dr. manhattan can't be entirely cgi, can he?

[Fox]

If Silver Surfer could be all CGI why not Doc Manhattan?

 

[Porygon]

If Silver Surfer could be all CGI why not Doc Manhattan?

Because Silver Surfer was not all CGI.

 

[Luchastyle]

neither will the doc be all cgi. he'll be motion capture. and that's how he should be. you give crudup a full on green suit, open face with all the motion capture stuff and then later the only thing you are changing is his glowing skin really. it's still his body, still his face, still his emotions and movements. but he looks different. crudup isn't a ripped glowing blue guy. so he has to be cgi. i don't think a painted guy with an added glow would do the job.

 

[ohmshalone]

i didn't mean we should physically paint him. that would obviously look cheap. i said "digitally enhance", which means have crudup on set and then paint him blue on the computer, give him a glow, etc.

He's not "just a blue human", he's a godly being of pure atomic power. No shadows fall on him; no light highlights his features.

i don't say you're wrong, but is that true? which page of the comic can we read/see that?

(2 minutes later) okay, i've looked through the comic. check out the second issue, page 16. "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." there is a shadow on oz and nite owl but no shadow on doc, but that could have been the umbrellas. also, there is a glow around him SOMETIMES. my apologies, i never noticed that.

i also asked how his shape differs from humans and someone said that he grows tall. that's got nothing to do with his SHAPE, just his size , so on that note, they could still use a human actor for doc's scenes

 

[Rust]

Because his fellow actors would be looking at him in the eye on the set, you'd be moving his face away from every body else's reference point.

Good point. He would have to wear lifts then because he IS supposed to wear a mo-cap suit. But we may be in for a short Manhattan because of Crudup also doing the Jon-backflashes and Crudup is only 5'8". He would have to wear lifts all the time and I really don't think they'll focus on his height.

 

[logansoldcigar]

I dont think thats an issue. I suspect the will eliminate the "blue wang" issue by having an awful lot of waist up shots.

 

[Laderlappen]

Why not make him how they made the Yellow Bastard? And just erase those eyes.

Looks much more realistic than

 

[Porygon]

Why not make him how they made the Yellow Bastard? And just erase those eyes.

Looks much more realistic than

Of course it looks more realistic, becase you're comparing a human being in make-up to a painting

The Silver Surfer in the movie looked much more realistic than that.

 

[Laderlappen]

Satisfied?

 

[sad lieutenant]

Satisfied?

With that fawking poo-orgy of a movie? No. With your point, sure. The effect that they're going for with Manhattan will be pretty easy to pull off... Sure, they can fawk it up, but how hard is it to make a dude glow all blue-like?

 

[Artos]

i didn't mean we should physically paint him. that would obviously look cheap. i said "digitally enhance", which means have crudup on set and then paint him blue on the computer, give him a glow, etc.

I believe that's what the plan is. If you read the set report from the JFK pictures I guess Crudup was there wearing gloves and a bald cap type thing which when put in the computer will turn him blue and glowly and whatever else they decide to do with him.

 

[Johnichi Chiba]

Snyder cited the Davy Jones special effects from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies as one of the reasons that he chose to go with a CG Doc Manhattan. Which I have no problem with.

Also, in the JFK scene that Billy Crudup did some weeks ago, Mr. Crudup was said to have been wearing a "motion sensor cap" and gloves as well as a black suit similar to the one Doc Manhattan wore in the panel. It'll be interesting to see how that combination of real and cgi effects look on-screen. My hope is that it comes off like Hollis Mason said, "It's a strange feeling...the first time you meet him your brain wants to scream..."

 

[logansoldcigar]

I think you have a good point there.

when it comes, there are gonna be individuals complain that he doesnt look like a real blue glowy person, but looks CGI... maybe he should look a wee bit fake and cartoony....

 

[sad lieutenant]

Snyder cited the Davy Jones special effects from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies as one of the reasons that he chose to go with a CG Doc Manhattan. Which I have no problem with.

