By Jenny Halper in Vancouver, B.C.

Kurt Williams’ office is small and spare- despite numerous “Fantastic Four” sketches on the wall, it’s hardly the room you’d expect some of the most difficult special effects in movie history to be churned out of. Nevertheless Williams, whose numerous credits include “The X-Files” and “Batman Forever,” is currently creating spectacular effects for “The Fantastic Four.” He took time to tell us how.

Q: How do you begin working on a film like this?

Kurt: The first thing is that it starts with is the Marvel characters. And when I go on a movie, the most important thing I had to do was give the director, Tim, a tool set to build his characters in the movie. Despite all the technology hurdles to be overcome, I needed to give him a skill set with each character to be developed throughout the movie, relate to the characters emotions and things like that, that allow us to develop the character from the first time they’re hit with the cosmic rays, all the way to the end of the movie, as they become the fantastic four, as they develop and refine their powers. Obviously the very first thing we did was go back to the comic book. And our job was to find images in the comic book that could translate to a live action, photo real movie. And so we went to great lengths to find all of the marvel work, to come up with the types of images they wanted to see as these characters developed. So we’ll be looking to this book as reference until the last day that we’re finishing the shots. The difference is, some of the marvel comic poses, and some of the action required in the comic book, don’t translate well to a live action movie.

Q: For instance?

Kurt: One of the things we think about every time we work on a shot is is that character organic and does it have attributes from our world, that have a true physics to them. For instance, with Mr. Fantastic when he stretches, we always felt that he needed to have a very organic feel and that includes a musculature and an animatronics feel that applies to humans. A lot of times in the books, especially with fantastic, his stretching is very tubular in nature. And one of the things that will help translate from the comic book to the movie is to create a weight and physics that apply in this world. When he reaches out, for that action there has to be a reaction. If Mr. Fantastic stretches, we’ll never leave him- if a human had his arm stretched twenty feet, he wouldn’t be able to stand there as if his arm didn’t have any weight. When he stretches out, it snaps back. And I’ll show you some initial testing we did, when we were building the CG rigs, that are going to allow us to have a true musculature and skeleton- all of those things that make him organic.

Q: How are you creating Torch?

Kurt: With regard to Torch, Johnny’s one of the most challenging characters that I’ve ever done, and most certainly in movies- we have to bring a flaming man onto the screen, that doesn’t look animated, he has to feel like he’s really on fire. And in order to do that we’ve had to create different stages of his development. At the beginning of the movie, he snaps his fingers and flame shoots up. It starts very small. And that’s going to feel like a real, actual flame element that doesn’t actually take over his body. Later on, as his skills become more refined, he has to actually create heat and the flame has to come off his body as a result. So we’ve been creating layers- we’ve got about six or seven layers that we can put into any one shot depending upon the context and how much heat he’s getting. When he goes supernova it’s going to be very white hot, what happens is, the heat will come off his hands for instance, and like a solar flare off of the sun, as it bounces of the hot surface, in the case of Johnny that heat will be exposed to oxygen and will create flame just out from the surface of his hand for instance. And you can see some muscle striation in those photos as well. One of the things that was important to Tim and I, as we started developing these characters, always have the performance of these characters, we really don’t go to a completely animated character. Tim wanted all the performers on the set, with the other actors. And so we set out to do that- it was a little more work on our part, but I think it creates a more organic feel. You don’t feel like you’re jumping off into animation- it’s going to flow very well. As an audience member, you’re not going to really know what the animated parts are, and what the real performances are. For instance, with Johnny, every time he starts to torch up we’re bringing Chris Evans’ performance back through the effects, so we always have the real actor in the shot, and the real movement. And there’s lots of reasons for that. One is, we’ll have a more organic feel. It’ll feel more of this world, as opposed to some of the images you find in the comic books. The second thing is, and this is the practical part of the effects business; we have a very short post schedule, and we have a lot of work to do before next May. So the more performance we can capture, the better off we are. And I think we’ll provide more shots, and a higher level of shots. With regard to Sue, we don’t have a lot of references yet

Q: She’s invisible!!!

