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American Morning
Showbiz Today Reports: Special Effects Featured in Summer Flicks
Aired June 29, 2001 - 10:52 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Next, right here, though, at the movies, do you know what's real and what are special effects on the screen? Hard to tell these days. But our Bill Tush is in New York. He's got more on this Hollywood trend in our "Showbiz Today Report."
Bill, good to see you.
BILL TUSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good to see you, Leon. That was a funny story, wasn't it?
Well, this summer is shaping up to be a hot one, especially for Hollywood. Big budget special effects blockbusters are packing them into the air conditioned movie houses. Just how many actual effects does it take to make some artificial intelligence look real? Well, it's more than the weight of Dr. Dolittle's dog but less than the T. Rex total tonnage in Jurassic Park and I'm glad Lauren Hunter is here, because she's going to explain what I just said.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAUREN HUNTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the special effects odyssey of 2001.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Come on, cute pie.
HUNTER: A fantastic world where species mutate, cats and dogs fight for world domination and robots roam the earth. Computer generated imagery or CGI is all over theater screens this summer.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: They made us too smart, too quick and too many.
HUNTER: Stephen Spielberg's futuristic "A.I." blurs the line between real and robotic.
STAN WINSTON, SAPEC ROBOTIC EFFECT, "A.I.": And it's unlike any movie that you've ever seen. So to compare it to any one movie is a mistake. It's its own thing. It's its own being and it's beyond anything anybody has ever seen.
HUNTER: Stan Winston is also responsible for the effects in "Jurassic Park 3." This model became the franchise's newest antagonist, a 44 foot, 13 ton, 1,000 horsepower spondasauris (ph) battling T. Rex and the familiar velociraptor. Domestic animals are the stars of "Cats and Dogs." The film's 800 visual effects include live action, blue screen sets, animatronic puppetry and computer animation.
LARRY GUTERMAN, DIRECTOR, "CATS AND DOGS": We mix the live dog in here with the CGI dog. We put the live dog in there and put expressing on his face. But when the dog gets, of course, punched across the room, we can't do that to a live dog and we can't keep even the puppet dog animating while that's happening. So we have to use completely computer generated imagery.
HUNTER: It took five years and 275 artists, animators and engineers to bring "Shrek" to life.
VICKY JENSON, CO-DIRECTOR, "SHREK": They built it from the inside out. They started with the bones and muscles and layers of skin on top of that. And then our animators actually had to work in an anatomical way to know what muscles to pull.
HUNTER: And Hollywood magic brings Eddie Murphy and Archie the Bear together in "Dr. Dolittle 2."
STEVE CARR, DIRECTOR, "DR. DOLITTLE 2": They were never in the same place at the same time. It was all done through motion controlled camera and then put together, composited, so that it would seem like they were in the same space.
HUNTER: "The Mummy Returns" uses nearly 400 special effects shots, about 35 minutes of screen time.
JOHN BERTON, VISUAL EFFECTS SUPERVISOR: Tidal waves and oases growing and being destroyed. We have pigmy mummies that run out of the jungle. We have soldier mummies that fight hand to hand with our heroes through the streets of London and we also have a lot of really huge spectacular effects.
HUNTER: But its director says effects alone aren't enough.
STEVE SOMMERS, DIRECTOR, "THE MUMMY RETURNS": No matter how big the movie or how great the special effects or how impressive the technology, it's all about story and character.
HUNTER: But summer's magical mutations and edge of your seat visuals don't hurt.
Lauren Hunter, CNN Entertainment News, Hollywood.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TUSH: Now if you want to find out which one of those new films that we just took a look at are worth seeing this weekend, join me in less than an hour when "Entertainment Weekly"'s Lisa Schwarzbaum gives us the scoop on Spielberg's latest and some other feline friendly films. Until then I'm Bill Tush here in New York. Now let's go back to Leon in Atlanta.
HARRIS: All right, thanks, Bill. We'll see you later on.
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