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3.1.23 Technical aspects and special effects.
** What computer effects were used?
"Peter Jackson is vitally interested in being at the forefront of technology.
While not being, as he says, especially computer literate, he has sought out and bought
(with others) the latest hardware and software so that he can use the most up-to- date
computer-generated special effects. At WingNut Productions in Wellington, Jackson has
installed the only complete system in the Southern Hemisphere for going (at maximum
quality) from film to video, and back to film, having manipulated the video image on the
computer. The film is transferred to video at a staggeringly slow three minutes per frame
(that's 12 hours for a ten-second shot!) on an Oxberry Cinescan 6300. The frame is
uniformly lit by a mass of fibre optics. The video image is sent to a Silicon Graphics
computer running Renderman, Soft Image and Matador software. Here, George Port, who works
with Jackson, does what manipulation is required- -be it matting in a different fragment
of image, correcting a flaw (a television aerial in a period image), or morphing from a
rock to a statue. Once finished, the video image is projected onto a cathode- ray tube and
filmed (by a MGI Solitaire with an Oxberry movie back) at the much faster rate of three
seconds a frame. Having gone so precisely from film and back again, it has little to no
video 'look', except in some areas of retouching. That in itself is not necessarily a
defect for the slight artificiality can be used to noticeable effect (as in the very
obviously painted lighthouse in "The Age of Innocence") or inconspicuously, as
when fantastic edge blend imperceptibly with the fantasy of the film itself (as appears
the case in "Heavenly Creatures")." Cinema Papers, April 1994, 97/8, pp.
20-30.
** What effect was used in the second bathtub
scene?
To heighten the accelerating sense of 'otherworldliness,' the second bathtub scene
was shot under blue lighting with additional ultraviolet lighting, (UV light) commonly
referred to as 'black lighting.' There is also a link with death--under blue lights, the
girls look cold and dead, especially their dark lips (probably heightened by having
red-toned lipstick, which would just appear black). Was there another reason for using
blue light? Maybe modesty--blue light is scattered much more strongly by colloidal (milky)
solutions than is green or red light, so the girls' soapy bath water was much more opaque
under blue light.
** Were the tracks of Juliet's tears fake?
Juliet had the tracks of her tears visible on her face in the second bathtub scene.
It almost looked like there were dark streaks and glowing regions. Is that fake? Or a
special effect? No. There are small peptides in tears whose function is to kill bacteria;
many of these molecules absorb UV light and can be fluorescent to different degrees under
ultraviolet light. Many molecules present in skin, hair, nails and, especially, teeth
fluoresce quite brightly under UV light. And there are fluorescent molecules added to many
soaps. Hence, it's easy to see the tracks of tears under extreme blue/ultraviolet light,
even long after the tears have dried. So, we surmise, Ms. Winslet really had been crying
in that scene and quite a lot by the looks of things. Glycerine tears don't absorb UV
light, and they aren't fluorescent.
** Juliet's aria.
Jackson: "We were shooting in a house [Ilam] that was part of the real story
in the 1950s, but in the meantime its large open balcony had been glassed in. There was no
way the owner was going to let us rip the balcony out, so we shot a separate balcony that
we built in a studio and matted the two together on the computer." Cinema Papers,
April 1994, 97/8, pp. 20-30.
