The original “Ringu,” directed by Hideo Nakata, steered away from visual effects and what people in the horror biz like to call “jump scares.” The 2002 version, directed by Gore Verbenski, relied more on visual FX and CGI than its predecessor, but was still largely subliminal with darkly symbolic and sinister flashed images.

After speaking with visual effects supervisor for the film, Betsy Paterson of Rhythm & Hues, it’s apparent that Director Nakata has created a world in “The Ring Two” where the horror might not necessarily have the audience leaping from its seat, but will astonish, linger and haunt long after the theater lights go up. “It was very important to Hideo that the effects feel as naturalistic as possible. He didn’t want this to feel like a sci-fi movie. Everything we created had to feel like it was truly part of the Ring universe.”

Because of the specific nature of the effects in “The Ring Two,” Paterson, who has done a great deal of CG character work as well as “invisible effects” in the past, feels that her particular experience was a great fit for what she had to do while supervising effects on the film. “I was excited about doing one type of effect that I haven’t before—the anti-gravity water scene. Working out Rhythm & Hues gives me access to a lot of programmers and digital artists who were already doing research and development on this type of water animation.”

According to Paterson, the anti-gravity water scene actually ended up running very smoothly. The shots added late in the production were the ones that proved challenging—both technically and in the design. These difficulties surfaced in one scene when the vengeful Samara character has to become a CG water version of herself, and in another when Paterson and the other visual FX specialists had to create long, animated CG hair flowing from the mouth of the Aidan character, played by David Dorfman. “Since the shots were a late addition,” explained Paterson, “they were not fully designed before we began shooting. We needed to shoot plates that would allow us the flexibility in post. This led to motion control and greenscreen on set. We also did a 3D scan of the stunt woman playing Samara.”

Creating realistic animated or computer generated fur and hair has always been notoriously difficult for visual effects specialists, and work on Samara’s hair in “The Ring Two” was no exception. Paterson tells us that, “the hair turned out to be the trickiest part. We had to find the right balance between physical dynamics and hand animation. We ended up enhancing our in-house fur/hair program a great deal to add more control for the animators.” As far as the specific ways in which the final amazing results were achieved, Paterson understandably keeps those details close to her chest. She did let us know that the Rhythm & Hues in-house animation/lighting package is Voodoo while rendering is completed using Wren and compositing with Icy.

One scene that Ring enthusiasts in chat rooms all over the W eb are speculating about is a terrifying sequence involving deer. “Keith Roberts, the animation director, and I had many discussions with Hideo about the animation of the deer in particular. These deer had to do things that real deer would never do, yet at the same time, always behave like real animals.”

No matter what the effect, Paterson stresses that the most important job a visual effects supervisor has is being able to walk in sync with the director’s vision. To achieve this can sometimes involve some detective work. “I tried to give him [Nakata] as many options as possible so that I could learn from the choices he made in order to make sure that we were on the same page every step of the way.”

www.rhythm.com

www.thering2-themovie.com

 


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