If you have the QuickTime plug-in, you can watch how Weta Digital created the incredible kingdom and creatures of Bridge to Terabithia by simply clicking the image.
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Defining imagination was Weta Digital’s challenge on Bridge to Terabithia. Matt Aitken and his team created the kingdom of Terebithia and its incredible creatures. All images © Walden Media LLC Credit: Weta Digital Ltd.
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How do you define what imagination looks like? It’s the definition of subjective, yet that was the core conundrum in bringing Katherine Paterson’s Newbery Medal award-winning children’s book, The Bridge to Terabithia, to the big screen. Obviously it was such a vexing concern that it took 36 years, from when the book was published to the film hitting theaters on Feb. 16, for Hollywood to figure it out. A cherished story for a generation of children growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Terabithia finally got greenlit last year by Disney and they handed the directorial duties to famed 2D animation director/producer Gabor Csupo (Rugrats, The Wild Thornberrys). With his inventive visual style and adept talent for storytelling that appeals to children, Terabithia became the perfect vehicle to transition Csupo from the 2D world to the 3D world. The film tells the story of Jess and Leslie, two kids that discover through the power of imagination they create the magical kingdom of Terabithia, where magical creatures and adventures beyond their wildest dreams await them when the real world becomes too hard.
Shot in New Zealand, Disney knocked on the door of the local visual effects experts at Weta Digital to take on the creation of the kingdom of Terabithia and its incredible creatures. Matt Aitken, visual effects supervisor at Weta Digital, says their relationship with Disney was just developing when the film was being bid out. “We pretty much started this at the same time that we worked on Disney’s new logo that plays before their movies. It was first seen with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, where we drift down over this landscape and end up on the Disney castle. So this is really the first feature film that we have done with them and Walden Media.”
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| Weta’s in-house vfx art director Michael Pangrazio took sketches of the insects by director Gabor Csupo and designer Dima Malenitchev and created Photoshop collages. |
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Known for their amazingly complex visual effects work on such Oscar-winning films as The Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong, Terabithia was a perfect fit for Weta, allowing them to utilize their technological prowess while also integrating their expertise as digital characterization. “There was a huge slate of different creatures that we had to build, creatures and the citizens of Terabithia,” Aitken explains. “That was work that we felt ready and willing to lead them to based on the experiences that we had on Rings and King Kong. Also, creating the environments of Terabithia was work that we had developed technologies for before.”
The film shot in New Zealand in February and March of 2006 and Aitken says Weta was there from pre-production right through final delivery. We were on set for all the scenes that involved visual effects. The two big vfx scenes were pre-visualized. The production organized previs for the big fight in the middle of the film. They used another company for that but we were involved in developing ideas about the content of that scene. We pre-visualized the end sequence ourselves to find the balance between what should be shot on location for the view across the creek into Terabithia. We were working out where the camera should be so it’s looking at the castle when there is no castle in what they were shooting. It proved to be very worthwhile. Meanwhile, we were already building the creatures while they were shooting.”