Kurt: Once again, very important, especially with Jessica’s performance, is to capture that performance on the set with the other actors. So what we’re going to do is put a CG character over her performance, but it will be her performance in the film. And it’s really important to me, that we don’t jump into an animated character that may not have the weight, feel, or reaction of Jessica’s performance. And another thing with Jessica- she will never- whenever she turns invisible, the audience is going to know where she’s at. There’s going to be some- some of the images of her will be very subtle, but it’s important to us that we still see Jessica’s performance. She’s a character with powers that rely on her emotions. And that’s one of the guiding forces behind the Sue character. Sometimes she’s better at being invisible, and one of the issues with her character is that she has to control her emotions in order to manage her powers, and that’s what she learns in this movie. And we have to prove that to the audience. When she gets mad, she disappears. She’s not so good at it at first. And she’ll come out of it a bit, we’ll see a little more of Jessica, and then she’ll disappear again. So she’s a very emotionally driven character in the movie. They all are, in a way. Johnny is as well, but for different reasons- he’s kind of the hot dog of the group. He’s one of these people that exists on the excitement of extreme sports, and that’s a thread that we have in his character throughout the whole movie.

Q: And Doom?

Kurt: With regard to Doom- Doom is a character we’re dealing mostly practically with, in the movie, with regard to prosthetics. Until it comes to the point where he has his electrical based power or energy blasts towards the end of the movie. When he fully escalates into full Doom, he has this power that he sort of controls the energy in the room and the electricity, so there’s a lot of scenes where he drains the energy in the room and the lights come down. At the end, That power is sort of his own doing, at the end of the movie. He grows just like the other characters do. One of the events of the movie that’s kind of important is that he’s a big threat in the movie to the fantastic four. And he’s got a lot of power that really threatens them as well as the public in New York. So we’re treating him with an electrical field, we’ll generate some light sources that come from under his skin, that gives a topical electrical effect with him, it makes it organic, it’s coming from inside him. Just like the flame is coming from inside Johnny, and just like Sue becomes invisible from the inside out. What that is is a common thread- how they were affected from the cosmic rays. And you can see just a start of that over there on the wall- the hand, for doom. That’s a grey model there, and we’re just starting to get that effect, and the light that it generates in and around. But again, all these things go back to storytelling and a tool set.

Q: Are you working on the Thing?

Kurt: Thing is a character that we’re creating predominantly through prosthetic and suit that Michael Chiklis wears. We’re going to contribute to Thing’s performance, primarily in the reaction of the environment to his weight. For instance, if he brushes past a wall, we’re going to add some bricks falling off, for instance. If he jumps down onto the pavement, we’re going to sink him into the pavement. So for Ben, it’s more about integration, and there’s a scene where he goes out a window and falls in New York City. We’re creating a CG thing, a stunt thing for that, just because we can’t get people in CG wires to do that performance. That’s what we’re doing with Ben.

Q: A lot of onscreen fire looks fake. What have you seen, and what can be improved?

Kurt: There’s not a lot of “man on fire” references out there- that’s very impressive right now- and that’s part of the reason we’re very nervous about this work. But at the same time we’re creating him in such a way- we’re using real fire elements, and that’s important. Once again, we have to create this effect with him we’re he’s photo real, he’s got to generate fire from within his body, so you’re going to see the skin on his body change as he’s generating that fire. And that’s going to create an organic feel that will make the audience believe that he’s really on fire. The other thing that we’re very cognizant of, and we’re going to be dealing with in this movie, is that a lot of time, a great deal takes place in exterior. And doing day exterior fire is really hard because you don’t see people. And a lot of times, the mistake that people make is that they don’t stay true to the actual environment. They make the fire a little more saturated than it actually would be, if we were shooting flames. We’ve gone to great lengths to stay true to what actual fire would look like if we were shooting in those scenarios. For instance, if you look at the shot of him falling off the mountain there, it’s about integrating- you’re going to have to blow out the fire a lot more than you would, in a lot of cases, because that’s the way it would be during the day.

