Bridging the Gap Between Fantasy and Reality on Stuart Little 2
By Bob Fisher

This article originally appeared in ICG Magazine
in July 2002.

There is an ample menu of summer films where computer animated characters interact with human beings. Some of these films are designed to emulate comic books or computer games projected on cinema screens. Stuart Little 2 is noticeably different. It is meant to bridge the gap between fantasy and reality with a filmatic texture that mingles flesh and blood and computer animated characters in real world environments.

“Within one to two minutes of seeing Stuart Little for the first time, the audience forgets he’s an animated character,” says cinematographer Steve Poster, ASC. “That was our goal, and I believe it contributes to making the film a magical experience.”

Rob Minkoff, who also directed the original film, which was a box-office hit several summers ago, directs the sequel. It is based on the popular book written by E.B. White, and it features the original cast, Geena Davis (Mrs. Little), Hugh Laurie (Mr. Little), Jonathan Lipnicki, (George Little), a mouse named Stuart (voice over by Michael J. Fox) and various other animated characters. Nathan Lane provides the voice for the family cat Snowbell, Melanie Griffith speaks for Margalo, James Woods for Falcon, and Steve Zahn for Monty.

The story is set in contemporary times in Manhattan, where the upscale Little family lives near Central Park. Two years have passed, and they now have an infant daughter.

The vision for Stuart Little 2 began with Minkoff who launched his career as an animator on such films as The Little Mermaid and The Great Mouse Detective. He debuted as a director on animated features with The Lion King in 1994. The original Stuart Little was his first turn at the helm on a live action film.

“Rob has a meticulous eye and was wonderful to work with,” says Poster. “He created a world for us that was a perfect setting and motivated the actors to respond.”

In contrast, Poster has compiled an eclectic body of work, including an array of horror flicks with titles like Blood Beach during the dawn of his career; such notable dramas as Testament, The Boy Who Could Fly, Someone to Watch Over Me, The Color of Justice, The Cemetery Club and Donnie Darko; memorable comedies, eg. Big Top Pee Wee and Life Stinks; and several sci-fi movies, eg. Roswell and Rocket Man.

He has shot literally hundreds of commercials. This was his first narrative film where computer animated characters interact with real actors.

Poster emphasizes that the look and seamless integration of digital characters are the result of a collaborative effort with Minkoff, the actors, the visual effects team at Sony Imageworks, supervised by Jerome Chen, the animators led by Tony Bancroft, costume designer Mona May, and production designer Bill Brzeski.

“The original Stuart Little was produced on stages at Sony Studios in diffused and subdued light and colors,” Poster says. “I had a mandate from Rob to create a different look. I decided for various reasons to make Stuart’s world a sunny one now that the family has grown and everything was going well for Stuart. This look was augmented by wonderful production design by Bill Brzeski and a very beautiful palette for our costumes designed by Mona May.

“We also were able to use much more camera movement in this movie. The camera didn’t need to be locked down because the visual effects and animation software has advanced, and Rob wanted more movement and more of a feeling of reality and breadth. It’s a different visual grammar.”

The sequel includes scenes filmed at expansive practical locations in Manhattan, including Fifth Avenue and Central Park, and also at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

Poster estimates that some 65 to 70 percent of the scenes include composited live action and CG characters. He notes that this put a lot of burden on the actors, who had to react to characters who weren’t there. The team used puppets of Stuart and other CG characters to help the actors envision scenes and establish eyelines during rehearsals. Actors read lines for the CG characters from off-stage, and Poster used a beam projected by a laser light synced to the camera while filming scenes. “The laser light from Cinema Electronics shows them where to look. It automatically turns off when the shutter is open so that it wouldn’t be photographed” he explains.

Poster lauds the experience of Sony Imageworks and their decision to scan all of the effects plates at 4K of resolution. “They knew that this quality was needed to retain some head room in the digital files when working with complex animation creating fur and feathers for our featured animated characters,” he says.

“So much of the movie was already scanned into digital that I encouraged the producers and Columbia to scan the negative for the rest of the production material rather than just the visual effects scenes. The decision to scan and record at 4K resolution was important, because it enabled us to retain nuances in shades of contrast and colors on the negative right through postproduction and release printing. It’s a vital component of the look which supports the emotional tone set by Rob (Minkoff) and the actors.”

Poster explored a lot of new territory during the making of Stuart Little 2. “I had the advantage of tools that didn't exist a short while ago,” he says.

