When tapped to do this interview, I had not yet seen the movie Mousehunt. My first move, then, was to load my third grader in the car and head for a movie theater. Fortunately, Mousehunt was still playing in our town. We settled into our seats near the front of the theater with a big bucket of popcorn and proceeded to laugh for the next hour and a half or so. I couldn't say who enjoyed the movie more, my daughter or myself.
© 1998 DreamWorks SKGMousehunt is a darkly hilarious romp featuring two bumbling brothers and one delightfully destructive mouse. It was written by Adam Rifkin and directed by Gore Verbinski. It is the first family movie to come from Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks.
The movie stars Nathan Lane and Lee Evans as a pair of Laurel and Hardyesque brothers who are doing battle with a mouse for possession of a house they have inherited from their father, the founder of a string factory. Nathan Lane is excellent, as always and Lee Evans is wonderful, and there is a great cameo by Christopher Walken as an exterminator. But the real star of the show is the mouse.
I was fortunate enough to speak with Mary Lynn Machado about Mousehunt. Mary Lynn was the CG Supervisor on this movie for Rhythm & Hues, which provided the computer animation and effects for the film. They are one of the oldest and most respected studios in a very young business. For eleven years they have extended the limits of visual imagery that can be created on a computer. Their greatest strength has been their ability to create digital characters that seem truly alive.
VMM: Hello, Mary Lynn and thank you for talking to us. The movie was great. What portions of Mousehunt was Rhythm & Hues responsible for?
Mary Lynn: Thank you. Rhythm & Hues created many of the scenes with the mouse. We also did a lot of the shots involving the cat, Catzilla, that is brought in to deal with the mouse problem. You might also remember the shots involving cherries. Some of those were ours. We also provided some FX shots; snow, smoke, that sort of thing. Our primary responsibility, though, were the CG shots of the mouse.
VMM: The integration of the CG shots and animatronics with the live mouse were fantastic. It was very hard to tell when the mouse was real and when he was digital. Approximately what percentage of the scenes involving the mouse were CG?
© 1998 DreamWorks SKG
Mary Lynn: Thank you. As you know that is the biggest challenge in a project like this. Everyone knows what a mouse looks like and if you don't get it right, they won't accept it. Most of the mouse scenes were actually a live-action mouse. Of those that did not involve a real mouse, more were CG than animatronic, but overall I would say that it was less than 15%. That 15%, though, involved the shots that you simply could not get any other way, so they were very important.VMM: Give me an example.
Mary Lynn: You may recall the scene behind the baseboards, when the mouse is nearly skewered by a large nail. The shot where the first nail comes exploding through the wall and nearly hits the mouse, is totally CG. Subsequent shots, where the mouse is trapped and surrounded by the nails were done with an animatronic puppet.VMM: What about the other scenes behind the baseboard. Those were great. Were they digital?
Mary Lynn: Actually, the baseboard sets were real. We just added in the CG mouse at certain points, at other times it was a real mouse. We also added elements like dust and the nails.VMM: What kind of hardware were you using?
Mary Lynn: We used Silicon Graphics machines exclusively.VMM: What about the software? Was it all proprietary, or did you use any off-the-shelf programs, such as Lightwave or 3D Studio Max?
Mary Lynn: The modeling, animating and rendering was all performed with proprietary software that we have designed in-house. We did use Inferno, somewhat, at the very end when we were putting everything together.VMM: I imagine you have an entire staff of programmers there to design the software you need.
Mary Lynn: Yes we do.VMM: How many total CG shots did you create for the film?
Mary Lynn: Thirty five.VMM: How long did it take to create them?
Mary Lynn: It took a year and a half to complete all of the shots. That includes six months of R&D work on the mouse, figuring out how to make it look just right.VMM: What was the greatest challenge for R&H, technically speaking?
Mary Lynn: Matching the CG mouse to the live mouse was undoubtedly our biggest challenge. We had to find ways to match our animation to the movements of real mice. There is a lot of secondary animation that you don't notice at first glance, that has to be right; whiskers, ears etc. We also had to match the lighting on our CG mouse to the scenes where he would be integrated. That is always a challenge.VMM: Did you develop any new processes specifically for this movie?
Mary Lynn: Actually yes. We had to develop a new program for modeling and manipulating the density and position of the fur. We also developed a new lighting algorithm that we feel was very effective.VMM: All the reviews I have seen for this movie have been very good. is this as important to a studio, such as R&H, as it is to the director or the star, for example ?
Mary Lynn: Not really, but when people enjoy a movie that you have worked on, it is certainly satisfying. It is always good for business when someone says something positive about your work, but, overall as far as business is concerned, for our part, what makes the difference is how our work is received within the industry.
VMM: What scene in this movie would surprise me to learn that it is CG?
© 1998 DreamWorks SKG
Mary Lynn: You might remember the scene where Christopher Walken , who portrays the exterminator, Caesar, is sprawled in front of his truck. The mouse crawls down a rope, walks across Mr. Walken's face and deposits a little token of affection on him. That was all CG, and we were very proud of that shot.VMM: You should be. That was great. How many people were involved in this project for Rhythm & Hues?
Mary Lynn: That is hard to answer precisely, because people came onboard, worked in one area, then moved on to another project. Total, there were probably a hundred people or so who worked on the film at some point, but at the end there were probably 15 or 20 core people who were really involved in the whole thing.VMM: There has been a lot of turmoil in the industry recently. Many studios have disappeared. Are things beginning to find a balance or do you expect more upheaval in the near future?
Mary Lynn: I think it is cyclical. New people come in, big projects come along. There are always going to be ups and downs. It is the nature of the business. Everyone is constantly trying to expand the limits of what can be done. Sometimes that means they get overextended.VMM: Rhythm & Hues enjoys a reputation or being one of the very first and very best studios in the business. How do you see the future of computer animation and FX?
Mary Lynn: As far as R&H is concerned, I know that we would really like to do a totally computer animated feature film at some point.VMM: In addition to your job as CG Supervisor on this film, who else at R&H was in charge of the project?
Mary Lynn: Well, Charlie Gibson was the Visual Effects Supervisor. Sylvia Wong was the Animation Lighting Director. Shannon Casey was the Visual Effects Producer. I might mention that Sylvia, Shannon and myself are all Canadians.VMM: You guys are known for producing great television commercials. What new commercials have you created recently that I might recognize?
Mary Lynn: Well, you may have seen the Coca Cola commercial with the polar bears and the baby seal. I was responsible for the seal. We also did a commercial for Xerox that got a lot of air during the Winter Olympics that involved storybook characters who come to life.VMM: Mary Lynn it was a pleasure talking to you. I can't wait to see more of your work on the big screen. It's easy to see why Rhythm & Hues enjoys the reputation they have. Keep up the great work.
Darris Dobbs is a professional 3D modeler/ animator/ writer and a regular contributor to Visual Magic. He operates the HieroglyFX Design Studio and is involved with many facets of the computer animation industry. His specialty is the creation of lifelike character models of real creatures and animals.
Note, the Mousehunt image on our front cover comes courtesy Rhythm & Hues Studios.