Q: Do you explain why his hair doesn’t singe or the uniform?

Kurt: Yeah.

Q: Are you going to have stunt guys in flaming fire suits?

Kurt: No, we’re not. That goes back to this gentleman’s question, that this was an issue we decided to put all of our effort into and a lot of times when you go with a hybrid approach, where you’ve got partially real men on fire and then you try and match that to CG or simulated fire which is what we’re using. We’re using sims for him. Then oftentimes that crossover calls attention to itself. It was important to us that we stay with one philosophy on all the characters. That’s why we left Doom primarily to prosthetics with the exception of his electrical bolts. That’s why we left Thing predominantly with the suit and we did that on purpose because integrating these effects oftentimes it will feel different, it will look different. One of the things that we learned from looking at a lot of man on fire stuff for instance is that the crossover from life fire to CG fire doesn’t always work all that well. So we’re going to take one approach and we’re going to make you believe it. And we’re creating enough layers of this heat signature, muscle striation. There will be several sublayers of flame that when mixed together, they’re all based on real flame elements for one thing. And once you mix that together, then you will get a very realistic feel.

Q: Are there any other aspects you need to worry about?

Kurt: The other thing that we’re going to great lengths to do is to have the interactive lighting on the set actually reflect what really needs to happen if you have a real flaming guy there for instance. So we’re working really hard at that. A lot of times, people don’t take the time to do that. So part of compositing Torch into a shot for instance is making sure that there’s interactive lighting on the walls and ceiling and other actors to sell it. And what interactive lighting we don’t do on the set, we’ll have to create in post.

Q: Are there any classic invisible effects you can still use?

Kurt: Yeah. The problem with the older invisibility work as we’ve studied the whole evolution of that is that in this movie, we still want to see Sue’s performance as much as possible. So our feeling is to keep her in the shots and have people be able to relate to her emotion and acting. And a lot of times in the older movies, there was just no one there. So it was hard to relate to two actors. We’re going once again to great lengths to make sure that she’s in the scene with them and you’re going to see part of her in it. She might be a little rim lit. One of the things that we are taking, which is from early versions of not only artwork but from movies is kind of a rim lit approach to her, where you can kind of see her, can read her facial expressions, and you know where she’s at. You can see the outline of her body. But it’s very subtle in the scene. And we looked at a lot of work from obviously “Hollow Man” to “Predator” and we’re trying to come up with our own organic feeling effect that will stand out a little bit. Not for the sake of standing out, but to service her character, and so she’s got to look- Jessica’s an interesting character because as an actress, we want to see Jessica in there. There are some scenes where she’s going to be invisible and she looks just beautiful. It’ll be great. So yeah, we are referencing older movies and some of the more recent work that has been great, but we’re trying to apply it to our character into our movie. She’ll have her own set of rules that we go by when she’s disappearing.

Q: And her force field?

Kurt: I think the force field is one of the hardest things we have to do in the movie because when you go back to the original Marvel work, the force field takes on all kinds of surface textures. In some cases it can look like kind of a heart shape. Almost like glass in some cases, especially in the more recent work. She can build glass boxes and enclosures with it and it can be broken. And in our case, it’s going to be sort of a hybrid between that and a bit of a membrane or liquidy feel to it. And one of the things that’s really hard is to separate her from, for instance, the Jean Grey type stances and some of the other Marvel characters, is Sue really, not only is her invisibility driven by her emotions, so it kind of the force field. And in this movie, it begins as a very defensive thing in her character where she generates a force field as she has to sort of defend herself or the other Fantastic Four. And towards the end of the movie, she gets to where she can really generate it and use it more offensively. So that’s an important evolution of her character. As a result, technically we have to, in the early stages of the force field, it probably won’t be as well refined, just like all her powers. And in the latter part of the movie, it’s going to be a little more refined, a little more accurate so to speak, and it’s going to be a neat look. We’ve got some good tests with it and it interacts with flame in some cases in the movie and it looks pretty cool.

