The 12th Annual Visual Effects Society Awards (VES) will be held on Wednesday, February 12th at The Beverly Hilton Hotel. The awards honor a dearth of categories including film, TV, commercials, music videos, and video games with nominees ranging from animators, model makers, artists, studio leaders, animators, supervisors, PR executives and producers.
It’s safe to say that 2014 VES and Oscar nominee Roger Guyett knows his way around a Starfleet. Not only is the three-time Academy Award nominee Industrial Light & Magic ‘s (ILM) visual effects supervisor, but he also acted as second unit director on both Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness. Guyett’s well-versed in the world of blockbusters, with VFX supervisor credits on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, and 2006’s Mission Impossible III, the start of his collaboration with director J.J. Abrams.
Grossing $467 million worldwide, Star Trek Into Darkness was a massive two year undertaking that involved 1,700 visual effects shots. There were four VFX houses used on the film: Pixmodo Studios, Atomic Fiction, Kelvin Optical and ILM. ILM alone utilized close to four hundred staffers who were tasked with creating the red forest, the Enterprise’s rise from the water, and the Vengeance crashing into San Francisco Bay, among other sequences.
SSN was lucky enough to sit down with Guyett, who took us into warp and behind the visual effects of Star Trek Into Darkness.
SSN: In addition to being visual effects supervisor, you’re also second unit director. Why did you decide to work in both positions?
Guyett: When you’re working as a visual effects supervisor, you work a lot with the second unit director, because they’re photographing the plates that interact directly with the visual effects. I enjoy the process of photography and you learn a lot about that as a visual effects supervisor. On the first Star Trek, I was interested in making that jump to improve my filmmaking skills. I had a lot to learn but J.J. offered me the job of second unit director because there’s so much work involved with visual effects, you’re wearing two hats at the same time.
SSN: What’s it like working alongside director J.J. Abrams?
Guyett: We’ve done three movies now and I have absolute admiration for the man. He is truly inspiring and a lot of fun to work with and an amazingly creative talent. It’s obviously his movie, but he’s a true collaborator, interested in hearing what people have to say and getting the best out of people. It’s a very effective and fulfilling work process. The more we’ve worked together, the more we’ve built up a great working relationship. You tend to have those relationships with people that have similar visions.
We were very aware of the lens flares on the first movie. You can’t do that many lens flares without being aware of it. -Roger Guyett
SSN: What was your favorite visual effects sequence? What sequence did you use the most imagination on?
Guyett: The fun of the movie is going on this fantastic journey with the crew—you’re taking the audience deeper into this Trek world. It was a great opportunity to show how the ship is put together. J.J. likes doing ‘walk and talks,’ so we built more corridors, so you leave the bridge and can travel through the ship. In this movie, you go around the atrium and there’s multi-levels. It does take some imagination to think of these details. In those kinds of shots, the concentration is on the [lead] actor, but in the background you’re showing the audience the lives of the crew, so you can live the experience of the movie.
What was the most challenging visual effects sequence for ILM?
Guyett: The water simulation of the Enterprise coming out of the ocean was very difficult. Guys worked on that for months to try and make it look as naturalistic as possible and choreograph it so you understood the shape of the ship and the way the water fell.
SSN: When the Enterprise goes into warp, it’s quite the immersive 3-D experience. How did the visual effects of warp change from the 2-D Star Trek to the 3-D Star Trek Into Darkness?
Guyett: Paul Kavanagh was the animation supervisor at ILM and he developed this technique for getting the Enterprise into warp. He was doing all these weird dolly zooms and changing the vertical lines but at the same time moving the camera. Parts of the image stay the same size, but other parts distort. It’s like a rubber band, where you pull the rubber band and it snaps and bang!—It’s off into warp. We tried to make those moments as iconic as possible.
SSN: The future is very bright, literally so in the case of the copious use of lens flare. Did you handle the flares any differently this time around?
Guyett: We were very aware of the lens flares on the first movie. You can’t do that many lens flares without being aware of it. It became the visual vocabulary of the movie. But, there were a hell of a lot of lens flares in there. I think we’ve actually created our own genre of film that uses lens flares (laughing). We were more aware of the lens flares on the second movie, because people talked about it. I’m not sure there’s quite as many as the first one, but we didn’t over-think it. [They give] the ship this clean, future sheen and everywhere else it’s grungy and there’s dirt everywhere. In their bubble of Starfleet it’s an optimistic vision of what hopefully life could be like.
SSN: How do you find that balance of keeping with the iconic aspects of Star Trek while putting your own modern spin on it?
Guyett: We fundamentally changed it in the reboot. When you contemporize you have to respect and understand everything that’s happened. If you look at the design of the Enterprise, it’s unmistakable in its general form, but the lines, the weight, and the sleekness are much more contemporary. You respect what fans like about that image, but you have to be bold enough to change it, and believe [that] what you’re doing at any time is evolved in a way that’s just as good or better. If you over-think it, you’re not going to do anything, you’ll have a moment where you’re stuck because it’s too precious. You can’t just noodle it, you have to be bold and take that chance.
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