If you're looking for a film team that always has its creative wheels turning, chances are almost certain that you'll first find the one with Oscar-winners Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks at the fore.
There's no wondering why: director Zemeckis put Hanks' out-of-the-ordinary man among extraordinary places and people with "Forrest Gump," and made the actor an island unto himself in "Cast Away."
And, with "The Polar Express," moviegoers are perhaps going to take their most extraordinary journey yet with Zemeckis and Hanks. That's because thanks to the groundbreaking filmmaking technique of Performance Capture, the duo has once again extended the boundaries of the film industry.
Without question, the most distinctive thing about "The Polar Express" is its unique look -- which could best be described as a moving painting. Of course, with the ever-developing wonders of computer technology, Zemeckis could have conceivably created a live action film loaded with digital trimmings (remember, this is the man who, before "Forrest Gump," did "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?") -- or one that was strictly animated. Neither approach, he said, was ever considered.
"I threw out the idea of it being photo-real early on," Zemeckis explained to me in a recent @ The Movies interview. "First of all, (the book's author) Chris Van Allsburg never wanted the movie to be animated because he knew that that would destroy his paintings. And for the same reason, I didn't want it to be live action. I think that what happens is, the way that the movie is rendered creates the right tone and feeling so the audience can be immersed more in the fable aspect of the story.
"If it were photo-real, I don't know if the story could hold up," Zemeckis continued. "Everything has to be part of the whole. When I tried to imagine what it would like as photo-real, it would look like 'The Grinch.' The idea was to keep the feelings of those paintings."
"The Polar Express" follows a doubting young boy on his magical journey with other children aboard "The Polar Express" to the North Pole -- where they are about to discover the lasting meaning of Christmas spirit.
Hanks plays the conductor of the Polar Express, and thanks to the use of oversized props and set pieces, he, along with fellow stars
Nona Gaye, Peter Scolari and Eddie Deezen, played the children's roles, too. With performance captures of the stars acting like children as a template, Zemeckis fully realized his vision by digitally rendering the actors as a version of their younger selves for the film.
If that doesn't sound like a big enough challenge, consider the decision Zemeckis had to make in making the classic book into a film in the first place. The last thing he wanted to do was upset the book's legions of admirers.
"We kept completely true to spirit and tone of the book and its painting -- and that was the key," said Zemeckis, who co-wrote the film's screenplay with "Cast Away" scribe William Broyles Jr. "But, we also realized that the story just needed to be expanded. It was a wonderful outline for a movie and we didn't need to go off on tangents or write a new ending."
Among the elements Zemeckis and Broyles expanded upon were the characters -- and in some cases, added some, to accompany Hero Boy (Hanks), on his journey to the North Pole.
"The book is only about the boy, the only other character that's mentioned by name is his sister -- so Bill Broyles and I invented the other kids -- Hero Girl (Gaye), Lonely Boy (Scolari) and Know-It-All Boy (Deezen)," Zemeckis said.
Zemeckis said the most difficult part of making such a groundbreaking project wasn't the actual creation of the film, but figuring out how to do it in the first place.
"We did a lot of responsible due diligence -- we couldn't just go and try it and hope that it worked," said Zemeckis, who also helmed the classic "Back to the Future" films. "We did a lot of scientific research and elaborate tests and crunched down to make sure it was going to work as much as it possibly could. But, it did deliver exactly what was promised. I was waiting for the trap door to open to see what was going to fail. But it didn't. It all worked like clockwork."
The wonderful thing about Performance Capture is that it not only captures the movements of the bodies of the actors, it captures their emotions as well.
To capture the body movements, Hanks and his fellow actors had to don form-fitting suits (think diver's wet suits), which had 60 markers of highly reflective light (also known as jewels) attached so digital cameras could record a three-dimensional configuration of dots.
Plus, as many as 150 of those markers were glued to each actor's face and scalp to capture their range of emotions. So, when you sense that feeling of doubt by the look on Hero Boy's face and the apprehension you see in his eyes at the beginning of the film, what you're seeing is real.
"It's all a live, three dimensional performance of Tom Hanks," Zemeckis enthused. "All the subtlety of his performance is translated directly into the digital rendering."
Zemeckis said another big benefit came out of shooting the film in three dimensions, and we're really talking
big. It's going to open the same day as it regular theatrical release as a 3-D film on IMAX screens nationwide, becoming the first feature film to be made for the format.
The funny thing is, the idea to release "The Polar Express" as a 3-D IMAX version didn't come until the later in the production.
"I wasn't even planning on it being a 3-D movie, even though I was making it in 3-D," Zemeckis recalled with a laugh. "The film has a life of its own because of that -- you'll be totally immersed into the 3-D world when you're watching the film in IMAX. It's a completely different entertainment experience."
"The Polar Express" opens nationwide Nov. 10. The film will have sneak previews across the nation in conventional theaters on Nov. 6.
Preview: 'The Polar Express'
