We all know Paul Walker tragically died halfway through the filming of Furious 7, delaying the film until this April as the studio and filmmakers figured out how to finish Paul Walker’s unfilmed scenes. We had previously learned that Walker’s two brothers were going to step in and help out, but we didn’t really know how.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the technique that was used was fairly similar to the effect used to create skinny Steve Rogers in both Captain America movies. The effects company in charge of recreating Paul Walker was one of the best in the industry, Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital.
Basically, director James Wan and Weta used Paul’s brothers Cody and Caleb Walker as stunt doubles and stand-ins. Then, they went back and mined footage from earlier Paul Walker films. This is where Universal and Weta declined to comment further on what they did, but THR went to Robin Shenfield, CEO of visual effects studio The Mill, who went through a similar process when Oliver Reed died during the filming of Gladiator, to explain how it all works.
Weta would have essentially used the footage of Paul Walker to create a digital mask that they could place on top of Cody and Caleb’s bodies, transforming the faces of Walker’s brothers into Walker himself. If they want, they can even go in and adjust facial movements for whatever they need, like the movement of lips for dialogue. There’s no word on whether they used Walker’s voice to string together lines of dialogue for the movie, but it’s more likely that they farmed out specific lines to other characters if there were unrecorded lines for Walker’s character that were needed for plot or humor.
The process used to be fairly limited, but as time and technology have marched on it’s become even more robust. The composites can be used to create an entire actor digitally, like CG Bruce Lee in a Johnnie Walker ad. Or CG Bruce Lee in Ip Man 3.
It gets even creepier. THR says that some movies have started capturing 3D scans of actors when production begins, largely to create CG stunt doubles for complex action sequences. This was done on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and you can probably point it out when you watch Cap take on that plane when he’s escaping SHIELD HQ in the film. However, visual effects supervisor Scott Squires tells The Hollywood Reporter that he’s heard of some studios scanning actors for archival needs.
What in the world could archival needs be? I can understand if they’re afraid an actor will die during filming, because these huge, long-term contracts for franchises are starting to be the norm for a lot of actors and you want a back-up plan just in case something terrible happens. I just hope there’s nothing icky on their minds, like trotting out dead actors to star in a future movie or trotting them out to sell the home video remaster of a classic film. [THR]