Creation and On-Set Supervision of
Computer Graphics Displays

DANTE'S PEAK
About Our Work

Multimedia

Our Credits

Resources

About Our Work
Based upon our work on TWISTER, BFTR was asked to create the screens for DANTE'S PEAK. Once again, such displays and hardware would not be mere window dressing --they would literally stand in for the film's immutable and mostly silent antagonist. The pulse of the volcano had to be monitored and revealed through the graphics; the screens were the primary way in which the character of the volcano had to show itself --at least until the big eruption occurs.

One of the main things we needed to do for the show was create graphics to reveal what was happening underground --which is where all the buildup to the eruption was going on. There had to be that tension for the audience, actually seeing the magma level rising and the pressure building --but obviously, the movie couldn't suddenly cut to the actual interior of the mountain to reveal that. By monitoring the vital signs of the volcano --seismometry, gas emissions, etc.-- the way real volcanologists do through these kinds of graphics, the audience would be able to get the full suspense out of the story. People watching the movie saw little wavy lines moving on a monitor and needles rising on a piece of equipment and even though they didn't know exactly what it meant, they knew it meant trouble was coming.

A mandate that had come down from both Roger Donaldson and Gale Anne Hurd was that DANTE'S PEAK remain as fact-based and scientifically sound as possible within the realm of dramatic presentation, and to that end Van and Casey embarked on research excursions to gather information on the subject; this educational process was and is half the fun of doing the graphics.

Van took the excuse to fly out to Hawaii, where he checked out the setup at the Hawaii Volcano Observatory on Mt. Kilauea and walked the still-dangerous lava flows with one of the production's volcanology consultants, Jack Lockwood. Jack was a former member of the U.S. Geological Survey's group of expert volcanologists, and his company, Geohazards Consultants International (GCI), is in the business of checking out volcanic activity around the world and assisting various agencies in the handling eruptions and their consequences. He and his fellow consultants on the film --Norm McLeod and David Harlow of the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington-- were understandably concerned about their professional reputations and the portrayal of the USGS, and had already turned down working on Fox's "Volcano" due to the impossibility of the storyline.

We at BFTR thus had to help be the bridge between the production and the volcanology community, trying to help both the filmmakers and the real scientists feel comfortable with working together on the film. Sometimes, a film production company may hire a token consultant only to be able to say that they had a technical expert on the film, but not listen to what they say; other times, a consultant can piss off a production simply because in the interest of scientific accuracy they fail to think narratively. In either case, everybody loses, especially the film itself.

Fortunately, director Roger Donaldson was an amateur geologist and really hit it off with Jack, Norm and David, and the trio were story-savvy enough to help us all find the most dramatic way to get the scenes across and still make scientific sense. For instance, Jack suggested the manner in which Pierce Brosnan's character demonstrates the functioning of the seismometer by stamping on the ground, and Roger had the scene rewritten to incorporate the action.

For our part, we at BFTR tried to insure that all of our research was incorporated into the graphics, so that hopefully any volcanologist who went to see the film could not only say that the film got it right, but would say, "man, I wish we had that software!" In fact, Carl Johnson, another Hawaii-based volcanologist and programmer who walked to lava flows with us, wrote a seismic wave generator for us to use in our graphics in exchange for his being able to use our interface designs as a basis for some real software!

Casey and Van traveled up to Vancouver, Washington, to check out the CVO, and then went on a field trip through the Cascades with Jack and Norm, ending our trip in Wallace, Idaho, where the film was shooting its location work. There, we helped introduce the pair to the production. On the basis of these meetings and our research together, Jack and Norm were able to secure official USGS endorsement for the film.

Upon our return to Los Angeles, we started designing and building graphics. Van designed the screens while tech supervisor Josh Kirschenbaum animated elements, with digital artist Allen Manning creating a series of 3D elements for the displays. Meanwhile, on-set supervisor Glenn Cannon and coordinator Gail Wise set up shop and wrangled our computer equipment on location to do the playback on set, and BFTR editorial supervisor Lauryl Duplechan prepared video elements for playback in the non-computer-related scenes.

One of the key gags in the script was the use of a walking machine called "SpiderLegs," which was based upon a real device called Dante II which was used to walk into a volcano in Alaska. Not only did we have to design screens to show the characters remotely operating SpiderLegs, we had to display the feeds from its video cameras on the computer as well. Most of the video footage as seen from SpiderLegs' POV was shot separately from the rest of the scenes, but from the actual lipstick camera mounted on the motorized walking prop built by floor effects supervisor Roy Arbogast and his team.

In one instance, the selected video take was shot simultaneously with the live action where the characters are all standing around the device as they put it through its paces, and we had to paint out the lights and flags and crew members visible in the shot before we could incorporate it into our graphics!

One other noteworthy item on the show was the use of Sprint's DRUMS technology that allowed BFTR, Digital Domain and Universal Studios to videolink directly with the production on location. This not only proved to be a useful way for Roger to talk with the folks at DD who were working on the visual effects, but it also allowed us to incorporate the technology into the story via the graphics, since the idea was that the film's field observatory in the Clusters Motel room was linked to the big Cascades observatory.


Multimedia

Some of our work as it appears in DANTE'S PEAK

Screen Shots

Gas Emissions

Spectometer Analysis

Seisnet Analysis

Seismodel Analysis

Quicktime Movies

A montage of our work as seen in DANTE'S PEAK (Quicktime, 1.1MB, no audio)

The theatrical trailer for DANTE'S PEAK (Quicktime, 6.2MB)

DANTE'S PEAK ©1997 Universal Pictures


Our Credits

DANTE'S PEAK
Screen Graphics and On Set Supervision by
BANNED FROM THE RANCH ENTERTAINMENT

Computer Graphics Supervisor
VAN LING

Computer Graphics Producer
CASEY CANNON

Technical Supervisor
JOSH KIRSCHENBAUM

On-Set Technician
GLENN CANNON

Digital Artist
ALLEN MANNING

Coordinator
GAIL WISE

Flatpanel Display Consultant
DAN EVANICKY

Video Editor
LAURYL DUPLECHAN

Volcanology Consultants
JACK LOCKWOOD
NORM McLEOD
DAVID HARLOW
CARL JOHNSON


Special Thanks to:
Cyrus Smith, Matt Hoffman, Jay Roth, Wes Rubinstein, John Lima, Hitoshi Inoue


Resources


Banned From The Ranch Entertainment Home Page
General Information: info@bftr.com