Why Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water is a VFX marvel
At the 90th Academy Awards ceremony, Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water surprised many after it bagged the prestigious Oscar for the "Best Picture".
Set in Cold War era, Del Toro's fantasy thriller faced strong competition from the likes of Get Out, Lady Bird and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, but by the end of the award ceremony the movie managed to win four Oscars – including best production design, best original score, and best director – from the 13 categories it was nominated for.
The off-beat "adult fairy tale" revolves around the love affair between a mute woman and a fish-man — an amphibian inspired by the Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). Though the fish-man is not the main character in the plot, he is central to the scheme of things in Del Toro's movie.
Played by Doug Jones, this likable yet, sometimes monstrous secondary protagonist, is a complex character, who despite his superhuman abilities remains an outsider, and is sadly relegated to being treated like an animal only because he looks different and does not fit the conventional image of a hero.
Critics have hailed the brilliance of Del Toro and the film's cast in bringing to life this unconventional love story, but what has not been talked about much is the exemplary work done by the visual effects team that actually breathed life into the on-screen romance between the fish-man and Elisa (Sally Hawkins) – the kind-hearted mute janitor who falls in love with the amphibian. Here's all you need to know about how the magic came to life.
VFX created fish-man
Doug Jones, the faceless man behind many of Hollywood's most known characters, has played part in Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy and Hellboy II. The 57-year-old is a serious actor who has over 100 films under his belt. However, in The Shape of Water, his job as an actor trying to convey complex emotions was made close to impossible because of the great amount of make-up and costume he had to carry during his portrayal of the character.
As it turns out, Del Toro made this possible by bringing on board a talented team of visual effects artists from Mr X to help supplement Jones' portrayal of the mysterious fish-man. Speaking to TechCrunch's Anthony Ha, Trey Harrell, CG supervisor at visual effects house Mr X, explained: “Every single shot of the film where you see the creature is a visual effects shot.”
Because the actor's face remained "hidden under half inch of foam latex", the VFX team had to create the fish-man's eyes and face movements and in some scenes, the team had to even recreate the entire creature in a virtual environment.
As per Harrel, the team “wanted people to believe” that the fish-man was not a computer generated creature but rather a combination of Doug Jones' performance and practical effects. To achieve this they took “hundreds of scans” of the actor to put together a profile –“Doug Jones animation rig” – which the design team used for making the VFX generated creature feel more like the actor.
Dry for wet shooting
The Shape of Water has been termed as an "adult fairy tale" by its director, Guillermo Del Toro, and as such the director uses the film's very first scene to introduce the viewers to the idea of a tale that is fantastical yet rooted in the ordinary. In the first scene of the movie, we see the protagonist of the story, Elisa, in an underwater dream sequence floating in her apartment while she sleeps.
Though a creation of Del Toro's imagination, this beautifully directed scene was conceived with the help of some serious visual effects. As Del Toro explains in an interview to The Hollywood Reporter, the scene was shot without using a single drop of water as the visual effects teams suspended the actor and the whole set mid-air using wires to create a floating effect which was then supplemented by a layer of digitally created water and lighting effects.
Cost less than $20 million dollars
As evidenced by the multiple awards the movie has won at various platforms this year, The Shape of Water is an absolute masterpiece that not only narrates an unconventional love story between a human and a fish-man but also does so in a way that merges the best of human acting and computer-generated graphics.
However, what's more impressive is in the days when big-budget Hollywood productions are spending upwards of $300 million to produce, The Shape of Water, a movie that relies heavily on expensive VFX work has been shot and produced in a little under $20 million.