VFX Supervisor Interview Eric Saindon

Working with Weta Digital since 1999, Eric played a key role in the creation of Gollum for The Lord of the Rings and, over the years, he has won two Oscar nominations, three BAFTA and four awards at the Visual Effects Society. It was this experience and Weta Digital's work in developing new technologies and processes for each of their projects that helped make Alita: Battle Angel a reality.

Rob Keyes of Screen Rant: I've had the chance to see many images in New York and here in New Zealand. And during the presentation, we talked about the design of Alita's character. I think you mentioned that some 5,000 iterations were needed to perfect the design and the level of detail. Can you speak once you have designed the character, the most difficult part of its realization on the screen?

Eric Saindon: I think that once you have a design that works and that fits perfectly into the manga, the biggest challenge from this point is the performance. This is Alita's invitation – to introduce Rosa [Salazar] to Alita. And one of those challenges is that, very early, we had to design what we liked, and it looked good, and then we started to pbad a motion. And it was like, "Oh, that's not translating, it just does not work out the way we want it." She looks good, but she does not have it. Air Rosa, the performance does not translate. So we discovered that once we … we took Rosa's mouth, like Rosa's perfectly, we pbaded it on to Alita. And then we started to realize, "Okay, well, our mouth is working fine now." And then we took her eyes, then we took her eyebrows, then we took her eyelashes, as for eyelashes. We put them on Alita and that did not change the design much, because their eyes did not change in size, they did not change their shape much. But that brought Rosa into the character. And Rosa has never been chosen for the look. She has never been chosen to look like Alita. But because she's so expressive with her face, adding these extra subtleties to Alita's design actually helps us bring Alita to life with this little extra – that little extra that we needed. . At the point where we fell in love with her.

Eric Saindon: Yes, the sequence of motorcycles, is not it? He has all these crazy characters, that many are drawn directly from the manga. And some of them look really cool in the manga. But once you try to move them, they simply do not work. It's always a challenge to take this design and put it into an animation and emotions with which you can actually work, and to get a cool design or poses. So you can feel the same thing, but make it work.

And we went into many details with a lot of our characters. Dimensions of the wheels, move them, allowing them to have a head movement. Because we actually captured all the bikers on stage, on the starting line. And all these places, doing all their movements. Some did things that they could not do. As if Stinger scratched his nose, but his arms were giant blades with chainsaws. So, if we put this scene in it, it tears its face. We can not do things like that. However, the simple extra movement of all these characters on CG characters helps to bring all of them to life.

Eric Saindon: Most people would say that one of the big action scenes. But mine is the scene of eating at the orange. And that's because it was an early scene that we made. We had Rosa on the set and she took a bite of the orange. And she had just that little reaction with Christoph [Waltz]. And a little back and forth. And as she bit the orange, that sort of thing. And his whole body tensed. And when we translated that into Alita, and we had all the details in her face and the wrinkles and folds of her eyes and the movement of her body, even the little "huh" when she did it. That translated to Alita. And we put it on and looked the first time and looked next to Rosa. And it was like, "Wow, it looks like Rosa, but it's not Rosa." And really – I do not know, for some reason, that moment has got me in my head and suddenly returned to me. And that made me think, "Okay, I think we can do that." I watched some scenes with Rosa the other day. The first time, she saw them. And she watched them. And she– I watched it, not the scenes. And his face moved everywhere. And like, "Ah, she did not like that. She did not like that. And that's it. And she gave me a hug. And she's like, "It was me! But not me! I thought, "Oh, thank God, she loved. [LAUGHS] And make sure that an actor has the feeling that he is a CG character. I think it's a feat.

Eric Saindon: Ah. I mean, in Avatar, we learned a ton. Like the amount of detail you need to put in a face to make it real. The subtleties of the movement. When someone blinks, when they widen their eyes, when they do all the subtleties of the emotion itself. Avatar, we learned a lot from that. Or muscular connections. Knowing that when you wring your arm, these muscles move. Or the veins, or tendons of your arm will collapse or change when you change your finger. Or the pores of your face. Or while you get angry, your face becomes redder here. It's just all the subtleties we had to do for Avatar. And on this movie, because it's humanoid, it had to be ten times better.

Because you do well when you have blue skin and it is not really human.

Eric Saindon: We are developing a new technology for each film. So even if we start a new movie tomorrow, we will eventually create new technologies. It's been three years on this film. So the technology we used at the beginning of this film is probably obsolete now. And we would move to a new technology here – in a year. So, because we work with people like Jim Cameron and Robert Rodriguez, who always want to advance technology, we are always striving to get new technologies that will help us be more creative or more flexible.

Eric Saindon: Yes, yes. He always offers new ideas and new ways to advance technology to try something new. And I love it. Because it's never been limited to making a film in a traditional way. Because he's happy to try something new every time. And all this is new to him. This whole process was for him a new process.

Visionary filmmakers like James Cameron (AVATAR) and Robert Rodriguez (SIN CITY), this is ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL, an epic adventure of hope and empowerment. When Alita (Rosa Salazar) wakes up without remembering what she's in a world to come that she does not recognize, she is supported by Ido (Christoph Waltz), a compbadionate doctor who realizes that somewhere in this abandoned cyborg shell lies the heart and soul of a young woman with an extraordinary past. While Alita learns to navigate her new life and the insidious streets of Iron City, Ido tries to protect her from her mysterious story, while her new, stylish friend, Hugo (Keean Johnson) proposes instead to Help him remember his memories. But it's only when the murderous and corrupt forces that run the city, after Alita, that she discovers a clue about her past – she has exceptional fighting abilities that those in power will not shrink from before control. If she can stay out of their reach, she could be the key to saving her friends, family and the world she has become in love with.

Release dates

• Alita Battle Angel (2019) release date: 14 Feb 2019