*We spoke to VFX Supervisor Andrew Roberts about working on the thrilling new sci-fi film, “The Creator,” starring John David Washington.
Directed by Gareth Edwards (“Rogue One, “Godzilla”), (“Tenet”), “The Creator” also features Gemma Chan (“Eternals”), Ken Watanabe (“Inception”), Sturgill Simpson (“Dog”), newcomer Madeleine Yuna Voyles and Allison Janney (“I, Tonya”).
Here’s the official synopsis: “Amidst a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, Joshua (Washington), a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife (Chan), is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war… and mankind itself. Joshua and his team of elite operatives journey across enemy lines, into the dark heart of AI-occupied territory… only to discover the world-ending weapon he’s been instructed to destroy is an AI in the form of a young child.”
Check out the trailer above.
“The Creator” arrived in theaters on September 29 and Emmy winner Andrew Roberts explained to us how his overall visual effects strategy enhances this war between humans and AI.
“So I was the onset visual effects supervisor for ILM on this project. And so that started during pre-production, working with our head of department, Jay Cooper and Gareth Edwards and our production designer, James Klein. So there were lots of involved conversations, looking at storyboards, going through some sort of basic animatics, and there was just a lot of prep,” Roberts shared.
“There was a lot of conversations looking at the in-depth action sequences that we knew would require a lot of visual effects. So that was sort of instrumental really in success onset, knowing, okay, we’re going to need to take these measurements, we’re going to need to execute shots in a certain way, so that with that prep, with that thought process and being ready to go on set,” he continued.
“The second part is that Gareth Edwards has a background as a visual effects artist. That’s what he was doing for many years before he transitioned to full-time into directing. And so that gave us a shorthand. Gareth understands the importance of visual effects. He knows when a lot of energy needs to go into a shot versus when you can get away with maybe some simple elements,” Roberts added. “And so each morning we would look at the shot list, we would look at the storyboards. We would discuss what was essential for me in order to capture the information needed, and when I could sort of get out of the way and just really let Gareth focus on those interactions with the characters.”
Roberts further explained, “Typically, on film sets where there’s a large amount of visual effects, you start to see things like large blue screens and green screens, and they can sort of be quite a team that has assembled to capture all of that. Gareth made it clear that he wanted to keep things nimble, stay light, and really focused. And so we kept green screens to a minimum. When you are thinking about some of the characters that become simulants, that is this advanced level of robots, or even characters who are robots within the movie, we really sort of took a very minimalist approach to it.”
Watch our full conversation with Roberts via the clip below about some of the unique challenges he faced in creating the visual effects for a film that explores the clash between human characters and robots.
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READ MORE: John David Washington Stars in Sci-fi Thriller ‘The Creator’ About AI Takeover | PicsVIDEO
