The Alumni Magazine for Worcester Polytechnic Institute. (WPI)
Issue link: http://wpialumnimag.epubxp.com/i/114745
Making Dr. Manhattan He's big, he's blue—and he's the one that can save the world from nuclear annihilation. Meet Dr. Manhattan, the enigmatic superhero from the graphic novel Watchmen. Transformed by a nuclear laboratory accident, he can soar to 40 feet tall, split up into multiple versions of himself, and rearrange the universe through sheer mental energy. Pete Travers's biggest feat in bringing the melancholy blue man to the screen wasn't pulling off the superpowers—it was endowing a digitally created character with heart-wrenching humanity. To do that, Actor Billy Crudup was outfitted with a specially designed high-resolution motion capture suit, and marked daily with 200 digital reference points for his face alone. "I knew that fidelity was essential for a character that was going to facially emote alongside human actors," says Travers. "We analyzed and digitally mimicked the little tics, the movement of his brow, the way the surface of his face responds to light." The result was 36 Winter 2013 a CG character who feels real, right down to the pores and peach fuzz. Actors are used to playing against "green screen," so that digital effects can be inserted later. But in Watchmen, Crudup acted out all his scenes on camera. "We could have told Billy he wasn't needed on set once his character was replaced with CG," says Travers. "But how can actors have emotional interactions with someone who's not there? It's hard to imagine that you're fighting a dragon when all you have is a tennis ball." Dr. Manhattan lit up the screen— literally—with 2,500 LED bulbs sewn onto his suit. Travers faithfully rendered the way that blue glow reflected off surfaces, including the faces of the other actors. It took more than two years to complete 38 minutes worth of scenes. "But it was all worth it," he says. "It goes back to the lessons of Professor Boyd, on problem solving and analysis. Every little subtle thing that we got in there added so much to the movie." DESPITE THE AURA OF GLAMOUR, TRAVERS DEFINES HIS WORK AS ALMOST PURE ENGINEERING. "PEOPLE MISTAKENLY THINK THAT ENGINEERING IS NOT CREATIVE. I WAS ARTISTIC AS A KID, BUT I ALSO HAD A MATHEMATICAL SIDE, AND THAT'S WHY I WENT TO WPI." street can spot that." The labor of getting it right can be painstaking, but when effects mesh with a good story, the result is worth it. Travers describes a "sweet spot" in his career while working on the 2006 movie Watchmen. About a quarter of the Ƃlm's budget went to special effects, but it's the characters that viewers remember. Pete's laborious attention to a superhero called Dr. Manhattan (see sidebar) was widely lauded by visual effects societies, in addition to interviews by Popular Mechanics, Rotten Tomatoes, and the Wall Street Journal. "Mountains of awesome CG can't save a bad story," Travers says. He points to movies from the 1970s and '80s, such as ET or the early installments of Star Wars, which have held up over time, despite outdated special effects, because they have suspenseful plots, endearing characters, and quality acting. The best movie he's seen in years? A low-budget people story called A Separation, which has no special effects. "Sometimes I go to the movies for homework; sometimes I just go," Travers admits. "The homework stuff was extremely important earlier in my career. Nowadays I just want to go and sit with my wife, have some popcorn, and see a good movie." J