Just when we thought it was safe to watch computer-generated animation about toys and green ogres, now there’s a whole new way of looking at CGI technology-“hyperReal” human characters. That’s right. Computer-generated people that look just as real as any Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts.
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, based on the popular video game series, is the first computer-generated feature that uses real people and real backgrounds to take the audience on a sci-fi action-adventure that looks like a live-action film.
But it’s not.
The film is set in the year 2065, and Earth is under siege by a race of marauding alien beings that roam the planet, destroying everything in their paths. The human survivors have banded together in barrier cities, but time is running out. One brave and resilient survivor, the beautiful Dr. Aki Ross (voiced by Ming-Na) becomes Earth’s last hope for defeating the invaders. She and her mentor, Dr. Sid (voiced by Donald Sutherland) team up with the rebel Deep Eyes military squadron, led by Capt. Gray Edwards (voiced by Alec Baldwin). However, another faction of the military, headed by General Hein (voiced by James Woods), has other plans to eradicate the aliens, and the rest of Earth in the process.
According to Christopher Lee, the film’s producer, the characters are so real that Dr. Aki Ross was voted one of the 50 sexiest people in Maxim magazine. But actors won’t have to worry about their jobs just yet. Vocal inflections cannot be truly simulated from a computer-a computer can’t really act. So the voices of talented actors such as Sutherland, Baldwin and Woods, are still needed-for now, anyway.
After having the privilege of watching a 25-minute preview of the film, Hollywood.com spoke with Lee recently and asked him a few questions about the making of such a groundbreaking film. Lee, previously the President of Motion Picture Production for Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures, is the founder of Chris Lee Productions, Inc. Final Fantasy marks his first feature as an independent producer.
How did you become involved in the project?
When I was president of Columbia Pictures, [director Hironobu] Sakaguchi [the mastermind behind the popular video game series] brought me the 12-page treatment on bringing Final Fantasy to life. Ironically, at the time, I was trying to buy Tomb Raider, which I would have probably made into a live action film as well. The promise of [making this film] was about Sakaguchi being this amazing visual genius, working in digital media to tell stories. And the opportunity to make the first animated movie with real-looking people and backgrounds, emulating a live-action film rather than just an animated film.
In the field of computer-animated films, how is Final Fantasy different from say, the current smash animated phenomenon Shrek?
[DreamWorks animators] worked more in a Toy Story mode [with Shrek], with talking animals and talking creatures that don’t really exist. Our goal was to make [the animation] as real as possible. I think [those films] are generally how people have been looking at [computer] animation and what’s been possible…. We wanted to make the characters real. We had to come up with real gestures and real facial expressions, in addition to the issues of skin textures, the liquid of the eyes, the blowing of the hair.
How did Sakaguchi go about creating this film?
He put together the right team, bringing together 200 people from 22 different countries, and based the studio in Hawaii. Hawaii worked as the best location, because he brought in a lot of people from Japan and the U.S., and he knew that neither group wanted to live in either country for four years. So we had a group of very talented people.
There was chief animator Andy Jones, who was responsible for special effects in the movie Titanic and Godzilla, and we had animators that worked on The Matrix, Toy Story and A Bug’s Life. We had gaming people as well. It was really a merging of cultures and the result is a movie that has its storytelling and visual roots in Japanese animation but has a more western global approach. To me, Final Fantasy is like if you took a James Cameron movie and married it to Akira [a Japanese animated classic]. Audiences have been wondering when animation was going to take this leap. Kids are going to really appreciate it.
It was unbelievable to watch.
There is a certain ‘wow’ factor involved because [the audiences] have never seen anything like this. But after they get into it for about 10-15 minutes, they forget they are watching animation and go along with the characters to see where they are going. [Final Fantasy] allows us to tell what I call a ‘big canvas story’ of a grand epic adventure.
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How did you come up with some of the visuals? For example, the alien creatures?
Those came straight out of Sakaguchi’s mind. There are about 10 different ones in the movie, and a lot of the Japanese crew designed them. Most of the human characters were designed by the Americans and the creatures and vehicles came from the Japanese group.
Final Fantasy reminded me a little of the 1997 film Starship Troopers.
