One of the most impressive aspects of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is within the opening 20 minutes as we dive back to 1944 and a 45-year-old Indiana as he attempts to acquire artifacts from a German loot train. With lead actor Harrison Ford in his late 70’s at the time of filming, the process of deageing Ford to look like Indy did only 6 years after we saw him in The Last Crusade took ingenuity, creatvity and over 100 VFX artists.
(W)hen the film’s VFX supervisor Andrew Whitehurst and Robert Weaver, VFX supervisor at ILM, first took on the James Mangold-helmed “Dial of Destiny,” they knew this was going to be the biggest project they had undertaken.
“We knew we would have to use all of the tools we already had and develop some new ones,” Whitehurst says. So they developed ILM FaceSwap.
This new set of tools allowed the team to blend a full computer-generated 3D head, combine elements that had been extracted from on-set photography and, as Whitehurst explains, use “machine learning-based reference material from previous ‘Indiana Jones’ films.” Once the artists had that reference material, including a raw clay model in the shape of Ford’s Indy, they went to work making the actor look like a younger version of himself on a shot-by-shot basis.
But the process didn’t end there.
Weaver explains that while the machine learning aspect gave them a 2D replica of what they needed, there was still a full 3D CG asset that needed to be built.
“That involved putting Harrison through the process of recording all the facial performances and all its extremes, and the marrying of various technologies by the artists to blend between one and the other to get the final performance that you’re looking for,” Weaver explains. “The important aspect is that there’s not a single recipe that was cooked up that could be done for all shots.”
Whitehurst worked on the film for over three years, and one of the first things he did was “scan Harrison’s head so we had a current cast.” Once they had that, he and his team began building the 1944 CG head and used other elements from the Lucasfilm archives to help build that out.
While they were doing that, they also storyboarded the film’s prologue sequence to get an idea of the shots they needed. When it came to filming, Whitehurst says, “We made sure we were shooting with extra cameras attached to the main unit camera so we could get as much reference as we possibly could.”
To see the incredible work done by ILM, head to your local cinema and experience Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny on as big and loud a screen as you possibly can.
