Rise of the Planet of the Apes Interview: Rupert Wyatt & WETA’s Dan Lemmon - Part 2
The duo discuss the challenges in bringing the Apes prequel to the bring screen and the difficulties, and successes, of creating the film’s CGI simians.
(Huge apologies to 2oth Century Fox for the lateness in our second half of this interview being posted. Mark Clark, the author of this piece, had some unforeseeable family problems in August which completely pushed this article back. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is still in cinema's and you should go and see it now); You can read Part 1 of this interview HERE. In the fine tradition of keeping things in the family I joined the same group of bloggers that had the privilege, and fun, of talking to Matthew Vaughn a few months back, as we sat down at Claridges in London and talked to Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt and WETAs Dan Lemmon about bringing the Apes prequel to the screen and the difficulties, and successes, of creating the films CGI simians. As before we were all asking questions so were collectively Q, and theyre RW and DL. Also be aware that talking about the film there are one or two spoilers ahead, right from the first question. Make sure you go out and see this excellent film before reading below; 
Q: Is there an emotion thats more difficult to capture than others? DL: Well because of the muzzle structure of the apes some of the tight-lipped things like disdain we had to figure out what that looked like on a chimpanzee. And Rupert touched on the eyebrows as well. In the original concept art we had a heavier brow but when we started to get in to some of the animation we just found that we werent able to match what Andy was doing, get the same kind of emotion with this larger brow. So we looked at Andy, we looked at a lot of references of chimpanzees with a less prominent brow, made some small modifications that allowed us to get a lot bigger range of performance.Q: At what point did you get Andy Serkis involved with what you were doing?
RW: Same as any actor really well I mean he was never auditioned we knew that if we got Andy Serkis wed be very lucky. When we (RW & DL) started working together it was always the idea that if we get Andy then we have our central character both from the point of view of his understanding the technology but also just the fact that hes an actor whos embraced performance capture as a tool. Hes very good at being able to push it to one side and focus on the performance. I think many actors could possibly achieve that, but hes been one of the first to actually understand it. Hes a real performer, hes got extraordinary range, he can be very physical, very expressive. Sort of Chaplinesque in the way he does things. Hes said that many actors believe that when they put a motion-capture suit on they need to over-act or over-emote but actually its the opposite. And thats the beauty you look at the original Planet of the Apes and theyre all buried beneath these masks. None of them could express themselves. With performance capture he can use his face to tell the story. DL: I think thats one of the things thats great about Andy; hes such a great character actor, you loo at all his performances not just his digital characters but live action as well theyre all very different from one another. He puts a lot of effort in to crack a unique performance for each piece.Q: Would you have held out for him if he wasnt available?
RW: Youd have to ask the studio that (laughs). Put it this way, it would be a very different film. He had the wherewithal to realise that hes played King Kong to which he could say why Play Kong and then play Caeser. But youve got two very different characters youve got the last of a dying breed, a loner, and then youve got the Che Guevara story. He saw it as such a different thing. Hes now getting the response that is so well deserved. Hes a phenomenal actor. DL: I think its important to look at some of the other actors as well who played the apes. We had theatre actors, stunt performers, trained gymnasts. Theres nothing about the performance capture technology that means you have to be a specialist. Its all about just casting the right actor for the right role. And you see that in Avatar as well.