That was one of my movies too [at Columbia]. Actually, there was an aspect of Final Fantasy that we wanted to use in Troopers, but couldn’t. In the book [Starship Troopers] there was armor called “power suits.” We tried to incorporate that in Troopers, and many fans of the book wanted those power suits. But production-wise, we couldn’t do it. Real actors can’t wear that stuff. They’d expire after one take. However, in Fantasy, we used the big armor on the characters. So as a producer who worries about how we are going to bring the story to the screen, have people jump out of planes, do martial arts, you can’t always do that live-action. But in computer animation, you can. That was an example of an unexpected benefit of working in this medium.
And working with the actors? How is it different, with the fact that the voice recordings were done after the characters were created in the computer, unlike traditional drawn characters that tend to take on the characteristics of the actors as the animators go?
When we first recorded with the actors two years ago, they read the script and gave really good performances. And they’ve all come back in the last few months to do re-records and have been really excited by what they’ve seen. Jimmy [Woods, who voices the character General Hein], Donald [Sutherland, who voices the character Dr. Sid] and Ming [Na, who voices the heroine Dr. Aki Ross]–they all said the same thing–‘thanks for making me look so handsome. Even Steve Buscemi was happy [who voices the character of Neil, a member of the military squadron]. The look of the characters were done before the voices were cast.
It was very important for the animators to watch the videotaped recordings afterwards, to see when the eyebrows go up, etc. But the characters were already drawn, with the computer executing various equations. I really don’t understand all of it, to be honest with you. I’m just happy to be a part of it. I’ve worked on so many different kinds of movies but never anything like this. It’s the first animation feature I’ve ever worked on and my first movie as a producer.
How is it different working as an independent as opposed to running a major studio?
Eventually, everyone wants to be a producer. You become an executive and build up enough credibility in Hollywood that someone backs you as a producer. And that’s sort of what’s happened here. So, it’s a lot more fun, a lot more hands on. I mean, before, I didn’t have to tour the country promoting the film, I had the producers do that.
Do you plan on making another Final Fantasy film?
I’m not sure what Sakaguchi wants to do next, but I think you’ll be seeing [Square Pictures] emerging by not just making films with Sakaguchi, but with other directors as well. For example, [director] Ang Lee announced he wants to make a film on the Incredible Hulk as a digital character. We are really at the turning point in cinematic history where you are going to see more and more [digital/animated] movies deal with fantasy things. However, I really can’t imagine this technology working with romantic comedies. I mean what would be the point? I would rather see Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.
How do you see animation in the future?
One thing I do think will happen with animation in the future, it’s going to continue to have depth and dimensionality. For instance, I really liked Tarzan, because it had the “Deep Canvas” process [of creating 3D painted environments]. Gaming has changed the aesthetics for kids. They want to be able to enter the screen and have that sense of a 3D environment. I think you are going to see more and more people working in the digital media.
And unlike in the past, where you have a Pixar movie and, say, a DreamWorks movie, and they are kind of the same, such as A Bug’s Life and Antz, I think you are going to see more people doing what we are doing and not competing on that same field of battle. Saying, you guys go do those movies, because we don’t know how to do those movies. But we are going to go try and do a movie in our own style, just like a Martin Scorsese or James Cameron would go do one movie and Woody Allen or Cameron Crowe would make a totally different kind of movie.
Obviously in the list of summer films, Tomb Raider stands as a competitor…
In the sense that they are both video games, sure. I think Angelina Jolie is a great choice to play the lead [Lara Croft]. I have no idea what the story is but I think it’s more of a traditional adaptation. It looks like a female Indiana Jones, to me. And that seems to make sense.
But we’ve heard so much about Tomb Raider. What’s the marketing idea behind Final Fantasy?
As a producer, I have [Final Fantasy] in mind to be under the radar. We wanted to get the word out when we had something to show. Because we really couldn’t explain it. I could talk about the movie all I want but until you see it on the big screen, you really don’t have a sense of what’s been accomplished. So now that we have something to show, that’s why we are on the road, saying ‘Hey, look at us’ Besides, Tomb Raider is out a month before us. I look at our competition as A.I., which comes out a week before us and Jurassic Park III, which comes out the week behind us. Plus Planet of the Apes coming out later in the month [of July]. I want to go see all these movies, like any other moviegoer.
The summer is certainly gearing up to be huge.
It’s a big summer for animation and a big summer for concepts, though there are not many stars this summer. There’s no Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson. It’s a starless summer, but nonetheless cool. It’s all about the visuals.
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within opens everywhere July 11.
