It began with really bad drawings.
You know, like just sketching out things, testing ideas.
How's the chest working to the shoulder, how's the shoulder working to the hand.
So it was probably- I don't know how many iterations. It must be in the 50, 60, 70s.
A lot.
DICKSON: And what are the characteristics of Hal Jordan?
Well, I went for aerodynamic because this guy is a pilot.
And I wanted to create a suit which like a plane...
...or anything that moves fast through space...
...has extraordinary design lines...
“detail-perfect design resolution in motion.
And then I combined that with the anatomy of the human body.
From my experience, I was expecting to build a costume...
...and then add over it the visual effects element.
As we began to explore it...
...and the nature of what we're attempting to do with this character...
...it became more and more obvious that we had to go one way or the other.
And the one thing that we're all very determined to do...
...is not make a rubber suit.
We wanted something so fresh for the fans...
...that it really did start to become obvious...
...that we needed to go all the way with the visual effects.
When Hal arrives on Oa, he goes through an induction process.
And part of that induction process is giving him the suit.
And the suit is created by the ring, and the suit really is a suit of energy.
I was understandably skeptical, I think, at first...
...about the idea of a computer-generated costume.
But once you delve into the film's mythology for the character...
...which is that this costume is a manifestation of your will...
...it was the only way to do it...
...and I like the idea that it comes on and off...
...according to the ring bearer's will.
It was the only way to do it.
It was a fresh way to do it as well. Something we hadn't seen before.
MAN: Three, two, one. Go! -Aah!
The reason I like it is because it's more in tune with the lore.
It's not gonna be him in a leather suit.
[LAUGHING]
In order to get the suit right, we had to start testing it as early as possible.
Not only from a technical point of view...
...where we wanted to make sure that we could photograph an actor...
...pretty much, doing what he likes:
Free-forming, running, fighting, jumping...
...all the stuff the Green Lantern had to go through.
MAN: Three, two, one. Action!
And so you can't just put a suit on, you have to wear something else...
...for them to map it onto your body.
They did that using a motion-capture suit which has these dots...
...and you look like a crash test dummy.
The role of tracking for creating the Green Lantern suit...
...played a huge part in getting the initial action and motion of the suit.
We scanned Ryan, so that we got his general body proportions...
...but most importantly, his joint positions.
All his joints and arms and bones to be the same length as Ryan...
...so that the tracking would work.
But we wanted it to be, you know, like this perfect human.
So we took Ngi|a's artwork, we modeled it in 3D...
...and then it was a very long process of back and forth...
...and just, muscle by muscle, sculpting that body.
Whoa.
The muscles of the abdomen, the inner and outer obliques contract and flex.
All of that's tied into the simple process of delivering dialogue.
And if it's not there, it does, in fact, look like a head on a stick.
We spent an inordinate amount of time...
...really finessing those kinds of details in these characters.
But we had to technically make sure that tied onto his neck...
...and when he has the mask on to his face.
It has to be absolutely pixel-perfect. There's no room for error.
You can't have any sliding. It has to be sort of pore-perfect, if you will.
Cool, huh?
And then, within that skin and within the modeling...
...there are what we call the muscle lines...
...and within the muscle lines we then run energy...
...much like, sort of, blood through veins.
Right. Should we just do one on camera, boys?
We're ready.
STRONG: So...
...this is the human.
Yeah, once we'd sort of nailed the Green Lantern's suit...
...the other suits fell in pretty quickly. Actually, we were all surprised.
Sinestro kind of worked out the box.
We had the right green and we had the energy ideas.
We put them all together.
And with Mark Strong's head on top, it was a big transformation...
...for everyone to see him suddenly fully there and looking like Sinestro.
MAN: And now!
SINESTRO: Will is what makes you take action.