With an estimated budget of $150 million, "The Chronicles of Narnia-The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" is opening in theaters tomorrow--Disney's film adaptation of the C.S. Lewis' classic literary work. (As a point of reference, $30 million was spent on the production of Mel Gibson's "The Passion." So, what will 5 times the production budget yield in terms of special effects?)
Brother Steve Camp has posted an excellent article on his blog which gives us a pretty good insight into the faith of C.S. Lewis, as well as an article giving great recommendations on the proper expectations evangelicals should hold as they venture into the theater this weekend to view the movie. Hint: evangelicals should expect the same thing other moviegoers do......an evening of great entertainment. As an artist, in addition to entertainment value, I'm also interested in the composition and special effects of the film--the overall asthetics of what critics are claiming is destined to be the blockbuster of this Christmas season.
Without my viewing the film, to follow is the information I've been able to put together in regards to some of the special-effects aspects of the piece. (By the way, tomorrow I hope to post on the unique marketing aspect of the film).
Very impressive visually-from what I've seen in the movie trailers-is Aslan, the character of the lion, which is 100% computer-generated, and took 2 years to complete. The battle scene contains 5,000 computer-generated characters within the Narnian army alone, and 15,000 CG characters within the witch's army.The computer program "Massive" was employed to create the battle, a program created by Stephen Regelous. (The "Massive" program was used to create the mass legion of robots in "I, Robot," the battle scenes in "Lord of the Rings," the crowd scenes in the new theatrical release, "Kong," and the crowd in the gallery on that cute little "Kid Tiger Woods" commercial spot for Nike).
From an article written by Courtney Macavinta, and published on the wire.com website: "The computer-generated characters used in these scenes, called 'agents,' have minds of their own. 'Every agent has its own choices and a complete brain,' Regelous said. 'The most important thing about making realistic crowds is making realistic individuals.'In Massive, agents' brains -- which look like intricate flow charts -- define how they see and hear, how fast they run and how slowly they die. 
Like real people, agents' body types, clothing and the weather influence their capabilities. Agents aren't robots, though. Each makes subtle responses to its surroundings with fuzzy logic rather than yes-no, on-off decisions. And every agent has thousands of brain nodes, such as their combat node, which has rules for their level of aggression.
When an animator places agents into a simulation, they're released to do what they will. It's not crowd control but anarchy. That's because each agent makes decisions from its (own) point of view." (Hmmm......now from what theological viewpoint is that statement coming? Just kidding.........not gonna go that route).
Sorry. Continuing with Regelous' comments from the Macavinta article: "Still, when properly genetically engineered, the right character will always win the fight. 'It's possible to rig fights, but it hasn't been done," Regelous said. "In the first test fight (for Lord of the Rings) we had 1,000 silver guys and 1,000 golden guys. We set off the simulation, and in the distance you could see several guys running for the hills.'" (That I would have loved to have been on hand to see).
Regelous went on to say, "I can't tell what's Massive and what's not anymore." (Okay, now that comment is just plain scary!)
Incidentally, if you would like to put this incredible software to work for you, Massive 2.0 is available for a mere $18,000 USD per permanent interactive license, plus $4,000 per year for updates and support. Pocketchange, right?
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