In the crowded summertime movie marketplace , a great gubbins can make a pic stand out , provided it ’s done well and fits the tale . As the first hot - activity flick bourgeon indigital 3 - D , " Journey to the Center of the Earth " scores big on both count . This belated adaptation of Jules Verne ’s 1864 novel is an eye - crop up rush ride thanks to the delusion of depth created by the3 - Dprocess .
Under the direction of first - meter featuredirectorEric Brevig , who served asvisual effectssupervisor on such picture show as " Pearl Harbor , " " Men in Black , " and " Total Recall " – for which he won anOscar– " Journey " significantly improves on the erstwhile - style 3 - five hundred experience that want paperglasseswith blue and reddened colored lens . Here , you quite realistically get flyingpiranhasand a T - Rex snapping at – and drooling on – you as the cloak-and-dagger adventure unfolds .
In this re - imagination of the tale first adapted as a Pat Boone feature in 1959 and subsequently in several made - for - TV versions , Brendan Fraser plays Trevor , a seismologist and professor whose scientist brother Max disappear on an expedition years before . When Max ’s chew the fat adolescent son ( Josh Hutcherson ) shows him an annotated transcript of the Verne novel hold directions to an underground portal site in Iceland , uncle and nephew jet off to enquire , with the aid of a local guide ( Anita Briem ) .
The Verne novel serve as a jumping off dot rather than a guide for the screenplay by Michael Weiss , Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin , because as visionary as the tale was in the nineteenth C , " it ’s style out of date for today ’s audience , " Brevig explains . " Half the journey was just getting to Iceland , and they walk for calendar month to the center of theearth . The marvellous part is when they ’re down there . So we kept the disembodied spirit of it but modernized it . "
According to Brevig , who ’d replaced another managing director on the undertaking when it go 3 - viosterol , the story and characters evolve importantly before filming began in Montreal in June 2006 . postal service - production take more than a year due to pervasiveCGelements , around 750 shot break open between four visual effects houses . Those posed their own set of challenges , but with a shot schedule of a mere 48 days , have the complicated movie completed was equally hard . Brevig explains why in the following section , with extra comment from actor Hutcherson and visual effect editor Ed Marsh .
Visual Arts
" The idea was to present the audience with things that they ’ve never seen before . Using modernvisual effectstools andcomputer computer graphic , I can create an surroundings that ’s pretty much seamless , " begins Brevig . " As the adventure progresses , thing get more and more fantastic - a much heightened reality– and that ’s echo in the picture taking , the lighting and the color palette of the movie " he outlines .
That intensity is heighten in3 - vitamin D ; a process that involves filming image with twocamerassimultaneously at a 90 - degree slant using mirror so that the witness , wearing extra Methedrine , see a single three - dimensional prototype .
He gather a team well versed in 3 - 500 anddigital HD filmmakingand tested all uncommitted system before choosing the one pioneered by James Cameron and Vince Mason . " For 90 percent of the movie , we used a ray rail-splitter photographic camera . A beam splitter is a mirror that you may both see through and see reflections off of , " he excuse . " By mounting two cameras , or at least the lenses and the optical sensor from two cameras , onto this rig , you could adjust the lenses so they ’re different distances asunder . For the big conclusion - ups in the movie , I wanted the lens of the eye to be very close together – closer than the two lenses can go . So by using this mirror trucking rig , the lense can appear to be 3/4 of an inch aside . This allow me to get big close - ups that do n’t hurt your eyes when you see the picture . "
Brevig commission a compact version of the tv camera that put on on a crane or aSteadicam , or used as a helping hand - held photographic camera . " To my astonishment , it worked from the first Clarence Day through the ending of photography . We had one hour of down time the entire production , " he note . But the 3 - 500 format nevertheless present other challenge after filming wrapped .
Because of limitations to the space the eye can register 3 - 500 , it ’s difficult to create an illusion of depth for objects more than 100 fundament away . The filmmakers lick this by create deepness references , such as a rope in the climbing sequences , corpuscle and bubble in the water , and the troop of pilot glow birds in the secret cavern that establish size and astuteness of the space . We ’ll give you the 411 on these and " Journey ’s " other CG creations in the next section .
Featured Creatures
" The idea for a glowing bird had add up up in one of the book prior to me coming on , and my theme was get these things swarm , to make it a magical second , " relates Eric Brevig . " There are shaft where it attend like they ’re fly in the movie theater . Everybody reaches out and tries to grab one . "
Computer - generated chronological succession like this were shot against agreen screen , so the worker had to respond to invisible object that would be added subsequently . " For the swarm shots I would just give them a place on the stage ceiling to look at , and for the close - up where the bird casts a radiance onto Josh , we had a guy with a stick and alight incandescent lamp , " says Brevig .
like methodology was utilized for the jumbo albino Tyrannosaurus Rex , carnivorous works and razor - toothed flying fish that threaten the characters . For the latter , the actors " were responding to downcast Nerf footballs , " note Ed Marsh .
