Through the use of innovative CG animation, Brad Pitt was convincingly de-aged in Benjamin Button, Michael Douglas in Ant-Man, and Samuel L. Jackson in Captain Marvel. Now, in Ang Lee’s futuristic action-thriller, Gemini Man, it’s Will Smith’s turn; the 50-year-old actor plays assassin Henry Brogan and his 23-year-old clone, Jackson (aka Junior), himself an assassin sent to kill his older self.
The talented artists behind Smith’s convincing digital performance work at Weta Digital in New Zealand.
As head of the studio’s facial motion department, Stuart Adcock was responsible for building an authentic, convincing, photorealistic younger version of Smith. While Adcock and his team worked to de-age Smith back to his Bad Boys / Fresh Prince of Bel Air days, the current, 50-year-old Smith, under Lee’s direction, put on the head camera and performance/motion capture suit and acted out his younger self to deliver the much needed data. Not only did the Weta team have to deliver a convincing performance, they also had to deal with Lee’s high frame rate / 120 frames per second filming, which presented an entirely set of challenges in dealing with a digital human face.
Read the full article on AWN.