Feature Film Sequence
Wicked: Chistery Transformation
After Elphaba arrives at Emerald City in Wicked, she meets the Wizard of Oz in his Palace and is shown the Grimmerie, a magical spellbook written in a language that no one in Oz can understand. She is also introduced to Chistery, leader of the Wizard's monkey guards. The Wizard tells Elphaba that Chistery has always enjoyed watching birds and at that moment the Grimmerie comes to life, opening for Elphaba revealing symbols and text that no one else has seen before, and she proceeds to read a levitation spell that causes Chistery to go through a painful transformation as he grows huge wings from his back.
For the Grimmerie, ILM built a full replica of the physical prop and developed bespoke paper-like cloth simulations driven by simple animation rigs to create the peeling layers. A completely gold version of the book was also created, which allowed the Compositing team to determine the timing and position of the gold text and symbol reveals. The key here was timing the progression of the spell to appropriately sync with Elphaba’s performance.
ILM also created Chistery, the leader of the Wizard’s monkey guards. Built referencing a variety of different apes and monkey species, with additional key facial features that would allow him to stand out as the leader. He had to feel imposing in his size, but also emotive enough to be able to relate to Elphaba without speaking.
As well as his hair, over 5,100 feathers were groomed and simulated using proprietary tools referencing eagle wings. Special attention was paid to the real world structure of feathers with each rachis and hundreds of thousands of barbs being rendered along curves to achieve a realistic sheen and translucency when lit and rendered. This technical foundation meant that the team could develop the ability to grow both the underlying wing shape, and each individual feather over time to achieve the rate of growth needed for the sequence, while also dialling in the appropriate level of clumping and wetness.
Based on the design of practical costumes of other actors in the movie, Chistery’s armour was intentionally designed with armour panels that separate to allow the space that would need to be taken by wings after they grew from the back, with a fabric undergarment added for them to dramatically rip through. The separate armour panels were simulated with a complex hierarchy of leather connections and metal rings, all accounting for the volume of hair and cloth around and underneath.
It was key to the filmmakers that the transformation felt dramatic and painful for Chistery and the animation team used keyframe animation referencing recordings of their own performances to get the performance just right to achieve the final result.
CREW
Moby Francis, Clemence Bellier, James Lucas, Tristan North, Balazs Meszaros, Sravan Nunna, Gerard van Ommen Kloeke, Elisa Valenzisi, Tara Holstege, Yiyun Liang, Sophie Ienari, Kai Hsin Chin