time constraints ILM had to work under were unspeakable. It’s amazing the detail and care that’s been taken.”
Creating the skeletal pirates was the most exciting aspect of the job for Knoll. “It's such a bold image. You only see them as skeletons in the moonlight, so it's always very spooky circumstances to begin with. These are cool shots.”
The process of designing the skeleton pirate characters began with taking photographs of the actors in wardrobe and makeup. “Then VFX Art Director Aaron McBride spent time painting a version of each of them in skeletal form,” says Knoll. “We went through a couple of revisions until we got approval from Gore on what these characters should look like.”
From there, 3D scans for each of the characters were taken. “So for each of the actors we've got a full body scan and we have a more detailed head scan,” continues Knoll. “We built one very detailed skeleton that has all the right bones in it. Since everyone’s skeleton is a little bit different from everyone else’s, the first step is to take the skeleton and kind of fit it properly inside the particular person’s envelope, or 3-D scan. There's a lot of scaling and smushing to get it to fit.”
A few layers of skin are then built. Designers scanned turkey jerky to replicate the dried and desiccated meat look of the skin of the skeleton pirates. The skin is then painted with different textures and transparencies for a complex look. As all the characters have hair, clothing and props, the digital wardrobe dynamics had to be simulated so that all the clothing folds properly, interacting with props such as sashes, muskets, swords and necklaces.
Grizzly transition. In the moonlight, Captain Barbossa and his crew of undead pirates turn into skeletons. The above sequence of stills showing the digital transition produced by Industrial Light and Magic.<< Previous Page (1 of 3) 
A lot of work went into designing the individual characters so that they are recognizable in both live action and as skeletons. “Some of them have particular bits of wardrobe or particular facial features that we try to carry through,” says Knoll. “Ragetti’s got a wooden eye and he’s skinny with bags under his eyes. Pintel has got long hair and he’s bald on top, so he’s got a lot of exposed skull up top. Koehler’s got these really interesting dreadlocks; when he moves they sway all around. Twigg has got a beard, and he has this knit cap with a big hole exposing skull through it. Jacoby has got this very long beard—kind of in the form of dreadlocks—and he's got fuses woven into his beard. When he is fighting they are lit, so they are smoking.”“When you see the characters as skeletons, you’ll know immediately which pirate is which,” says Verbinski. “Even when they’re 100 percent computer generated and their clothing is in shreds, you’ll know. Not just from the actor’s voice, but from every nuance, which is why we shot entire scenes only as reference.”
The most challenging visual effects for the filmmakers was illustrating the fight sequences. Verbinski and director of photography Dariusz Wolski were forced to rely on a combination of skill and guesswork to pull this sequence off during principal photography.
“It wasn’t only difficult for us, it was equally demanding for our stuntmen, our stunt coordinator, and ultimately for our cameramen,” says Verbinski. “They had to do a lot of handheld composition during the swordplay. First we’d photograph the British Navy and the pirates fighting. Then we’d do another reference pass with just the Navy, followed by another with just the pirates. The guys are essentially fighting air, which looks pretty silly by itself.
“We’d be photographing air,” the director continues, “and then pan over to a skeleton that wasn’t there, saying his line of dialogue, and panning back to another skeleton. We had a lot of technical discussions about how to pull focus to a fictional point of reference while still keeping the excitement of a combat scene. We really didn’t want to get into motion control and that sort of static, sterile composition.” [CGN]
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Leonard Teo is the Editor of CGNetworks. Email him here.
All images are ©2003 Walt Disney Pictures.
Visual Effects for ILM also included the ships at sea, since there weren't complete ships for the Black Pearl and the Dauntless.
Orlando Bloom plays Will Turner, who aids Captain Jack Sparrow in the daring rescue of Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley).<< Previous Page (2 of 3 pages)