Digital characters take a bow

Fascinated by the digitally created character and the spellbinding special effects in the recently released film ‘Ran Kevita’, I made my way to an old-style house in Panadura to talk to the wizard behind these magical works of art.

Though just 22, Thilanka Perera has 12 years of study, research and experimentation in this field behind him and many insights on how computer generated digital imagery will shape Sri Lanka’s film.

Asked why Computer-Generated Imagery had never been seen before in Sri Lankan films, Thilanka says it was due to the limited technical facilities, the shortage of trained personnel and the reluctance of the film industry to allot large sums of money and time to enhance films with high quality digital effects. “For some of this work you need a network of computers known as ‘render farms’. In a Hollywood set-up, a render farm consists of a cluster of some 500 or more computers,” he said.

With so many institutions regularly advertising courses in computer graphics and animation, how is it that there is a shortage of trained people in the field? Thilanka feels it is because of the misconception that people have that by merely learning the software a student could become an accomplished digital effects artiste. Though most of these institutions boast that in 64 hours they would teach four major graphic and animation software, in reality this is impossible.

“It took us about ten years of research, commitment and hard work to get to where we are now,” he said.

When entrusted with the challenge of creating the CG character and special effects for Ran Kevita he felt confident that with the combined experience and dedication of his team which includes Siddhartha Nayananda and 19-year-old Anali de Silva, he could do it in record time.

“We had to sculpt the character to be an exact replica of the reference tool incorporating even the wrinkles and skin blemishes,” Thilanka said referring to the digital character in Ran Kevita. “Anali did the character modelling while Siddhartha painted the entire skin on the model without references to colour or skin detail,” Thilanka said.

He then created the special skin shader to give the skin a realistic appearance, To avoid a plastic-like appearance he had to take into account how light reflected off the skin, how it scattered or spread below the surface and how it penetrated the soft areas such as ears, nose etc.

Creating a computer-generated character for close-up work was rarely attempted even in Hollywood where an electronically controlled puppet made of silicon was used.

“For this reason we advised Ran Kevita director Udayakantha Warnasooriya not to frame anything other than mid close-ups. But as the film progressed and our confidence grew, many close-up shots were indeed included and the images we saw on Savoy Cinema’s 40-foot screen were more than satisfactory,” he says.

Animation, Thilanka said, was of two kinds. One was where physical movements like running, dancing etc were depicted. In Hollywood this type of animation was done using motion capture technology with an actor first performing the required action and the movements then being digitized and incorporated into the digital character. “Since we did not have the necessary facilities, each movement had to be animated manually. The other was where the digital character had to act and display emotions like a living being. This involves intricate and subtle adjustments where even a minute overdose could result in a cartoonish-like performance,” he explained.

“In Hollywood when the animation is complete it is analyzed on a large screen to check how it appears on a cinema screen, but the first time we saw our creation was when the film was screened. To our great relief, only two or three shots out of some 160 digital effects required some slight refinement. This was an achievement because of the limited time, facilities and manpower available to us,” he said.

Thilanka said image enhancements using digital effects would be possible in the future at a reasonable cost. “Many think special effects are for science fiction and fantasy. But even the highly acclaimed film ‘Citizen Kane’ had many special effects done in camera to enable Orson Wells and his cameraman Gregg Tolland to create the stunning visuals including deep focus shots for which this film is known,” Thilanka said.

Digital technology is changing the face of film production and projection techniques, he says. Digital cine cameras are now replacing traditional film cameras with many well-known directors such as George Lucas and David Lynch making use of these special features. Digital Projection is fast making inroads into filmmaking around the globe with even India taking to screening films digitally.

“We have been closely following these innovative changes in the worldwide film industry. My father and mentor Maheel Perera on his own initiative developed and built a digital film recorder with the capacity to transfer digital imagery into 35 mm motion picture format thus reducing the cost of filmmaking. This film recorder was used in filming Ran Kevita,” said Thilanka.

He is only regretful that the response from the film industry, National Film Corporation and the media has been lukewarm, at best. “Despite these hurdles and obstacles, we hope to introduce the first digital cine camera to Sri Lanka’s film industry this year,’ Thilanka said.