For Tim Burton’s latest live action feature Big Eyes, Zoic Studios VFX Supervisors Mark Stetson and Ralph Maiers led a team of artists to revisit the effervescence of a pop art sensation in the wake of the Golden Gate Bridge. Zoic Studios worked from their Vancouver and Los Angeles studios to craft the visual effects for the film, comprised of 155 VFX shots. Big Eyes, starring Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz and Jason Schwartzman, offers a loving look at the artist Margaret Keane, whose husband Walter Keane created a cultural phenomenon in the 1960s with their mass market approach selling her paintings of stylized, big eyed waifs; paintings which were seen by some as art, by others as kitsch. The Zoic team leveraged their vast expertise in period authenticity to bring vintage San Francisco to life in Vancouver as well as transferring the iconic saucer eyes to live action characters in the film. The film was shot on ARRI Alexa primarily on locations and stages around Vancouver, followed by short shooting schedules in San Francisco and Hawaii to complete principal photography.
Zoic’s Features Visual Effects Creative Director Mark Stetson previously worked with Burton and Production Designer Rick Henrichs, earlier in his career in miniature effects and quickly re-established a creative rapport with the director on this film. Additionally, notable matte artist Syd Dutton led the environments team and not only brought his extensive industry expertise, but also first-person memories of growing up in San Francisco in the 1950s and 1960s, leading to a vivid series of concept sketches for the locations. He artfully blended details from various historical locations to convey the romance of the period to a modern audience, all while maintaining Burton’s carefully composed and signature visual style.
While the environments work was being developed, Tim Burton also asked the Zoic team to handle concept work for Margaret’s hallucinatory vision of people around her with big eyes like her paintings. Using visual effects producer Lauren Weidel as a model, Ralph Maiers and Kenton Rannie developed a series of looks to explore how far they could distort a human face to the proportion of a big-eyed waif, without breaking the barrier of disbelief by making it too grotesque. This work also guided the shot of Margaret seeing her own reflection with eyes evocative of her own paintings.
Following principal photography, the Zoic team worked closely with editor JC Bond to execute Burton’s vision for the visual effects work. Zoic’s high-speed pipeline and integrated facility tools allowed Dutton and Stetson in Los Angeles to collaborate closely with Maiers and the team in Vancouver to transform the approved concepts into finalized shots. As the cut took shape, Zoic also worked on an added sequence for the opening titles that would portray Margaret and Jane’s journey across California’s central coast. Contending with rampant drought conditions, the Zoic team revitalized these shots to deliver the verdant beauty of the land that would set the tone for the beginning of the film.
Late in post production, Zoic was tasked with six additional matte shots, including two establishing shots of Hawaii, a fabricated stylized shot of the 1964 New York Times entrance in Manhattan, a shot of a fictitious French restaurant set in San Francisco’s Powell Street, an established shot of Chinatown and an establishing shot of a San Francisco nightclub. Notes Stetson, “These shots were the biggest and most challenging in the film for us. They were also the most satisfying, because Tim gave us a lot of responsibility for their design and execution. We packed a lot of production value into these shots.”
Throughout post production, the Vancouver team took advantage of their proximity to many of the shoot locations, returning to take additional reference measurements and photographs to ensure the final shots had all the right detail. After finishing was completed, the Zoic team once again took advantage of their advanced pipeline to complete the VFX work to ACES specifications with Open EXR format. This allowed for a clear step forward in image quality that led to great flexibility with files integrated from ARRI, RED, Nikon and Canon.
Concept art for San Francisco nightlife shot
Final shot for San Francisco nightlife
Credits:
Big Eyes
Director: Tim Burton
Producers: Tim Burton, Lynette Howell, Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski
Executive Producer/First Assistant Director: Katterli Frauenfelder
Production Designer: Rick Heinrichs
Cinematographer: Bruno Delbonnel
Editor: JC Bond
Visual Effects: Zoic Studios
Visual Effects Shot Count: 155 shots
Visual Effects Supervisors: Mark Stetson, VES; Ralph Maiers
Visual Effects Art Director and Digital Environments Supervisor: Syd Dutton
Executive Producer: Kristen Leigh Branon
Head of Production: Chris Roff
VFX Producer: Lauren Weidel
VFX Coordinators: Christopher Elke, Ryan Kuba, Andrew Cox
Compositing Supervisor: Kenton Rannie
Lead Compositor: John Fukushima
Compositors: Graeme Baitz, Nolan Conrad, Omar Gudjonsson, Emilia Gustafsson, Brian Hanable, Jared Jones, Patrick Kavanaugh, Gabriel Mandala, Jeremy Price, Frank Riley, Florian Schuck, Jevon Tsen, Dylan Yastremski
Environment Painters: Ashish Dani, Kalene Dunsmoor, Romain Bayle, Jim Hawkins, Fumi Mashimo, Les Quinn, Michael Steward
CG Supervisor: Richard Patterson
CG Artists: Clifford Green, Pedro Mendoza, Robert Smith
Rotoscope Leads: Hanna Kim, Riley Liao
Rotoscope/Paint Artists: Christine Breuninger, Shaozhuo Cui, Belinda Fung, Henric Hedin, Wes Heo, Chris Lucas, Einer Lopez, Eduardo Parra, Page Phillips, Michael Plotnikov, Michael Reilly, Steve Ross, Roderick Scobie, Jonathan Smith, Ying Sun, Yoshi Taniguchi, Taylor Thompson
Camera Department Leads: Ryan Lorie, David Windhorst
Tracking/Layout Artists: Enrique Campos, Alan Christoffersen, Robert Cvengros, Fran Devries, Gerald Feathers, James Hebb, Steve Kazun, Derek Stevenson
Additional Stills Photography: Beck Bochatey
Additional Plate Photography: An Dang
I/O Coordinators: Ryan Brassington, Matthew Drake, Tom Malenica
About Zoic Studios
Zoic Studios is a visual effects company based in Culver City, California, and Vancouver, B.C., which creates computer-generated visual effects for film, television, commercials and video games.
“Visual Evolution” is their mission: to evolve the story, art, and technology of the moving image. Zoic’s accomplished artists and producers understand story, process, technique and relationships. Their team has a proven track record of success in a range of media including episodic, film, commercials and gaming. Masters in the fields of 3D, Compositing, and Production Management, their elite reputation attracts additional talent and encourages a strong work ethic. Zoic’s relationships with its clients are deep and long lasting. The company is known for results-driven excellence in all endeavors.