He was the first cinematographer to shoot an entire feature with the new Kodak Vision Expression 5284 film, a 500-speed emulsion balanced for exposure in 3200K tungsten light. Poster recalls that he heard a rumor that Kodak was developing a high-speed negative designed to record images with a reduced range of contrast. He arranged to test 1,200 feet, including actors in front of blue and green screens.

“There was an overall vibrancy that is the right look for this story,” he says. “I liked the way it rendered colors, including the yellows and reds in our wardrobe, and it was great with skin tones. It also recorded images with less contrast than other 500-speed films, and that was a factor because we had big scenes in bright sunlight.

“Jerome (Chen) also liked the smooth way it separated characters from blue and green background screens when it was scanned. He determined that the grain was acceptable for composite shots,” he adds. “That contributed to making composites more believable. We also needed a fast film, because I was pulling deep stops (T-5.6 on sets and T-5.6 to T-8 outside) to create a realistic feeling of depth of field for the exterior scenes shot on stage. We also needed lots of depth for the background plates for close-ups of the animated characters.”

Poster says that the moment of truth for him came two to three months after he completed photography and saw composite shots of Stuart and the actors projected on a big screen for the first time. Poster says it brought tears to his eyes. “It was an emotional experience seeing Stuart come alive,” he says.

Poster was also among the first cinematographers to use the new 50K SoftSuns and also a 100K from Lightning Strikes. The SoftSuns were rigged on a track that was on the periphery of three sides (270 degrees) of the Fifth Avenue set on stage at the Culver Studios. Poster and his gaffer, Elan Yaari, and key grip Peter Chrimes, came up with a way of putting two of the SoftSuns on a yoke that also went up and down as well as sliding around the set. The other two were floating on opposite sides of the track. This tactic gave them the ability to quickly mimic sunlight from any position. He made painterly use of the SoftSuns for directional sunlight, and also to create interactive bounce off the ground and building sets. The set up facilitated quick lighting changes.

Poster was involved in every stage of postproduction, including digital timing of the master for release printing at Sony Imageworks with the new 5D Colossus system color corrector.

“It is very similar to working with a colorist in a telecine suite timing a commercial or a television program,” he explains, “only the language we used is more like the language we use with timers at film labs. Colossus enables you to reach into the negative and retain or enhance every nuance. This movie is so stylistically specific that I knew there would be certain things I could do with those controls with techniques normally used in telecine, such as working with power windows and secondary colors.”

Poster explains that he tried to keep exteriors backlit, but elements of some scenes were sometimes filmed on one day, and finished on another day when the color, angles and other qualities of light were different. Elements of various scenes in Central Park were filmed weeks apart, when the color of foliage had become noticeably greener. Poster says that the ability to touch those details up digitally was a big advantage.

“Stuart Little 2 is a movie for children and adults alike, with characters that don't exist in reality,” he observes. “It's kind of a fantasy that has a unique visual grammar, including beautiful sets and actors who deserve to be properly lit. Bill Brzeski and Mona May gave me a wonderful color palette that cried out for glamorous lighting with a hint of fantasy. We had a stunningly beautiful star (Davis) who deserves to be treated in a very glamorous way. During pre-production, I developed a plan for lighting every character in each scene. I made careful notes and shared them with Jerome (Chen) who was usually on the set.”

Poster, Minkoff and Chen discussed options for resolving problems, including lighting scenes that included tall adults, an infant, small children and two to four-inch high digital characters. Poster initially anticipated that the latter would be his biggest challenge. Even though they weren’t in his shots, Chen was going to have to match the lighting on the sets. Poster and Minkoff found the solution in staging and composition.

“We designed shots to accommodate the differences in sizes between the characters,” he explains. “Stuart is rarely standing on the ground. We placed the digital characters on a plane where there were believable eyelines with the actors.”

Stuart Little 2 was produced in Academy aperture format (1.85:1 aspect ratio). In retrospect, Poster says that if he had known they would be digitally timing and recording a 4K master he would have tried to convince the producers and Minkoff to film Stuart Little 2 in Super 185 using more of the available negative space for the same aspect ratio.

“Because we were working digitally we wouldn’t have to resort to an optical reduction of the format for release printing,” he explains.

Poster and his longtime friend and assistant, Norman Parker worked with a Panaflex Millennium XL body, usually with Primo Close Focus lenses and also Primo 4:1 and 11:1 Primo zooms. He tended to use the primes for most of the shooting. The team included veteran operator Michael Scott and Second Camera and Steadicam operator Greg Smith with his assistant Paul Plannette.

