There are films that just by their very nature require visual effects this is because
it would be impossible to make them otherwise for example Sci-Fi movies monster movies and of course
every single Marvel movie ever made but whereas Marvel films are criticized for overusing VFX
movies like The Pirates of the Caribbean aren't even though they too use the effects in almost
every shot now it probably won't surprise you to learn that a massive Cannon fight between galleons
at Sea wasn't done with real ships on the ocean or that ships rising out of the ocean Jack Sparrow
turning into a skeleton or a man with an octopus for a face weren't actually real but what actually
might surprise you is the level of technical knowledge attention to detail and complexity
that is involved in making us believe that they were for example did you know that the texture
of Davy Jones's tentacles actually came from scanning a dirty styrofoam coffee cup complexity
a scene that perhaps demonstrates best the complexity involved in the VFX of Pirates of
the Caribbean is the ghost shark scene in dead men tell no Tales this scene actually had to be
shot in three different locations one was on an island location shot with a drone and used
for the various backgrounds of the scene another shot was in a small water tank in front of a blue
screen this part was used when the actors or the boat had to directly interact with
the water and the last was on an interior blue screen Sound Stage with the rowboat on a gimbal
different parts of these three shots were then composited along with CG water elements and of
course the digital Ghost Shark models which were made by scanning the Practical puppets used on
set and then doing a digital takeover where they impact with the water which was also CG
technical know-how new software and tools were developed for every Pirates of the Caribbean
film in order to solve different problems in this scene at the World's End digital
domain used their award-winning software fsim to enable artists to composite different layers
of debris that could interact seamlessly with the actors filmed on the blue screen
Sound Stage for this scene on The Stranger Tides in order to apply different rings to
each rope to allow for different types of Animation MPC developed a new technology
they made to animate the nagini character in the Harry Potter films they also developed
a new ik spline solver called Curve sampler node which allowed the Rope to travel along
the path to the spline without stretching and gave animators finer control and confidence
that the action would stay where they were keyed even if the other parts of the Rope were moving
in dead men tell no Tales the thousands of hairs on Salazar's
head needed to collide and interact with each other but they also needed
to be directable MPC developed new tools to allow animators to control the performance of
the hair whilst maintaining the physical simulations that kept it looking natural
thank you
attention to detail as we mentioned earlier the texture of Davy Jones's tentacles was made from
a scan of a styrofoam coffee cup but Davy Jones wasn't the only character to receive so much
attention to detail every pirate in the first film had to be recognizable when they were seen
in their skeletal Form This was done by starting with a generic skull and modifying it for each
actor's face the modeling team then built a model to achieve the desired look for the decomposed
skin view painters then scanned a sample of the skin created by the modeling team and used it to
apply the decaying flesh look on the digital skull each pirate also had to have a distinct level of
decomposition and their own specific texture for example for the pirate pintel they took digital
photos of turkey jerky and used that to add texture to his skull not only did the skeletons
have to resemble the actors but they also had to move like them this was done by shooting a
live action plate of every skeleton scene then shooting a Clean Plate and then using the live
action plates to reference each actor's movements this level of attention to detail was continued in
Dead Man's Chest and at the World's End and not only with Davy Jones but also with the Flying
Dutchman crew each crew member had to have his own distinctive look and even though they had no real
dialogue and only really appeared in action scenes the VFX team still included a history that each
character's look development starting on the basis that the crew lived at the bottom of the sea and
had mutated they began designing the crew members to be covered in mollusks and shells but they soon
realized that in order for them to be realistic they had to at least resemble the actors playing
them so they picked different sea creatures to match each actor's physical attributes
and personality the attention to detail applied to every aspect the drive to improve and strive
for Perfection and the unwillingness to settle for anything less is what made the visual effects and
the parts of the Caribbean films themselves so good they built a franchise that could have had
more than five films but unfortunately won't because I'm dead that's me I won't be in six