Q: Is there anything in nature for the musculature and skeletal structure of Fantastic?

Kurt: In a way we tried to do that. We tried to look at that, and it really is a reach no matter how you look at it, so to speak. It’s something that in order for us to create this organic feel to it that we’ve had to really look at- we kind of had to make it up in a way. We kind of started from scratch. We kind of cleared our head of it and decided that how do you make his muscles and the texture of his skin regenerate, for instance, as he reaches out. And I’ll show you a test of that.

(Kurt shows us an early stages stretch test on his computer).

Kurt: This is just a very rough test. It’s not even with Ioan. But for instance, just him throwing his hand. One thing that was really important to us is that it has real physics. It feels like he’s throwing it and you can see the sinewy texture in the muscle. And even we have to stay responsible to part of his skeletal structure as well. The reason you don’t see it in nature is because if it is in nature, oftentimes it’s just a muscle or a tissue stretching. We have to stretch his skeletal structure as well. So technically, we have to come up with a program that as he stretches regenerates his skin surface, stretches his muscles and also stay somewhat responsible to his joints. And that’s why it’s something that I think is sort of unique. So for instance, when he reaches out like this, if he’s not holding onto something, his arm’s going to come back to him. Or he’s got to position his body, we’ve been working with Ioan on his body position, where he really has to for instance, this guy’s leaning too forward. We wouldn’t do this in the movie. We wouldn’t keep his arm out there unless he were pulling back. As he throws it and it stretches, there’s weight. So he has to counter that weight. And that’s the sense that we’re staying true to some set of physics. It’s not always ours exactly, but it is a set of physics.

Q: What about the picture on the wall, writing on the blackboard?

Kurt: We still have to solve that problem. This is one of the shots for instance that we may have to have his elbow resting on something. And that’s a scene for instance that’s kind of a reveal. One of the things that we probably never do is just shoot- - it’s important, especially with stretch, that oftentimes he’s either coming at camera or going away from camera, and we’re designing our shots around that. That will keep us out of the trouble of we don’t want to take people out of the movie with his action. We’ve got to keep people in the movie and to believe that he’s really in the scene.

Q: Does he have the power to expand like in the comics?

Kurt: Yes, we are. Especially in the Third Act, because he’s getting better at it. When he first starts this, he can’t stretch that far, and he doesn’t really know what his powers are. And the first couple times he stretches, it really hurts him, as you can imagine it would. And there are some shots in the movie where we’re going to try it where when we stretch him, it kind of pops into place. It’s not always just real rubbery and it doesn’t always just spring out automatically. He’s really got to work at it. And yes, in the latter part of the movie, we are allowing him to turn his body into a couple of things. But you’ll see that later.

(Kurt replays the test).

Kurt: Although it’s a simple test, it does tell us how we have to stretch his suit and things like that. In the early part of the movie, he’s not wearing a suit yet. So that’s creating skin shaders. So we’ve got to get his skin right, and we have to stay responsible to the same physics in those shots as well.

Q: Does a program do the stretch or is it animated?

Kurt: It is a program, or it’s a use of a program. And some of it will be animated, but the idea is that once we get the animation, we have shaders and textures that follow along with that animation and create the effect we need. And we don’t have the time in this movie to hand animate every shot. We have to be able to, for instance with Torch, he’s a real render heavy character as you might imagine. So we have to do what you call sims or simulations that stack upon one another and don’t tax the rendering problem so much. Same thing with this guy. We’re also using technologies like XSI and HDRI technology on the set that allows them to light these characters quickly and actually emulate the light on the set which is the difference between animation looking photoreal and not photoreal.

