The role of effects in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button".

by weelsun (student)

Wilson Zhang

Dr. Megan Otton

English 1121

5 April 2012

The Curious Effects on Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) directed by David Fincher, is about an unusual story of a man living his life in reverse. Benjamin’s father abandons him at birth, but he finds refuge from a lovely young lady during the U.S civil war in New Orleans. As days pass Benjamin grows stronger and younger thus aging backwards leading him to experience war, parenthood and love. The sets are outstandingly realistic and detailed, bringing sense of authenticity. With the help of make-up, CGI, and sound effects, Benjamin’s reversed life from old age to babyhood look convincing, like a documentary.

The make up really emphasizes the age of the characters and makes them look natural. During the first two hours of the film Benjamin is old and has the key features of an elderly person. (For instance the wrinkles, saggy skin, pale dried lips, freckles, and loss of hair). Sculptors’ and painters’ achieved the old age look by creating three life-cast silicon sculptures of Brad Pitt (Seymour). By adding life-like skin and hair to the sculptures the maquettes look like people in their 80s, 70s, and late 60s (Seymour). Through scanning, the maquettes turn into 3D images that overlay the actors’ faces during the first 52 minutes of the film (Seymour). Surprisingly, Daisy is the old woman at the beginning of the movie telling the story with her daughter. Daisy’s facial process is almost the same but instead of creating a maquette, the mould of the face is put on (Seymour). After the mould is assembled, it is then put on Cate Blanchett’s (Daisy) face and make up artists’ begins the process of blending combinations of makeup and brushes to make her look old (Seymour). As the movie progresses, small factors, such as smile lines around the lips and the change of colour in the characters hair helped determine the characters age. One instance is when Daisy and Queenie, smiles, there is wrinkles around the lips and the change of colour in their hair when they got older.) The same for Benjamin after the one hour mark he begins to look noticeably younger. He starts losing his wrinkles, pale skin, dried lips, grey hair, and freckles. Noticing these minuscule features really helped the audience recognize that the characters are aging.

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CGI plays a main component in the film and is astonishingly unnoticeable. In the first 52 minutes of the movie Brad Pitt is actually not acting as Benjamin Button (Seymour). Through 3D images from the maquettes, the actors’ faces begin to resemble Brad Pitt’s face as Benjamin from computer editing (Seymour). This allows the director to portray to the audience a smaller and older version of Brad Pitt without him physically being smaller. Unfortunately, the maquettes alone are unable to manipulate human facial movements, like talking, smiling, and blinking (Seymour). By surrounding Brad Pitt with twenty eight cameras and phosphorescent make-up; the directors is able to capture his facial expressions and movements frame by frame (Seymour). The static faces of the maquettes are then given life-like human expressions through image analysis technology from the recordings in the cameras (Seymour). On the other hand, Daisy and Queenie did not need any actors to replace them or editing to capture their facial expressions, but they did need something else. Make-up alone was unable to give them the young and old look so digital editing and visual effects was used. With digital editing and visual effects the editors are able to add and remove wrinkles and shadowing on the actors, making them look younger or older (Seymour). It’s intriguing how adding and removing wrinkles is by digital editing is unnoticeable to us.

Without a doubt, other effects that is unnoticeably well done and that the audience is unable to pick up are the sound effects. Since Benjamin, in the first 52 minutes of the movie is not Brad Pitt; he is put in a room, re-enacting the scenes through a monitor while recording his voice (Seymour). With the help of the cast and computer editing, the voice is then put into sync with Benjamin’s CGI’s making it look like the images is talking (Seymour). A simple effect some audiences might not pick up that contribute to the film’s scenes is the volume level. Increasing and decreasing the level of the volume really makes the audience change their moods accordingly, without even realizing it. For example, when Benjamin is on the ship and is fighting against an enemy ship; the volume and sound effects dramatically increases. This gives the audience a sense of adrenaline and awareness that something life threatening is happening. Lastly, simple sound effects like closing the door, walking, eating, and putting on a jacket might sound silly but does interact with audience without them knowing. Since we do encounter these objects and activities in our everyday lives, when we hear these effects it makes the audience unknowingly comparing the sounds they hear in real life. This makes the film more realistic and convincing.

In analysis with the help of make-up, CGI, and sound effects are pulled off exceptionally well making Benjamin’s life look convincing. Even though the story is bit unusual it gives the audience a feel of authenticity, like a life told story from a documentary. There is something that’s been on my mind though. It’s already strange Benjamin is bold old, but if he was born old why is he the size of an infant?

Work Cited

Seymour, Mike. The Curious Case of Aging Visual Effects. 2009. Web. 3 Jan. 2009.

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/the_curious_case_of_aging_visual_effects/

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Dir. David Fincher.

Perf. Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, and Teraji P. Henson. 2008. DVD