Also, in the JFK scene that Billy Crudup did some weeks ago, Mr. Crudup was said to have been wearing a "motion sensor cap" and gloves as well as a black suit similar to the one Doc Manhattan wore in the panel. It'll be interesting to see how that combination of real and cgi effects look on-screen. My hope is that it comes off like Hollis Mason said, "It's a strange feeling...the first time you meet him your brain wants to scream..."

Awesome... A CG suit would be taking things a bit far! Where did you hear/read this? "I hadn't read that," Sad Lieutenant notes to himself out loud, as though he were attempting to conceal his paranoia from himself.

 

[Johnichi Chiba]

Awesome... A CG suit would be taking things a bit far! Where did you hear/read this? "I hadn't read that," Sad Lieutenant notes to himself out loud, as though he were attempting to conceal his paranoia from himself.

The guy who runs the www.watchmencomicmovie.com website elaborated on the scoop on the forums over there. You should go check it out; they've got a real cool community with a lot of intelligent Watchmen discussion going on.

 

[matrix_ghost]

Snyder cited the Davy Jones special effects from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies as one of the reasons that he chose to go with a CG Doc Manhattan. Which I have no problem with.

Also, in the JFK scene that Billy Crudup did some weeks ago, Mr. Crudup was said to have been wearing a "motion sensor cap" and gloves as well as a black suit similar to the one Doc Manhattan wore in the panel. It'll be interesting to see how that combination of real and cgi effects look on-screen. My hope is that it comes off like Hollis Mason said, "It's a strange feeling...the first time you meet him your brain wants to scream..."

Really
Wow , here's hoping that Snyder uses ILM for the VFX of Dr Manhatte. ILM has created this whole new system of shooting CG characters . It's called iMoCAP and it's basically combining the traditional way of shooting things with motion capture technology. The actors just wear a motion capture suit and act out all their scenes on set.In post the digital characters are added with mo-cap info as well as visual reference.
I loved the work ILM did with Davey Jones so i hope that ILM does the VFX . But then again Snyder doesn't go for the big guns and usually goes for the smaller VFX studios.Who know he'll use similar technology.

The end result should be a very realistic looking blue human

 

[Sandman138]

As lame as Fantastic Four 2 was, the Silver Surfer effects were very believable and Dr. Manhattan should be easier.

I disagree. The SS looked incredibly stiff and unbelievable. Screamed CGI. Now Davey Jones (whose technique they are apparently emulating) looked absolutely believable. I was shocked to discover he was CGI. If they go that route, I'm all for it, but if they go down the way of the SS I'll be ****ing pissed.

 

[Chaos Bringer]

As lame as Fantastic Four 2 was, the Silver Surfer effects were very believable and Dr. Manhattan should be easier.

i agree with this+1
SS did look verrrrrrry good.

 

[Shifty]

I dont think thats an issue. I suspect the will eliminate the "blue wang" issue by having an awful lot of waist up shots.

Crudup confirms! CGI blue wang is in the film.

Being Jon Osterman
Actor Billy Crudup explains the challenges of playing a physicist turned god in the upcoming Watchmen movie

Billy Crudup does not at all look like the towering, muscular, blue being he plays in the upcoming Watchmen movie. Out of all of the Watchmen characters, his is arguably the hardest role for an actor to pull off.

However, because Crudup’s filmography includes several off-center roles, director Zack Snyder tapped him to play Dr. Osterman — the physicist who, after a lab accident, is transformed into the god-like Dr. Manhattan.

Zack was interested in me because of the parts that I take are strange, and complicated, and exist in a gray area, so, I like those parts - I’ll probably keep doing them - and I’m happy that a part like [Dr. Manhattan] turned up in a movie like this so I can get this experience too.