Q: Is there a sound when Johnny’s flaming and Reed’s stretching?

Kurt: There will be. We haven’t gotten into sound design, but that’s a big part of it. It’s actually a big part of all the characters. Yes, as you might imagine, a giant blowtorch would have quite a bit of sound effects attached to him as well. And in some cases, we even hear the sound effect before we see him torch. So it’s a cue that as storytellers, we can tell. It might get us out of a couple of shots too.

Q: And in terms of stretching?

Kurt: To some extent, a lot of the scenes that he’s in, there’s one or two scenes where you’re going to hear it and you’re going to feel it and there’s a couple of stretching and cracking noises that are probably going to apply to him. But it’s going to make the audience feel for him, because if you can’t relate to the character, then we’re in trouble.

Q: Are you working with any other companies?

Kurt: Giant Killer Robots is completing the effect of the Human Torch. This is a test we did a few months ago and, basically, it’s not even an optimum, this was a still shot of a building. So we’ve created all the light with CG, All the simulations are CG, and this is prior to shooting all of our flame elements. So this is a 100 percent CG version of him, and it’s not where we want him to be, but it’s getting there. And especially with Johnny’s performance and our real flame effects, I think you are going to feel like he’s really in the scene. But what you see is, and we’re still dialing in how much flame comes off him in various shots… We want to see, especially when he’s in his suit, we want to see his musculature, we’re gonna be kissing through the suit itself. That will be a later that we put back in. This is actually from a scene that was omitted from the movie, but it gave us a great testing bed for it. A lot of, in terms of integrating him into a scene, it’s gonna include a good use of heat signature, once again interactive lighting is vital to making him look like he’s actually there, because we have to make this audience believe it and least relate to it.

Q: Will he be throwing fire balls?

Kut: Yes he will, and those are great. That’s gonna be fun.

Q: He does generate effects outside of himself?

Kurt: He does. We’ve got the fireball started. It’s still early yet, folks. This is once again, a test. We put him in a background so it doesn’t look very well integrated at the moment. We’re trying to figure out, ‘How does he generate it and does it set off his hand a little bit?’ You know what I mean, there’s a little bit of… So, once again, it’s all back to the same thing, that he’s generating the heat. It’s not something that’s topical, but it’s actually generated by him. That’s once again one of our big…

Q: Did you reference a lot to Pyro in X2?

Kurt: Yeah, we did. The work in X2, you know, it was very well done, and we constantly reference it. Our character’s a little bit different, though, in the way that he generates his flame. Yeah, his entire body. Anyway, just a couple of sneek peek tests. Once again, these are tests and they’re not… So, what else?

Q: What about the cosmic ray effects, the space ship stuff?

Kurt: Still in development. Tim and I have talked about it. It’s a pivotal event and it happens in the beginning of the movie. It’s going to be a unique look on having our actors disassembled and reassembled very quickly, because it’s a story point and the thread goes all the way from the beginning of the story to the end. That their DNA is realigned and that’s how they get their powers and that’s how the cosmic ray has affected them. Each of the characters has a bit of a common thread in that sense which part of the whole Fantastic Four, you know, the set up of the Fantastic Four as well. So that happens in the space station in the movie.

Q: So it’s in a space station, not a ship?

Kurt: It is.

Q: In regards to Doom, is his actual body changing to metal or is it a suit?

Kurt: It’s a little bit of both. At the end, our full Doom will be predominantly prosthetic though. But you’ll see enough of the transition that you’ll understand how it’s happening.

Q: What are we going to see under the mask?

Kurt: I don’t know. We’ll see.

Q: The film’s been in development for a long time. Are you doing things now that you couldn’t have done five years ago?

