Spider-Man 2- Special Effects Interview
Cassandra Bell
July 18, 2005
Bell: For what company do you work and how long have you worked for them?
Cunningham: For reasons of professional flexibility and changes in the way visual effects are produced I've been a freelance artist since around the Fall of 2000. For about six weeks now, and until sometime in 2006, I'm working at Rhythm & Hues on the upcoming Brian Singer directed Superman project with visual effect supervision by Mark Stetson. I worked with Mark on both "The Fifth Element" and "Peter Pan" and he's just great. He has such an incredibly analytical mind but, unlike most effects supervisors, he still thinks what we do is neat and fun. This will be the fourth comic-to-film production that I've contributed to, the other three being the first "X-Men" film, at Digital Domain, and both "Spider-Man 2" and the upcoming "Ghostrider", at Sony Pictures Imageworks. I have worked off and on for Sony Pictures Imageworks and was lucky enough to work on "Spider-Man 2" at the end of a seven month stretch in 2004.
Bell: What was your special effects contribution for "Spider-Man 2?"
Cunningham: After finishing up my work on "Peter Pan" I was assigned to the web effects team for "Spider-Man 2." The visual effects effort had been underway for some time, and the technology and mechanics behind the web effects had been worked out on the first film but refined for the sequel. The engineering that went into this almost invisible element was quite surprising at first. Because I was new to the team I got an "easy" shot first, one involving only a single web. The complexity of my workload increased dramatically after this ending in a very complicated sequence involving five webs for the scene where a digital Spider-Man fights a digital Doc Oc on a digital train traveling through a digital city. The webs were, admittedly, the least complicated element in this rather long scene (which would eventually, through editing, become two shots by the time the film was released) but it served as the most complicated multi-web shot of the film to my memory.
In most web effect shots the audience sees Spider-Man shoot the web, then cut. Or they see the web attach to some object, then cut. In this sequence Spider-Man bursts through a window, fires webs while in motion to pull himself towards the train, releases these webs, then shoots two webs at Doc Oc.We never cut. Doc Oc pulls Spider-Man around by these webs, almost pulls him off the train and forces Spider-Man to shoot yet another web at the train. During all of this action we never cut away. The most challenging aspect of the animation was maintaining the integrity of the look of the web as it's stretched and pulled and finally released. It had to look strong but light and not terribly elastic when released and carried away by the wind. Spider silk isn't made of rubber, but it's not rope either, and whether the audience actually thinks about this or not they'll have certain expectations as to how it should behave in a variety of situations. The audience will at least subconsciously react to bad physics even if they're applied to a material or object that doesn't really exist.
Bell: Did you become acquainted with any of the actors?
Cunningham: Unfortunately, no. Most of us working in visual effects sit in cubicles all day. It's rare that we get to meet the stars of the films that we work on. Occasionally, because of their own curiosity, they will tour a visual effects facility while we're working on a project. Sometimes members of a team needed early on, or on set, will get to meet the actors and director.
Bell: How long have you been involved in special effects?