Brevig provide artwork and animatics – animated cartoon versions – of all the action mechanism scenes to show the actors how the setting would toy . Nevertheless , 15 - year - old Josh Hutcherson , who had helpful experience working with green sieve on " Bridge to Terabithia " and " Zathura , " found it difficult to react to " a big , terrifying dinosaur when in world it ’s a piddling pinkish dit . But Eric did a really good job of draw it out for us and give us an approximation of what it was go to look like in the end . "
The dinosaur posed unlike problems for the designers . " By choosing to have a bright white albino dinosaur they were making the 3 - vitamin D harder for themselves . They had to play with hide tone and texture to make it credible because it could attend like it ’s not finish up yet , " explicate Marsh . " So they spent a circumstances of prison term adding poop and scarring to make it look more existent . Then there was the boloney issue – how far could we agitate it , " he says of the T - Rex spittle , noting that Brevig did n’t require to go too far over the top , but " the studio apartment wanted a big 3 - 500 bit " – and it got it .
As for the giantVenus flytrapthat terrorize Trevor , approval for the episode was granted at the last minute , " So planning fall by the wayside , " reveals Marsh . " We did n’t have sentence to check the shots . It was literally two camera teams work for 18 hours with Brendan Fraser pantomime the whole thing , with the high-flown hope that we ’d be capable to clean it up in postal service . We spent a very tenacious time enter out how the plant should look and move , and interchange that motion .
To Brevig , the most technically complex sequence was the flock getaway , " becausewateris very complex and challenge to model . There ’s sea and fish and sea serpents , all CG , all interacting with each other and the actors . " And , adds Marsh , " in 3 - viosterol , you ca n’t cheat on . The froth coming off the top of wave had to be render like foam come off the top of waves . It required a much smashed tracking of every element and its position . "
We ’ll hash out other tricky action sequences in the next surgical incision .
Locations and Logistics
A mates of day in Iceland notwithstanding , " Journey " was primarily shoot indoors on soundstages inMontreal , " so we were spar the weather condition upshot , " notes Brevig , who still had to work out how to build 40 sets on four stages , " knowing that we ca n’t film and progress on the same set at the same time . How do you change the inflammation from an orange - lit desert to the blue and greens of the waterfall do without holding up the set builders below ? " The solution ? A pre - set lighting grid on a dimmer panel that could be changed with the push of a release . " It probably saved us two hebdomad ' product sentence . "
Since gravid natural action pose pieces are time - consuming to shoot , even with animatic blueprints as guidelines , Brevig " had two 3 - D rigs so we would shoot two shot at a sentence , giving me more editorial coverage and a faster pace . I made a still figure grab of every shooting and put them up on boards on the set in shooting order . We ’d take them off one by one as we dissipate the sequences , " he details .
His team had only one night to charge an submerged sequence at the Olympic Stadiumpoolin Montreal , so " safe divers getting in the shot " were the least of his worries . But advance provision on the lighting end and not have to recharge thedigital cameraallowed him to finish in seven hours .
Several physically demanding scenes involved set aside role player in midair in harnesses while they delivered dialogue . They were shot against ablue screenfor part of the free - fall to the mall of the earth , except for the parcel where the tv camera is depend up at them . " We put the actors on their side of meat and we ’d dolly past them with the camera on its side , " Brevig explains .
He used a like low - technical school method for the waterfall scene , placing the stars on a 50 - base table covered in black credit card . " We went out in the parking lot at Nox , drive ardor hose up the mesa and dragged the histrion by wire on their feet . We put the television camera on its side so it looks like it ’s vertical . "
Josh Hutcherson enjoyed doing " as much as they ’d let me do " stunt - impudent , includingrock climbingand the successiveness where he shoots into the air on a giant kite . He was dispense with injuries , but Fraser incurred several , admit a burned handwriting from getting too close to an detonate magnesium flare .
" That was day three of shot and we had to shut down for two days . Not that I wish it on him , but it allowed me 36 hours to go to Iceland and scout locations , " notes Brevig , impart that Fraser hurt his back later on . " He was on a fully grown equipage and a got smack in the tailbone . He took the brunt of the injury , but everyone obtain scrapes and bruises from brushing against concrete and cataplasm . "
Such snafu aside , " Journey " come in in well under its $ 70 million budget , consort to Brevig , who ’d happily point a sequel – mention of the lookup for the missed city of Atlantis was included precisely for that understanding , he say . " I ’d do it in a trice , " Hutcherson concurs .
For more information on this movie , 3 - five hundred formats and related to theme , journey over to the next page .
