Feature: Of Man & Machines
Interview piece for SciFiNow magazine, with Oscar-winning VFX Supervisor Andrew Whitehurst
When Ex Machina won this year’s Academy Award for Best Visual Effects it came as a surprise, since it was up against behemoths such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Mad Max: Fury Road – movies that have a strong legacy and even stronger budgets. But Ex Machina, an ‘indie’ film from Britain with a modest $15million budget, had a trick up its alloy sleeve: bromance. That’s how Mark Ardington, Andrew Whitehurst’s colleague from London-based VFX company Double Negative described Whitehurst’s relationship to director Alex Garland, and he attributed it as a key factor in the film’s success. When this is mentioned Whitehurst, who studied fine art and filmmaking and has worked in the visual effects industry for 19 years, simply laughs; “um, well, I think it certainly helps when you see eye to eye with the director or DP or art department,” he admits. “There are a huge number of interests that Alex and I have in common – comic book artists like Mœbius for example (who did Airtight Garage, Arzach and The Incal), and Alex, Rob [Hardy, Ex Machina’s DP] and I are obsessed with Tarkovsky films, particularly Stalker. We’re also interested in science and philosophy. On set I think I probably spent more time arguing with the director about qualia and theories of mind than actually discussing how we were going to shoot the film!” Yet, as he indicated in his acceptance speech, Whitehurst is adamant that a film’s real success lies in teamwork. “Those on-set exchanges are illustrative of the sense of collaboration we had and, ultimately, Ex Machina is a film about ideas – it’s a philosophical film about the limits of our understanding of human consciousness more that anything else. And so those sorts of discussions were really important. I think the more people feel emotionally and intellectually engaged in a project the more they’ll want to contribute.”
So just how much do the VFX department contribute to a film – surely they come into their own during post production? Not so; “in pre-production I would be spending my time between the production offices, in meetings with the director, and time at the VFX facility getting the work going for anything we need to develop before the shoot begins,” Whitehurst says. Occasionally his input at script stage might actually influence the final film that we see on screen; “sometimes somebody writes something and you go ‘if you want that done it’s going to take a year and half and this much money that you haven’t got – you’re going to have to re-think that.’ And sometimes you just pitch an idea and they might go for it.” But his role in the filmmaking process doesn’t stop there; “during the shoot I’ll be on set all day everyday to make sure everything’s going OK, that we’re getting all the references we need, sorting any issues out – whether it’s location or on set or on a sound stage I’ll be there. Often there are things that crop up where a small amount of visual effects will solve a big problem,” he continues. “Then in post production I spend most of my time at the VFX facility working with the artists producing the shots, and some time at the edit with the editor and director.”
In the past, Whitehurst’s input on a project has even gone beyond the job description; “some directors invite you into the edit to watch scenes with no VFX in at all just because you’re a fresh pair of eyes – for the same reason I sometimes get played bits of music. Conversely, other directors don’t want any input at all and just lock themselves away in the edit and issue instructions from there. Personally, I prefer the former.” Whitehurst, who’s worked on films such as Skyfall, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, effectively becomes the bridge between the director and production team and the VFX team, so his bond with the director becomes hugely important. “You need to have a common understanding of what’s desired in the final shot,” he says, “and I need to be confident when giving feedback to the VFX artists that what I’m saying is what the director and producers would agree with, because they can’t be there all the time and have to rely on us to deliver what they want.”
Of all the films he’s worked on, it becomes clear that Whitehurst’s most proud of Ex Machina and practically glows as he speaks of it. “Even though I’ve seen it about seven times in the edit and then probably seven more times in its finished state I still think it’s a great film! And that was an incredibly collaborative project to work on because that’s the atmosphere Alex wants to encourage. Everybody was just chucking ideas out and discussing what we’re able to do – when your budget’s very limited you need to have that deep level of collaboration so you’re not wasting anyone’s time and doing things in the most efficient way.”
Garland was perhaps more surprised than anyone that his relatively small British film took on the goliaths of Hollywood on their home turf and walked away with a golden statue. “I can’t use his exact words in this publication,” says Whitehurst with a knowing smile, “but Alex is not someone who is prone to giddiness, and he was almost giddy when it was announced, he was so happy for everyone.” Ex Machina’s win, amid an interesting spread of nominees this year, is possibly an indication that the predominantly white, middle-aged voters of the Academy are finally getting up to speed with audience tastes for the unusual and cerebral. “I think Ex Machina was new and bit different,” Whitehurst agrees. “It was actually a really interesting year for the VFX category because The Revenant is a film with a lot of VFX work in it but it’s not blockbustery; The Martian is elegant and beautifully done, but not really blockbustery; and Mad Max: Fury Road is a crazy, feminist pop-art road movie – so the only nominee that was standard blockbuster material was Star Wars. It probably split the vote and I guess we lucked out and maybe two more people voted for us. I think over recent years there’s been a lot of films nominated for VFX because they had the most VFX,” he continues, “so the film with the biggest VFX budget would win. But now, lower-budget films are able to exploit VFX and those films are often more interesting than summer blockbusters. I think that’s appealing to people – films where the visual effects are used in a supportive role to help tell the story rather than as something that’s used to punch the audience in the face.”
