King Kong VFX Artist Breaks Down The Empire State Building Scene
King Kong visual effects artist Robyn Luckham has broken down what went into creating the movie's climactic Empire State Building Scene. 2005's King Kong was the third reboot of the classic story of the giant gorilla. The film was helmed by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and was his first blockbuster after The Return of the King. King Kong tells the tale of a greedy filmmaker (played by Jack Black) who assembles a crew to make a movie on Skull Island, where they find one of cinema's most famous monsters. While the film was met with mixed -though mostly positive reviews - it did manage to snag three Academy Awards, including one for Best Visual Effects.
Luckham himself is an incredibly accomplished VFX artist. As well as being part of King Kong's Oscar-winning team, moviegoers will have seen his work somewhere in nearly every current major Hollywood franchise, including Star Wars, The Avengers, X-Men, Avatar, and most recently Dune, which has also been nominated for the Best Visual Effects Oscar. King Kong was Luckham's second time working with Jackson, having previously lent his talents to The Lord of the Rings' conclusion, The Return of the King, which won a whopping eleven Academy Awards.
In a recent video from Corridor Crew, the Crew sat down with Luckham to analyze both good and bad CGI from many different Hollywood films. In the video, Luckham broke down what went into creating King Kong's iconic Empire State Building Scene. During the scene, Kong climbs up the side of the New York building while carrying Ann (Naomi Watts) in one hand. Luckham states that one of his goals was to make Kong's climb look "laborious," as he had been injured at that point in the film. If viewers watch closely, they can see that Luckham has animated the scene so that Kong has to pause while his arm tremors from his injuries during the climb. According to Luckham, Kong was a joy to animate, especially because of actor Andy Serkis' motion capture performance. See his full quote below:
"It's hard cause he's injured at this point and he has to feel a little laborious. So I have a little pause at one moment and you see a little elbow shake and he's trying to get his arm up."
"So it's just small bits an pieces to try and add a little bit of substance of what Kong's going through. It's a joy for an animator cause you've got such a great beats here to kind of work with. You have a performance from Andy Serkis as well, then we could go into it further and make it more gorilla."
Luckham has also talked about how Watts' character is placed in the scene on a "card," which means that her performance was shot separately and superimposed on the image. This means she cannot be turned in any way as she is only a flat, two-dimensional image. Once Luckham points this out it is quite noticeable. This is an excellent illustration of how far CGI has come in such a short amount of time. Just under twenty years ago, this was top-tier CGI. However, only a short amount of time later, the scene is already showing its age somewhat.
This is not to say, of course, that the scene contains poor visual effects. It simply shows how fast this art form is evolving. Luckham certainly did excellent work with the tools available to him and has since gone on to work on films that boast even grander and further groundbreaking visuals. Perhaps twenty years from now, moviegoers will even start to notice that a visual spectacle such as Dune is starting to show its age somewhat. By then, Luckham may be working on the next big innovation in CGI, but no matter how it ages, he can always say that he was the artist behind one of the most iconic scenes in King Kong.
Source: Corridor Crew