3Home          Navigation Browse Other Pages Home --------------- --- King Kong Movie Profile --- Full Production Notes --- Cast & Crew Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow Jack Black as Carl Denham Adrien Brody as Jack Driscoll Andy Serkis as King Kong Other Cast Members Director: Peter Jackson Screenwriter: Fran Walsh Screenwriter: Philippa Boyens Other Crew Members --- Interviews & Articles The Story of Production Diaries Gorilla Filmmaking Naomi Watts talks about King Kong days Peter Jackson Q & A Andy Serkis talks about King Kong Naomi Watts: This is like a relationship movie Naomi Watts: I'm not a princess all the way First Look at Kong: Capturing Kong --- Picture Galleries --- King Kong Fan Club --- King Kong Depp Poster Store --- Americana Posters
4 King Kong Visual Effects
The big ape was the big challenge for John Letteri, visual effects supervisor on King Kong. In Peter Jackson's new version of the story for Universal, Kong is "an animal we have to read as an animal", says Letteri, "but we also have to understand what he's thinking and feeling in his relationships to the other characters. That's been the toughest challenge - to walk the line between making him look believable as an animal and conveying a character that can perform and that you can connect with." To create the all-CG Kong, Letteri, who won Oscars for his effects work on the second and third instalments of Jackson's The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, drew on his experience with the trilogy's digital character, Gollum. Letteri and his team at Jackson's Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand, began - as they did for the Rings character - by doing bodily motion-capture work with Andy Serkis, the actor who modelled for, and was the voice of, Gollum. This time the team experimented with facial-motion capture, using Serkis' expressions as a basis for Kong's. The motion-capture system, Letteri explains, was "taught to 'read' Andy's expressions. Then we created a corresponding set of expressions for Kong. The system would read anger or fear or even melancholy - any beat Andy was playing would be interpreted for Kong. We call it 'gorillification'". Screen International