Post-production research

Richard Briggs

Comm 2660

Post-Production Research

The movie “Alvin and the Chipmunks” that was released in 2008 was completely dependent on compositing in order to bring the chipmunks to life.

One of the challenges the producers talked about in this brief “making of” scene, found at hulu.com, was that they needed to make the chipmunks look real, but at the same time be loyal to the looks of the chipmunks from the cartoons.

Once the look of the chipmunks was chosen, the post-production crew then worked diligently at their computers in order place the chipmunks into a live-action world that was shot previously. “The obstacles are all about creating a reality where reality doesn’t exist.” That was a quote taken from the brief documentary about the film. Jason Lee, the actor who played Dave Seville, had to rehearse with stuffed animals. Lee even joked that he preferred the stuffed animals than when actual shooting took place because in shooting all he had to look at was tape on a stump. He said he and the stuffed animals became close friends.

The majority of the film is the development of his relationship with the chipmunks, but how can you develop a relationship with something that doesn’t exist? Thus the difficulty of “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and any other hybrid movie that combines CGI and live action.

The CG crew changed the look of the chipmunks from the cartoons. In the cartoons the chipmunks look more human than chipmunk, but with the movie, the CG crew wanted the chipmunks to be actual chipmunks. So the CG crew went forward from chipmunk bodies and gave Alvin, Simon and Theodore the personalities and facial features audiences could relate to from the cartoons.

The producers made sure the CG animators got the specific details down pat from the original characters. They wanted Alvin to have strong confidence in his body language. They wanted Theodore to cower when he’s nervous and Simon to squint without his glasses. Those details were important in the development of the characters.

The challenge was to make the audience believe the chipmunks were actually in the room with Dave Seville. The CG animators pulled it off.

REFERENCES

Making a scene: Alvin and the chipmunks. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.hulu.com/watch/13639/making-a-scene-alvin-and-the-chipmunks