Every shot with CG characters was pre-visualized, and a video editor on the set matched them to videotape displays of the live-action film.

“My relationship with the digital effects team was constantly evolving,” he says. “We learned to communicate and trust each other more and more. On a film like this, it is essential to develop a high level of trust without putting up barriers. Jerome (Chen) was usually standing next to me at the camera. I’d point to the monitor, explain what I was doing and what we needed his team to do to keep that look during compositing.”

The company used an ARRI LocPro 35 projector for viewing dailies in New York. Poster believes it is important to see film dailies, especially on a project like Stuart Little 2, where so much depends on nuances that aren’t evident on a video monitor. Minkoff and Chen frequently joined him for dailies on location.

“Geena also came to dailies,” Poster says. “When she saw her makeup and hair tests, and I described how we were going to light her, it created an aura of trust between us. On the set I would often say, ‘Geena I need you to hold your head this way,’ or I would use light to create softness around her. We also used a lot of raw muslin on the set to give her skin tone a broad glow, and we found camera angles that worked best for all of the actors.”

Sometimes, Poster had the camera on a Steadicam with a Superpost so operator Greg Smith could get it down to about two and a half inches above the floor. Other times, he had the same rig mounted on a dolly and followed the actors down long corridors and other places.

“We also used the Century Precision Periscope, a great tool for getting low,” he says. “You can tip the camera straight down so the edge of the lens can actually touch the floor. It’s an interesting lens to pan with. It tilts, almost as though you are dollying.”

Poster notes that it was important for continuity to accentuate darker moments that take place at night. “We used almost no motion control on composite shots,” says Poster. “We laid tracking marks and made the moves we needed. The software has gotten that simple. Our lenses were calibrated and their characteristics were mapped in the computer, so they could match them when composites were made with digital characters.”

The opening shot was filmed on a stage. The camera was on a crane following a bird that landed on the second story window which Davis’ character opens. The camera floats up to a bedroom upstairs. There are also spectacular scenes with long swooping moves over Central Park filmed from the perspective of a camera on an 85-foot Strada crane with a Libra head used for stability.

“You can't get low enough with a helicopter flying over Central Park,” Poster says, “And we weren't allowed to use mini-helicopters. We had one set of a roof garden on the top of the Little’s house built on stage. Panavision Remote Systems provided a 30-foot SuperTechnocrane that we put on top of a rolling platform. With that base, we had the camera 60 feet in the air without having to build platforms around the set.”

The film was scanned at Image Works at 4K resolution. Poster says that provided the headroom necessary to retain subtle details, including mouse whiskers, fur, feathers and textures that help to provide the film look audiences associates with fantasy.

In one scene, Poster noticed that a transom over a door was reflecting bright light from a practical source that he couldn’t control. Because of the physical situation at the location, it was impractical to flag or dim the reflection. “I knew that since we were going to be timing the film digitally, I could put a window around that bright spot and make it as dark as I wanted in post,” he says.

Why is a seemingly small detail like that important?

“A big part of our responsibility is using brightness, color and composition to attract the audience’s attention to different parts of the frame,” he says. “I believe every element of each shot of every scene informs them. That’s why it is important for cinematographers to be involved and retain control over the look throughout postproduction.

“That's going to require a cultural change,” he believes. “We have always been responsible for color timing our films at labs, but that’s usually a three or four day process, and with digital mastering it could be four or five weeks. The problem is that if we aren’t there someone else can misinterpret our work. I spent the time to view and correct as many of the digital scans before they even were delivered to the compositor. The pre-timing work, which I did with Imageworks head color timer and Vice President, John Nicolard, allowed us to create a benchmark look before any visual effects work was done. This look was respected by Chen throughout the post work on the movie.”

Poster believes the 5D Colossus system is a step in the right direction because it is designed for film rather than digital output. He also envisions technology evolving to the point where cinematographers will be able to master films digitally over the Internet from remote locations by using a calibrated monitor to view images.

“On a film like this, you want the look to be subliminal because you don't want the audience to think about it,” he says. “It’s different for every story with each director. Once we agree on a language, I like to let my intuition and subconscious flow. Our responsibility has to do with the entire gestalt of the motion picture experience. One of the great joys for me is being able to do something that is as technically complicated as Stuart Little 2 and have no one recognize it other than the people I'm working with. When the audience experiences a movie, it should seem as believable and natural as possible.”