FILM INTERVIEW: JOHN NELSON

A Talk with Special Effects Supervisor for 'Sorcerer's Apprentice' - Now on Blu-ray & DVD

By: Darryl Morden

December 10, 2010

It seemed to come and go at theaters earlier this year, but Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is now on Blu-ray and DVD, and truly is a fun film loaded with creative effects but also grounded in a story that bodes well for not just a sequel, but perhaps a francise of several movies. 

Very (very) loosely based on the same-named segment in Disney’s classic Fantasia, the movie spans a millennia, though most of the setting is modern-day New York but with arcane touches right off Dr. Strange comics and the like.  

Nicolas Cage as Balthazar Blake is a one-time disciple of none other than Merlin, while Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel from Fanboys)  is, but of course, the one he's been seeking for centuries. And he becomes the apprentice.  Alfred Molina relishes his role as bad-guy wizard Maxim Horvath. Add Teresa Palmer and Monica Bellucci as love interests for each hero, and a creepy Alice Krige (The Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact) and you have a solid cast, well-guided by director John Turteltaub, though Cage is the real anchor here.

And the magic through movie magic?  It’s quite stellar and also different from, say, the land of Potter with links to science, including a big nod to the work and creations of Nikola Telsa. Everything looks best on Blu-ray, though the DVD is quite vivid as well. And yes, the Fantasia scene is there, cleverly done, with the music of Paul Dukas, which all was inspired by a 1797 poem by Goethe. 

For those who enjoy behind-the-scenes material, the documentaries provide much insight and fascinating looks at how it all came together--especially the special effects.   

So this is another score for Jerry Bruckheimer, and family-friendly all the way too, with only harrowing moments for the littlest ones. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is watchable and winning, and would make a nice little holiday gift in any format. Print up a limited time discount coupon here. 

In addition to reviewing the video release, Buzzine had the pleasure of speaking with the film’s Visual Effects Supervisor, John Nelson, whose credits range from Iron Man toTerminator 2.

Darryl Morden: What type of special effects do you specialize in?

John Nelson: I love the ones that are real and also elegant in the way they achieve their goals. History and comic books have always been an interest of mine, so comic-related and history-related projects have always got me going. Really good stories get me going. One of the things I love about my job is that I get to research the reason why an effect might be useful to a story and then incorporate that reasoning into the way the effect works. In The Sorcerer's Apprentice, we did this by saying the electrical charges the sorcerers can conjure is an extension of their neurological system, which is electrically based. It is how we send signals from our brain to move our feet, etc. The only difference is that, for our sorcerers, their neurological system is highly refined to channel large amounts of electricity.

DM: With what you said about comics in mind, did you reference any old films with magic and also comic book series such as, say, Marvel's Dr. Strange or DC's Dr. Fate?

JN: We looked at lots of stuff, but the stuff that was the most influential was the script, along with the concept about the sorcerer's neurological system being more developed than normal people.  Also, the Arthur C. Clarke quote that, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

DM: Were there concerns over comparisons to effects in the Harry Potter series, or did you know from the get-go you'd take a different route of sorts?

JN: We felt we wanted the effects in The Sorcerer's Apprentice to be more grounded than the magic in the Harry Potter films. Those films are great, and the VFX work done in those films are great, but we wanted our magic to be more grounded in reality. It was really a stylistic choice.

DM: When you're animating something as high-tech looking as The Sorcerer's Apprentice, do you ever think back to the Ray Harryhausen era and marvel at how far visual effects have come? What would you say is responsible for the biggest leap in the creation of visual effects?

JN: I am amazed, all the time, at what Ray did with his way of doing things with little more than himself, shooting actors and then animating stop-motion characters in front of those rear-projected backgrounds. I think many in this field were inspired to do what we do by seeing Ray's films and films like 2001. When I am tired from working 18-hour days and a bit down, I often think of the fact of how easy I have it because I have all these tools--tools that the old masters like Ray did not have. Creative solutions never go out of style. That is why Ray's films still captivate audiences. I also look at the old films, like Tora, Tora, Tora, Darby O'Gill, or The Wizard of Oz and still love them.

DM: What's most difficult to create and animate: fire, fluid, or creatures like a tiny animated dragon?

JN: Animated characters like the little dragon need to act and are animated by character animators. Fire, water and the like are done with a technique known as fluid dynamic simulations. The simulations are tricky because they are not animated but governed by constraints, and you can get everything right and then change one of the constraints and have it look completely different. For the little dragon, the challenge was to get the performance of the little guy while also keeping the metal looking like metal and not have it turn into plastic. I think he looks like real metal and gives a good performance.

DM: In addition to bringing smiles, as it takes people back to Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, the “attack” of the brooms finds them each with personalities. How did you and your crew put the scene together, and how long did it take?

JN: We did testing to figure out how much we wanted to "anthropomorphize" (make human) the brooms and mops to show performance and emotion. We wanted each of the characters to appear as real mops but also perform in a way to endear their performance to the viewer. The mops just want to do what they have been magically told to do, and there is no stopping them. We tested this in rhythm to the music and it seemed to work. We developed this aspect of the possessed mops and brooms, but stopped when their performance drew too much attention to them as individuals. We wanted them to act as a crowd.

DM: Any time there's magic, there's magic dust. Given the fact that Disney probably started it all with Pixie dust, is there more pressure to get that right than other visual effects?

JN: We just like using the dust to denote the attraction of force that the sorcerers are channeling right before they unload a concussion blast, or right after it, to show the power moving through the volume of the room.

DM: What was involved putting together the Tesla coil scenes?

JN: We reviewed real Tesla coil footage, and even shot some ourselves. Next we picked a song that the coils were to fire in sync with. Then we rigged a computer-controlled lighting rig to fire interactive lights in sync with the music. Next we shot our backgrounds with the actors in that interactive light and went into post-production. In post-production, we animated the Tesla coil arcs to match the music and interactive lights. We had to change some of the timings to make it work but, because we shot clean plates and had a complete digital copy of the set, it was possible to do this.

DM: Roger Ebert went on about a scene where the dragon in a Chinatown parade and a steel eagle on top of the Chrysler Building come alive. Can you talk about the strategies and/or challenges of creating those scenes?

JN: The Chinatown dragon was hard because of the crowds involved, and the magic we were doing had many forms. First, the sorcerer Sun Loc had to come out of the grimhold as a thousand butterflies that formed his body, then he had to bring the dragon on his breastplate to life and make it crawl off the breastplate and under his skin, then the paper dragon with people holding it had to turn into the real dragon, then the dragon had to chase Dave throughout Chinatown. For each of these steps, our approach was to shoot our background plates with the actors as quickly as possible, and also shoot references of what the real dragon skin might look like in addition to clean plates and high-dynamic range stills (and do all that as quickly as possible!). That way, when we go to create the VFX in the computer, we have all the tools and photographic references to achieve realistic images. Beyond that, it is the acting experience of the animators that bring the digital characters to life. The process was similar with the Chrysler eagle, but its surface was metal and needed to be appear as metal and not bend like skin or plastic.

DM: Do you ever worry that the explanations you provide for the effects, like the ones on the DVD and Blu-ray, might reduce a viewer’s awe at seeing a metal bull or a dragon?

JN: Sometimes I feel like a magician giving away the secrets, but I feel the people who view these explanations want to see what goes on behind the Wizard of Oz's curtain.