Kurt: It wouldn’t have been the same movie five years ago. We’re able now to go places with Johnny and stretch with all the characters literally that we couldn’t have gone to five years ago. That’s what makes now a better time for the movie. You’ll be able to see more Johnny in this movie than you would have five years ago by a long shot. And it’s how you use these characters in your movie and how the audience relates to them, going back to the tool set that we give Tim, and it’s a better tool set as a result, he’s got more, he’s got the ability to craft his characters better than he or anybody else would have five years ago.

Q: Have you seen the 90’s version of “Fantastic Four”?

Kurt: Yeah. No comment.

Q: That movie has a scene where they all turn into their superhero selves at once. Does this movie have a scene like that?

Kurt: Well, you won’t be disappointed by that.

Q: The powers they each get, is it random or is it determined by something?

Kurt: No especially, it just effects them differently, but they were all affected by the same cosmic ray cloud.

Q: How many total effect shots?

Kurt: (Laughs) 800-1000.

Q: Will you replace that scene that got deleted or is it just gone?

Kurt: Which scene?

Q: You said you cut the scene you just showed.

Kurt: No, it’s been replaced by something similar.

Q: Are you guys sending out these special effects, what companies are doing it?

Kurt: Yeah, we’re spread across five companies right now. It was a movie that, given the time frame and so forth, I felt like we needed to bring in vendors that could specialize in each character, so there’s a vendor per character. And, based on editorial changes and so forth, we will be able to create a lot of work quickly, that was part of the scheduling aspect and the practical aspect of creating these shots. By the way, that’s Peter Oberdorfer, he’s the visual effects supervisor from Giant Killer Robots creating the Torch. And also consulting with me on other characters in the movie.

Q: Could you mention additional effects groups that are working with you?

Kurt: We’ve got Giant Killer Robot out of San Francisco, who are doing the lion’s share, they’re doing the torch and the ending sequence. Soho out of Toronto is in charge of the stretch. Stan Winston digital is doing the Invisible Woman and Giant Killer Robots is also doing the Doom effect, because it’s so integral to the third act of the movie.

Q: How about sound?

Kirby: I’m not sure yet on sound design.

Q: Your binder contains contemporary FF images. Are there any of the original Jack Kirby designs in here?

Kurt: There’s a lot of Jack Kirby in the movie and that’s one the things that we have to keep looking back at. As I’ve done these types of films, the one thing that I’ve always realized is that you always have to have a base book that you go back to, and it’s surprising how you’re constantly, even when shots are coming in from the vendors, you gotta go back to the original material. And we do have some older stuff in here, and there is some Jack Kirby design in the movie from the art department. But once again, you have to put in just enough to call back to that, but it still has to translate to a modern day movie.

Q: Is Kirby’s exuberant design too much for the film?

Kurt: Not all of it translates to a movie like this. You have to be very prudent in what parts of that (comic) you use. But the ideas translate, and you can sort of get to the point where the audience believes it, but they don’t have to see the whole thing, you know what I mean? You’re going to feel like he’s doing some of this stuff, but it’s not always overtly right in front of the camera. Like I say, it’s how you shoot it. I think you’ll believe in their powers when we’re done. Those are powers that have been generated from the Jack Kirby days, because even the more modern Fantastic Four comics still go back to Jack Kirby.

Q: Will you see “Incredibles” and avoid things they’ve done?

Kurt: I’m planning on seeing“The Incredibles.” We’re a very different movie. “The Incredibles,” as a result of being an animated movie, takes liberties with the physics and with their characters that we would never take, not for a movie like this, because we’re more grounded than that movie, just by virtue of what the movie is, so it’s really hard to compare the two, I think.

Q: Though even the X-Men seem to be more in line with reality-

Kurt: Yeah, tell me about it. (Laughs) That’s why I thought long and hard before I came in on this movie, because it really is one of the more challenging Marvel Comics to date I would say. It’s not that you have two characters, but in this movie we’ve got five characters that we have bring off the Marvel page and into a live action film and try and make people believe it, so it’s a pretty daunting task.

Stay tuned for Part 4 from our set visit to "Fantastic Four"!