Q: Youre having some performances acted out on a real stage by a man whos much bigger than the character hes portraying; how was that done? RW: Traditionally you shoot Andy playing Caeser, you shoot James Franco playing his human character. Lets say Caeser then shuts the door on James, and once youve got that shot you then take Andy out of the shot and you do whats called a clean-plate which is James acting to thin air and a SFX guy with a filament wire closing the door coupled with, if the cameras moving, you have to time the move. We didnt have motion control so did it through manual operation. Now thats really time-consuming and its a frigging headache. But what it allows Weta to do is to not have to paint Andy out, because they have a clean-plate, and they can put a digital Caeser into the shot. However the downside is that you lose something in the human performance, if James is acting to thin air his eye-lines may be a bit off or his energys a bit down. Hes not got that something to bounce off. So it was never quite as good sometimes it was ok if it was a simple shot but more often than not his energy would drop, so what I was asking of Dan/Weta was could we just use the performance part and that involves them digitally painting out Andy and putting Caeser in. And I think Im right in saying the technologys more evolved to allow you to do that DL: Yeah I mean its certainly easier now than during Lord of the Rings for example. We had to take it on a shot by shot basis as well, some cases are easier than others. The big, challenging ones are like where we had the toddler Caeser that was interacting with James Franco, and it was Andy Serkis playing the three feet high Caeser. Theres the scene where theyre up in the attic and Freidas characters there for the first time, theyre wrestling on the bed. There was a bit of a negotiation on the day on the set as to how we could get that level of interaction. Any time you have a performance capture actors body going across another actor a shoulder going past his face - we have to put his face back on. If the digital chimp is only so big hes only going to cover up so much. And painting back somebodys face can be problematic.Q: Rise is one of the big films this year thats not in 3D. Any particular reason for that?
RW: No it never came up actually. The two big films that Fox put out this year. X-Men and ours are both in 2D. I dont know why that is. Personally Im not a massive fan of 3D, I think it can enhance your experience to a certain extent but it can also give you a headache. Id like to think that this film didnt need it really. DL: I mean I love 3D films except for when I hate them. Its so easy to do poorly. Unless theres a compelling reason to do it youre always going to be taking effort away from things in the film that matter. As with any film you want to decide where to focus your resources. If theres something tacked on for marketing reasons, or any other reason, it can be to the detriment of the film. RW: Takes an hour to change a lens in 3D. Crazy.
Q: When you got involved with this Rupert, what state was it in; was it still the Scott Frank draft? RW: No, no it wasnt. Somebody wrote about the idea that Scott Frank originated this which is not the case. Rick Jaffe and Amanda Silver were the original writers. Rick, I think, came up with the idea when he read about real apes growing up in domestic environments, the dangers of that and thought that could be the basis of a thriller. Then he had this epiphany that thats the prologue to Planet of the Apes. So he took that to Fox and they commissioned him and his wife Amanda to write the script. Scott Frank came on as a director, got rid of Rick and Amanda because he wanted to do his own take on it, a very different take as far as I know. That I think dealt with Caeser as more of a Frankenstein in a cage at home, Im not really sure, but it was a very different spin. He left, didnt see eye to eye, as far as I know, with what the studio wanted, and so they went back to Rick and Amandas draft and then evolved it further. I think bringing in more aspects of the uprising. They then put the word out that they were looking for someone and sent me the script and I went in, and 300 interviews later got the job.Q: There are a lot of references to the original Planet of the Apes
RW: Yeah, its always kind of great to be able to reference, especially if youre paying respect. But for me it was always about trying to make it work for the story. So for example the scene where Caesers building the little model of the Statue of Liberty obviously has references to where were headed on the beach at the end of the original, but it also represents liberty as hes trapped in an attic, represents his abilities, his intelligence. So I was trying to work it on many different levels as much as I could. A very early draft that I read had the African poachers on horseback (referencing the early scenes in the original film as the apes chase the humans), and I kicked that out pretty quickly because the intention was to always tell the story in a plausible way and African poachers dont ride around on horses. But the idea of using nets, and top shot when theyre running through the undergrowth, those kind of things we worked in.Q: It was a lot more intimate than I expected. Some people might possibly be expecting some kind of apocalyptic apes vs humans story.
RW: Yeah, its a bit like Spartacus, its the idea of revolution in microcosm. Were not dealing with the whole Roman Empire, its just one part of it, and the second may do that.Q: Youre talking like it already exists, has someone flicked the switch on this?
RW: No, Im just talking about whats in my head.Q: Are they talking to you about it?
RW: Not yet.Previously... Apes Director Rupert Wyatt: Why CGI is Now the Moral ChoiceMedia Serkis: The Gollum Actor Goes Ape For Video GamesRISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES Review Best Film of the Summer!
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is in cinema's now!