Despite the continuing box-office domination of films where punches are thrown and most things get blown up, it does seem that the wind of public affection for CGI has shifted slightly. “Five years ago there’s no way we would have been able to make Ex Machina for the money without CGI, it’s everywhere, not just in the big blockbusters and Marvel films,” Whitehurst notes. “But I do think that when people complain about CGI ruining cinema the only CGI they notice is badly-conceived CGI.” The magic that visual effects and CGI bring isn’t in dispute, but do they allow directors these days to become lazy – i.e. ‘we’ll just fix that in post’ – or does it open doors? “The problem with CGI is that it allows you to do anything and defer any decision until post production,” admits Whitehurst, “so it indulges directors who don’t have a definite vision or who change their mind a lot, and that’s when you end up with a really messy film. So yeah, CGI might encourage directors to become lazy and indecisive, but conversely it also allows them to be much more creative and offers tremendous possibilities. With great power comes great responsibility!” When asked for examples of films he thinks perfectly incorporated CGI Whitehurst is quick to cite Jurassic Park, but has to pause and think of a recent example. “I love the aesthetic of Mad Max: Fury Road and what that film made me feel – that’s actually the main thing I look for in any department’s work on a film, what it makes me feel. I don’t care what camera they used to shoot it, what matters is if I find the images beautiful and if they serve the story. I don’t fetishise tech for it’s own sake.”
Yet it’s tech that’s exciting filmmakers and consumers alike with the availability of VR headsets (the Cannes film festival dedicated a whole ‘village’ to VR content this year), a development that might impact the VFX industry and cinema as a whole. “When people go to the cinema they want to be taken on a ride, get an experience as much as being told a story,” says Whitehurst. “I think a lot of that comes from the huge open-world video games people are playing and we expect that kind of thing in films now. VR is incredibly fascinating though, but we don’t even really know what it is yet, or if it’s actually much good for telling stories in the way that books, theatre and cinema are. The first time I put on an Oculus Rift headset I thought it was amazing, it transports you somewhere else even if it isn’t very photographic. I don’t think VR will replace cinema (in the same way video games don’t replace cinema), it’s its own art form,” he concludes. It’s thanks to advances in technology and CGI that sci-fi and fantasy genres in particular – on the big and small screen – are more popular than ever, something that Whitehurst acknowledges; “even if you have quarter of a billion dollars to spend on your movie and spend tons on sets you’ll still want to make them bigger, because a large part of fantasy and sci-fi is world-building, so VFX is absolutely the way to do it. In fact, it’s always been the way to do it – just look at Metropolis with its miniatures, matt paintings, Schüfftan Process, composites and all the rest of it… I think with CG generally we’re able to do more every year because the tools get smarter, faster and better, which drives costs down, so now you’re seeing more CGI on TV for example. It’s enabling non-mainstream stories that have a lot of visual scope to be told. And that, I think, is the thing that excites me most.”
Championing non-mainstream stories is Whitehurst’s pal Alex Garland, and the bromance continues with Whitehurst working on his latest film Annihilation; “It’s an adaptation of a book by Jeff VanderMeer,” Whitehurst tells us. “Alex’s pitch is that it’s ‘from suburbia to psychedelia.’ Essentially there’s an area in the ‘States that’s been sealed off and a group of scientists go in to see what’s going on because people have gone in and never come out. It’s a cross between Stalker, The Thing and maybe Apocalypse Now: an awesome combo!” At the time of our interview Whitehurst is in pre-production before a May shoot, busy sketching ideas in his notebook. “When we’re designing certain sequences I find it helps me think through it if I draw it, even if the drawings aren’t very good,” he explains. “We storyboard chunks of the film, talk through the sequences, draw plans of the area, talk about what camera angles we’re going to try, because when you’re working with a low budget the shooting period is very short, so you have to be very efficient with your time. We’re also designing elements of the film so that the art department can build them. We can then show concept art to the actors and build bucks – simple puppet versions of what we might need – so that they have something physical to interact with on set.” If the high standard of work coming out of this Whitehurst-Garland partnership continues we should expect great things from Annihilation. “It’s almost exactly the same team as Ex Machina working on it,” Whitehurst grins. “We’re putting the band back together!”