精灵鼠小弟 Stuart Little (1999)【完整台词】

I'm John Dykstra.

I was the senior visual effects
supervisor on Stuart Little.

I guess the simplest definition
of my job...

is to oversee all of the illusions
that were created in the film...

in the digital world.

My name is Jerome Chen...

I was the visual effects supervisor
for the film.

And my job was to,
in conjunction with John...

really help bring all these illusions
to life.

One of the things that was most
interesting to me about this movie...

is when I was talked to by Rob
and the people at Columbia...
the challenges that they presented
seemed pretty daunting.

We said immediately
we could do all of that...

because if you said you couldn't
do that, you wouldn't get the job.

But as we worked
on this character...

we found that there
were several things...

that we were going to have to do...

that we didn't know
exactly how to do.

And... We saw actually
five groups of challenges.

The first one would be
of course the fur.

Then we had to worry about cloth...

because Stuart is a walking,
talking mouse who wears clothes.

Then you have the issue
of his performance.

How do you make him convincing
and engaging?

And then there's this whole aspect
of integration.
He needed to feel real.

The Stuart Little
from E.B. White's novel...

was most charming
and most imaginative...

but he existed in the real world.

And that was the kind of standard
that was set here. So he had to exist...

in this reality here.

One of the things that impressed me
was that from the onset...

Rob decided that
they were going to create a world...

that wasn't exactly the real world,
it was a stylized world...

in which the conceit of a talking
mouse would be totally acceptable.

The look of the sets,
the look of the exteriors...

the actors that were chosen,
and even the costumes that they wore...

all were selected
with an eye to keeping...

a defined reality.

One of the things I think is true...

is that when we set about
making this...

we knew that the first time
that the mouse was on-screen...

you had to totally accept him.

If he didn't look real
the first time you saw him...

you were gonna spend
the rest of the movie looking for flaws.

And that's why the focus
on this first shot was so intense.

- And it took a long time to do.
- This did take a long time.

The problem
of doing this first shot is...

it was the beginning
of our production schedule...

and it was during the time
we were trying to find Stuart's look.

So you had to do some
research and development...

at the same time
you had to make this...

This shot appear very convincing.

We got to continue
to work on this shot for quite a while.

One of the things that's true...

is that although he's composed
of several different pieces:

The physique, which is
the physical shape of his body...

there's the fur that covers it,
there's the clothing that goes onto it...

and there's the technique
that was used to animate him.

One of the things that happened was,
as we improved each of those facets...

we'd end up going back
and redoing shots.

So each iteration of the mouse
would include some new facet...

and we had to make sure
he remained consistent.

So the first shots that we did
had to look like the last shots.

100 yards faster
than you can say, "Ready, set, go."

You certainly...

As we got further along
into the production, actually...

we went back
and inserted more close-ups.

We found that after the first few
rough cuts of the movie...

you missed seeing Stuart,
you wanted to be more intimate with him.

So there's a couple shots here...

that, even after the first sequences
were locked...

in terms of their shots...

we would go back in
and actually throw in a close-up.

- Actually, this is one of them.
- Yeah.

One of the things
that's interesting is...

because we used animators
from a variety of backgrounds...

some of whom had animated 3-D
objects, like the Pillsbury Doughboy...

and some who had worked in
traditional two-dimensional animation...

there had to be created an interface
for them, with this Stuart character.

Perfect.

Mr. and Mrs. Little...

- Was is Maya, Jerome?
- Yeah, we used Maya for this.

And we had to create
a custom environment...

that made it easy for an animator
to learn a computer and animate...

and not get caught up
in all the technical stuff.

Because we really wanted
performance.

That was the key
to really making him believable.

The computer actually had
too many options.

The animator would be frustrated
by having to make so many choices...

so it had to be winnowed down and
given as a series of simpler decisions...

with the ability, of course,
to get into it at a more complex level.

The interesting thing
is that the shot that's coming up...

sort of establishes
the quality of the Stuart Little world.

This is New York
as seen through the eyes of the Littles.

And of course,
it's not quite a period place...

but it's not quite
a contemporary place.

This was a great shot. This is...

This is a combination of
matte paintings and live action...

seen in the foreground.

And it's shot at the, what,
Paramount backlot?

That street was Paramount backlot.

This is... The Illusion Arts people
painted these clouds for us.

The world where the Littles live,
the Littles' house...

that's sandwiched between
these skyscrapers.

The skyscrapers are all Illusion,
big matte painting shot here.

Done in 3-D by Syd Dutton's
people at Illusion Arts.

Well, Stuart, here we are...

Everything down here is actually a set.
A Central Park set.

- It was on Stage 15.
- Yeah, at the Culver lot.

Something inside.

Here Stuart comes home.

I think one of the keys
to making Stuart look real...

is that we had to keep all of the things
that would appear in the real world...

with a real mouse in real evidence.

In fact,
we had to amplify some of them.

Reflections in the shiny floor.

The shadows that appear where his feet
come into contact with the surface.

Consistency of the focus. Making sure
that the mouse is the right focus...

for the scene
in which he's appearing.

We can talk about the focus issue.

Little depth of field
and height of field.

Focus was a big issue in this,
because he was so small.

It's hard for a cameraman too...

because they're shooting
with basically nothing there...

and they have to overcome their
instinct to focus on something they see.

What they're really doing is focusing
on is something that's not there.

One of the things
about the performance...

the live actors, of course...

didn't have a real mouse
to look at when they were on set.

What they did was is they used a laser
that was synchronized to the camera.

There was a small red dot
that would appear...

where the mouse
was intended to be...

to give them an eye line,
or something to look at.

And that laser was phased.
It was turned on and off...

so it was in synchronization
with the shutter.

So the actors could see the red light,
but the red light didn't record on film.

So for the most part...

you have the actors
actually looking where Stuart is.

As opposed to what the cats did.

The cameraman had a problem
focusing on things...

where he couldn't see
a specific reference.

We'd put a little wire or something
in the frame for him to focus on.

We'd have to go back digitally
and paint out that reference point.

Tired after school.

Again, it's those very,
very small additions...

that give the character
his final sense of reality.

The mouse originally was designed...

with the potential of having
whites in his eyes and an iris...

so he could look
out of the corner of his eye.

When Rob looked at these designs...

he decided that he didn't like the idea
that there was an eyeball...

or an iris in the eye.

And we ended up with real mouse eyes,
which are just black.

So we used the reflections
of the scene...

as seen in the shiny surface
of the eyeball...

to help give direction
to Stuart's looks.

Sure is roomy.

That he couldn't have whites in the eyes
presented a challenge to the animators...

because then you couldn't have him
look askance at somebody.

He really had to convey where he
was looking with a turn of his head or...

You know, it made animation
much more difficult for them.

It also gives him a much more
charming appearance...

because his body language
is used a lot more.

One of the things about
the character's expressions...

is not only the fact that he can be
charming in the extreme...

it's also that he can convey
subtle emotion.

It's a simple transition from
a look of surprise...

or in this case, a look of welcome...

Excuse me,
not a look of welcome, after all.

Maybe that was in an earlier version.
But the mouse's expressions...

have to change in a subtle fashion
as well as a broad fashion...

in order to give him the kind of range
he needs as a lead actor.

That was... That was a challenge.

These talking-cat shots were done
by Bill Westenhofer's group...

at Rhythm & Hues.

They did a great job.

This really draws home
Snowbell's character...