In fact, as Crudup said during the big Watchmen panel at San Diego’s Comic Con this past Friday, “How do you pretend to be a six foot four, buffed out, master of matter when you’re a five foot nine, forty year old jack ass.”

So, now that shooting is complete, and the finishing touches are being put on the film, does Crudup feel that he succeeded in capturing the essence of the near-omnipotent super hero on screen? Crudup admitted,

Well to be honest, I am not entirely sure that I have yet, so that remains to be seen. I tried to do it in the way that the graphic novel and the screenplay asked me to, which is in a stumbling complicated awkward way.

Crudup had some great challenges to overcome as a performer. Since his character was going to be completely rendered in CGI, he had to wear a white motion capture suit that had dozens of little blue lights on it that would mimic the character's ambient glow. How do you get in character when you look like a Christmas tree?

I constantly referenced a picture that they had fabricated for me to basically keep [the character] in my mind, and I tried to stay away from any reflective surfaces so I didn’t have to see what I actually looked like...I have never gotten to wear a motion capture suit, and never been a lighting instrument for other actors — which is basically what I was which was kinda cool, but it required a more forceful imaginative leap than I’ve ever had to really exhibit.

Not only did Crudup have to overcome not looking like his character on set, but in a film that has been unconventionally “build heavy” with lots of traditional sets, Crudup was one of the few Watchmen actors that had to perform many of his scenes in front of a green-screen.

You know that scene when I’m walking through the rice paddys in Vietnam and I’m blowing up… that’s not what it felt like doing, so to try and carry those images with the level of detail and power that they possess and the vividness of the colors is a really monumental challenge, and I can see my mind was not totally up to the task when I see what Zack was actually capable of doing, because what he was able to do was pretty staggering… You know what you do, is you take it day by day, minute by minute, hour by hour, and for me it was an exotic experience.

And if that wasn’t enough, Crudup was faced with portraying the one Watchmen character who is almost completely detached from human society and almost devoid of compassion. Somehow Crudup needs to make the audience care about his character and get us to identify with him. Dr. Manhattan is not unlike Superman — all powerful, virtually indestructible. But unlike Superman, who wears his heart on his sleeve, Dr. Manhattan is virtually emotionless and struggling to identify with his humanity.

…he is increasingly less and less capable of that as his mind becomes more interested in the inner workings of the universe. And if we all had the capacity, I’m sure, to see the kinds of things that he was seeing with the comprehension and vividness with which he sees them, you might be distracted by it too.

And speaking of distractions, let’s talk about his character’s “you know what” which will appear on screen in its full frontal CGI glory. Did the graphics department embellish that area as much as they did Crudup’s pectoral region?

When you see them you’ll know that it’s just… they took what they had… you know what I’m saying?

7.30.08 Source: WatchmenComicMovie.com

 

[.Rorschach.]

Doc Manhatten is going to be so amazing in this film!

 

[Rust]

Doc Manhatten is going to be so amazing in this film!

Indeed. They're really trying to nail the visuals of the GN. They even had Crudup standing on a box to make him appear taller. I'm exstatic that we're getting a taller-than-5-foot-9 Manhattan.

 

[lujho]

Weird. Billy's height on imdb is listed at 5'8" 1/2. For years and years it was 5' 7". I guess he's got an upgrade?

Anway, that doesn't matter with Manhattan as we all know. I do wish his build in the movie wasn't so body buildery though. Manhattan should be the masculaine ideal, and that kind of muscles upon muscles look is a bit beyond the ideal.

Oh well, he still looks pretty good.

 

[Quinzel]

Idk but from what i've seen in the commercials, He looks amazing.

and i'm not just saying that because he's my second fav character. lol.

 

[StorminNorman]

I miss the "Dr. Manhattan's Glorious Glowing Wang" thread.

Glad to see its included, though

 

[Shifty]

I miss the "Dr. Manhattan's Glorious Glowing Wang" thread.

Glad to see its included, though

I searched for it. Was it deleted or go by a different name?