In the latest installment of The Twilight Saga franchise, Breaking Dawn: Part 1, Tippett Studio continued its key contribution to the films by again delivering photorealistic digital wolves.
This time, however, the Tippett artists upped the ante after being called on to develop the entire lumber yard sequence – as the wolves discuss their plans for the fate of Bella – from boarding, previs, scratch dialogue through to the final shots.
"This conversation could get very science-fictional," Tippett says. Take the CG rat, Templeton, which Tippett Studios animated based on Steve Buscemi's vocalization for "Charlotte's Web." "A huge part of that performance was a bunch of animators astutely observing rat behavior. Twenty years from now -- or 20 minutes -- we'll have the technology to motion capture a real rat. Then we'll be able to dial in Steve Buscemi's motion capture and blend a real rat and a real human. Whose performance is that? Just knowing how political Hollywood is, even if everybody thought Templeton was the greatest character of all time, who's going to give a rat an Academy Award?"
