Digital Domain: Special effects, digital causes

Digital Domain is a world-renowned California-based visual effects (VFX) house. Since its founding in 1993, Digital Domain has delivered innovative visuals for more than 100 movies, including Iron Man 3, the Transformers trilogy, and Titanic. Its CEO, Daniel Seah, recently shared his insights on the growth of visual effects and visual effects-related technologies behind the screen.

By Linda Xu

Digital Domain is a world-renowned California-based visual effects (VFX) house. Since its founding in 1993, Digital Domain has delivered innovative visuals for more than 100 movies, including Iron Man 3, the Transformers trilogy, and Titanic. Its CEO, Daniel Seah, recently shared his insights on the growth of visual effects and visual effects-related technologies behind the screen.

More common, still special

WinWin: How has the VFX game changed since Digital Domain was founded, and what trends do you see moving forward?

Mr Seah: In the 1990’s, visual effects might be present in 20-to-25% of a movie’s shots, at the maximum. Nowadays, visual effects at present are 70%. In our upcoming movie, Ender’s Game, the rate is at around 90%. In the future, we can see most blockbusters being done almost entirely by visual effects. This is both the present and future of Hollywood movies. I personally believe that in the future, all we will need to do is use an actor or actress’s face, with the entire movie made through visual effects.

WinWin: How many projects will Digital Domain be working on at any one time, and how far ahead is your time booked for?

Mr Seah: Right now, our capacity allows us to do five movies at the same time, which requires one year to make reservations. Most of the movies we’ve got from the major studios are giant movies, as Digital Domain is only focusing on top-ten best movies.

WinWin: Movie budgets are growing fast outside of the Western world. What progress are you making in expanding your international presence?

Mr Seah: This is exactly where we’re heading right now. We’re thinking of focusing not just on Hollywood, because Hollywood movies for us are a fixed income. It’s time for us to look for a new market. For example, the revenue of the recent movie Titanic 3D in China was actually larger than for the American market. We’re considering taking China as our future development market from a business perspective. Digital Domain has a great partnership with Galloping Horse (a Chinese studio), right now. One of the movies we’re working on now, called The Crossing, is directed by John Woo. It is a milestone for us. It will be the first Chinese production that Digital Domain provides visual effects for. Additionally, the entertainment business in Hollywood is very expensive. A lot of companies, including Digital Domain, are trying to grow their expertise and capacity in Vancouver to take advantage of film subsidies offered in British Columbia.

A curious case

WinWin: Innovation is critical to “ooh-ah” VFX. Can you share with us some areas where Digital Domain tries to distinguish?

Mr Seah: Visual effects are a highly competitive business. One thing that Digital Domain is best at is a technology called “Digital Human.” The technology was used in the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. If you can remember, Benjamin Button, played by Brad Pitt, was born as an old guy with a very tiny body shape and grew younger and younger. His neck and above were all computer generated, made by us. There was no prosthetic makeup or Brad Pitt’s face superimposed over another actor’s body. We created a completely digital person who doesn’t exist in real life. This required huge 3D databases and considerable computing resources. It took 155 people over two years to create such a vivid image. From that very moment, we figure that by using this technology, we can do something different.

You probably heard that last year, during the Coachella Valley Music Festival, we made the computer-generated “hologram” of the late American rap star Tupac Shakur by using our 4D projection technology. This is exactly the technology we’re using to explore the Chinese market. We’ve just got a license from the family of one of the most famous singers in the Chinese language (Teresa Teng), who passed away in 1995, to create a virtual Teresa Teng. It was a computer-generated likeness of the iconic Taiwanese singer who performed as part of pop star Jay Chou’s “Opus 12” concerts in Taipei. It was a giant success, stunning the fans. That is the technology Digital Domain enjoys today and we intend to spread it broadly.

WinWin: Could you elaborate more on how Digital Human works?

Mr Seah: Digital Human is basically a Digital Domain-proprietary facial capture system. The system can scan someone’s face, simulate it, and recreate it for any desired word or expression.

WinWin: Is data security a big concern for Digital Domain? If it is, how do you ensure data is stored securely and accessed easily?

Mr Seah: Data security is always major concern for Hollywood studios and visual effect houses. Therefore, Motion Picture Association of America has detailed rules of how to safely store the data and prevent it from being stolen.

The digital element

WinWin: How do you see your work changing in the next few years? Will these changes be seen on the screen?

Mr Seah: That’s interesting. If you look at Digital Domain past 20 years’ history, we have seen huge changes. When we did our first movie, The Fifth Element, two decades ago, we made a lot of giant buildings to shoot and did a lot of visual effects and animations after that. We also had a huge prototype boat for Titanic. That was a time when you did visual effects, you needed to build something similar and use technology to operate it. Nowadays, you don’t have to build anything. Everything is digital and can be done by computer graphics. As for the foreseeable future, we won’t need any actor or actress to act. We can simply license their faces to use computer graphics to make them perform in certain ways. I know it’s too early to say such things definitively, but in my opinion, visual effects will be the very soul of the film.

WinWin: A large number of effects-heavy blockbusters lately have underperformed at the box office. What’s your take on that?

Mr Seah: Yeah, a lot of big-budget movies actually don’t work well in the end. Doing visual effects means that we can make the film better but we can’t change the script or the soul of the movie. So there’s nothing much we can do. Today, we’re doing our own movies. When we invest in our own movies (with Ender’s Game being the first), and all of the visual effects are going to be delivered by Digital Domain, we’re going to choose the director and script wisely. Sometimes, the box office performance of a big-budget movie is bad because the studio, director, producer, and investor have different views. Their divergence can create a long nightmare for the movie. Currently, since we are the investor and we’re producing the movie and doing visual effects on our own, the problem can be solved.

About Digital Domain:

Founded in 1993, Digital Domain (the original Digital Domain company) has delivered innovative visuals for more than 100 movies. Its artists have earned multiple Academy Awards. A creative force in advertising, Digital Domain has brought its artistry to hundreds of commercial, video game, and music video productions. From facilities in California and Vancouver, including its own state-of-the-art performance capture studio, the new Digital Domain 3.0 continues the tradition of creating extraordinary imagery and productions for entertainment and advertising. Digital Domain 3.0 is majority-owned by Hong Kong company Sun Innovation (HKSE:547). Please find the link: http://digitaldomain.com/.