Page 84 - 3D World - October 2017

insight
industry
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

to go all-out with
News and views from around the Despite the temptation
CG, physical props,
international CG community costumes and sets still
played an important role

exClusive report

LIMITLESS

IMAGInATIon

Trevor Hogg discovers how multiple studios came together to
bring one director’s vision of a science-fiction world to life in
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

hen Avatar was released, the sub-worlds of Alpha, like Mül where the
W filmmaker Luc Besson (The Pearls live, were created by Weta Digital.
“Early on I put together frame grabs of live-
Fifth Element) realised
that digital technology had action pieces that Luc, Thierry Arbogast
reached a point where the [cinematographer] and Hugues Tissandier
only limit was imagination; the revelation [production designer] had created that
led him on a five-year odyssey to adapt didn’t necessarily have visual effects input,”
Valérian and Laureline by Pierre Christin explains Scott. “I gave the style guide to our
and Jean-Claude Mézières. The seminal main vendors and said, ‘Every image that
science-fiction comic-book series about you create synthetically gets held up against
spatiotemporal agents in the 28th century these.’ We weren’t shy at doing all CG
arrives on the big screen with the release of shots, and mixing live-action and different
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. elements. It was whatever made the visual
“Luc has been thinking about this movie effects soup more interesting.”
since he was a kid,” states Visual Effects “I always worry about actors being in
Supervisor Scott Stokdyk (Spider-Man 2). a sea of blue screens and not being able to
“A lot of my job was getting what was inside understand where they are,” remarks Scott.
of his head onto the screen.” Besson knew “There’s one scene in the movie where
what the frames should look like but there that did happen. It was a dialogue between
was some creative freedom when it came to Valerian [Dane DeHaan] and Laureline
developing the details in them. “When I first [Cara Delevingne] so they were focused on
came onto this movie I was blown away by each other and not looking around saying,
all of the artwork that Luc had already done ‘Look at how amazing this background is.’
with his concept artists. But we ended up We built an incredible amount of practical
relying on the art departments of ILM, Weta sets for scenes where it was important for
Digital and Rodeo FX because every frame the actors to interact with the environment,
was packed with so much concept design.” such as their workspace.”
Many become one Making the unreal, real
ILM was responsible for the Market In the end, some 2,355 visual effects shots
Sequence where a heist takes place; Rodeo made the final cut. “For a crazy sci-fi movie
FX handled the Alpha Space Station; and it’s a testament to the costume designer

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