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MillimeterFilmic Animation
Sep 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Ellen Wolff
The DPs who helped create the look of WALL•E.
Natural lighting is one of the elements that gives WALL•E its photographed look. To perfect the technique, the Pixar team enlisted the help of cinema¬tographers Roger Deakins and Harris Savides. Photo courtesy Pixar Animation Studios
One of the most iconic movie images of 2008 shows a rusty robot dwarfed by mountains of trash receding into distant haze. The image captures the plight of WALL•E, the trash-compactor star of the latest Pixar/Disney hit. But it illustrates something more: a visual style that's distinctly different from the eight previous films made by Pixar Animation Studios.
Director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) wanted a visual approach that suggested that his little robot was photographed, not just rendered by megacomputers with CG precision. What Pixar ultimately achieved evolved through advice from three very different photographic pros: Roger Deakins, Dennis Muren, and Harris Savides.
Director Andrew Stanton drives a specialized tank chair, made by Brad Soden for his wife, on a mound of dirt reference for a WALL•E tank chair test in the open lot next to Pixar Animation Studios. Photo: Deborah Coleman / Pixar
Focus, focus
A goal that Stanton had for WALL•E was to convey a sense of intimacy between the little trash compactor and the sleek she-robot, Eve, that drops into his world. Since neither machine could speak, capturing their gestures would be crucial. Stanton saw a precedent in director Gus Van Sant's Finding Forrester, for which DP Savides had used shifts in focus to highlight the give-and-take between two key characters.
When WALL•E Producer Jim Morris heard Stanton and the film's Camera DP Jeremy Lasky discussing this idea, he suggested that they ask Savides directly. So Morris, who had built extensive industry contacts during his years heading Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), arranged to take his new Pixar colleagues to a set where Savides was shooting David Fincher's Zodiac.
“I was surprised,” Savides says. “They wanted to take tenets from the way someone would work on a regular movie and apply it to animation. Their project was just in its infancy, and I didn't know it was WALL•E. They had lots of questions about creative choices — like why someone would elect to have a shallow depth of field and what throwing focus does for the audience. Directing the viewer's attention to something specific is an important part of filmmaking, and focus is a great tool.”
That his camerawork for Finding Forrester inspired ideas for WALL•E is something Savides finds intriguing. “My discussion with them was just a catalyst, probably one of many that they had,” he says. “I think it may have given them a different perspective on a ‘buddy movie.’”