Cunningham: This answer surprises a lot of people but I've been doing computer animation since I was a senior in high school, since 1989. My dad gave me an Amiga personal computer as an early graduation present and I worked after school at the local Amiga dealership in Corpus Christi, Texas. I started learning all the animation software I could get my hands on and became their video/ graphics specialist. My first paying animation job was for a NOAH Weather video on hurricane preparedness. I worked all through prom weekend on that animation. Another kid by the name of Clayton Bownds started working at the store. We became best of friends and are to this day. We started our own company called Vision Graphics. Because of what we could do, and our big mouths, we became pretty famous in the South Texas graphics community. We were both only nineteen years old but had multiple TV stations and even a lawyer as clients. In the Summer of 1991 Clayton and I must have seen Terminator 2 a dozen times in the theatre. From that moment I wasn't happy doing logos and motion graphics anymore and started working on digital characters. I also did my best to try and mimic the look of several of the effects from the film. We came up with this little short film idea called Jolt Man as a test project. Around this time I had also been emailing a teacher's assistant in the animation department at CalArts and started sending copies of my work to the school. A few weeks later I was invited to fill an opening in the Fall Semester starting the following month. CalArts had been a dream of mine since I was around junior high age. I wasn't there long, however. My father was able to save enough to pay for a semester. I'd missed the window on financial aid because of my very irregular ,late acceptance. We weren't sure how I was going to stay in school but there was no question about my going. Then, during winter break, Metrolight Studios offered me a job in Los Angeles after a very enthusiastic portfolio review a month prior. I took the job and then spent most of my free time at the school for the next couple years, trying to soak up what my friends were learning to go along with what I was learning on the job. At Metrolight I worked on mostly commercials and theme park films but in the Summer of 1993 my roommate at the time helped me get an interview at the start-up that everyone was buzzing about: Digital Domain. I think I ended up being the seventh artist hired and remember when it was just a single room at the back of Stan Winston's creature shop.
Bell: For what other movies have you contributed your knowledge of special effects?
Cunningham: You always remember your first and mine was "True Lies." I worked primarily on the missile effects for that film which hold up pretty well to this day. While at Digital Domain I co-CG supervised Strange Days and supervised the Mini-HK sequence on the T23D attraction for Universal Studios. On "The Fifth Element," I came up with the flying traffic pipeline and supervised the team that worked that sequence. I also sequence supervised the look development of Magneto's light effect in the first "X-Men" film and adapted some of the techniques developed by Paul Debevec for the photo-real shot of Senator Kelly's death.
At Centropolis Effects I led the effects animation team on "Godzilla." I'm also very proud to have contributed to the water effects in the Coen Brothers film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" while at Digital Domain and the underwater effects for the title sequence to Tim Burton's "Big Fish" at Sony Pictures Imageworks. I've been very fortunate to have worked on films from directors like these, Luc Besson and James Cameron as well as Sam Raimi. Nowadays, as a freelancer, I don't do as much supervising but I get to work on some of the juicier, harder elements. I also think more about breaking out of visual effects. The film I made with my brother Tim is a step in that direction.
Bell: In what other departments in the movie industry have you assisted?
Cunningham: I've mostly worked in visual effects but I co-wrote, produced and back seat directed bits of "Xtracurricular" with my brother. I also shot some B camera work for a few insert scenes. Last year I played a zombie in the upcoming independent feature mockumentary First Person Shooter by Third Floor Productions. That was fun. I wasn't very popular at the craft service tables.
Bell: What type of equipment/supplies do you utilize for special effects?
Cunningham: My weapon of choice is Side Effects Software's Houdini. It runs on both Windows and Linux workstations. It's really the most powerful and flexible animation tool for doing visual effects that there is. Each facility tends to have their own, custom tools that they've developed over the years or for a specific project. I've also, fairly recently, used Lightwave and AfterEffects on the Macintosh and Windows platform. I'm really hoping that someday a version of Houdini will be made available for the Macintosh. That way I know I can use the tool I want and the tool I need no matter what kind of computer is available or convenient at the time. Like last summer, I freelanced on this independent film Jekyll for Creative Light Entertainment and did most of my work on my PowerBook. I was actually able to do full, high-definition composites in AfterEffects on my Mac laptop. That was great and very convenient.
Bell: Any memorable moments?
Cunningham: One, but not related to the film. As I said earlier I was only freelance at Imageworks. I had been extending my contract month by month but finally needed to leave Imageworks to prepare for the American Film Market of 2004. I'd made a high-definition feature with my brother Tim called "Xtracurricular," and we had finally finished our own post production efforts. My last day on the project was February 6th of 2004 and that date is burned into my memory forever. At about 4:30 that afternoon, while typing up final documentation on my modifications to the web effect for the complicated train sequence, I received a phone call from Texas, from my brother Ben. He called to let me know that our father had died.
I would like to thank Sean C. Cunningham for allowing me to interview him.