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Just picture this

Animation specialist Bill Miller who's working here now was hired by the King of Kong, Peter Jackson, for the monster hit, writes Mini Anthikad-Chhibber

SUREFIRE WINNER Bill Miller knew King Kong would make a mark at the Oscars PHOTO: BHAGYA PRAKASH K.

Watching the Academy Awards was a "surreal experience" for Bill Miller. "When I watched Joe Letteri and Christian Rivers collect the trophy for best visual effects for King Kong, it was weird. These are the guys I worked with!"

The animation director of Ittina Studios, who has worked on films like Shrek 2 and Madgascar, jumped at the chance to work with Peter Jackson on Kong. "I am a huge fan of Peter Jackson's work, especially the The Lord of the Rings movies. I had finished my assignment with PDI/Dreamworks and some of my friends suggested New Zealand and Kong. I figured why not and got on board."

`Wonderful experience'

Miller worked on King Kong from April to November. Working with the Academy award-winning Jackson was "a wonderful experience. He is a man with a strong vision and knows how to use special effects. Kong was something he had wanted to make for a long time and it was his baby. He is very particular how a scene should turn out and everything had to be done to perfection. There were so many times when he would ask that a particular scene be redone like the brontosaurus stampede. And the results are there for everyone to see! We would have dailies (where the director reviews the work) with him twice a week and we would all troop into the conference room and hope hard that our work would be cleared!"

About the Academy Award, he "wasn't surprised. While working on Kong, I knew it was special. I had a gut feeling and I felt vindicated."

One of a humungous team of 60 animators, Miller found "animating the centipedes the most challenging. There are so many legs and one move calls for so many changes!"

Not particularly fond of creepy crawlies, he says he loves watching them on telly but would not much care to be close to them. "For the film, I had some footage of centipedes on my computer that I would refer to anytime I was stuck."

Miller also worked on another gorilla movie, Mighty Joe Young, but says he prefers working on "animated features like Shrek as they are more fun and cartoony. While the principle behind both Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies and Kong are same with the same actor, Andy Serkis, `acting' the roles, the difference is Gollum is a completely imaginary character while Kong has a counterpart in the real world. Kong does not speak but we used gorilla-like expressions to convey emotion. While The Lord of the Rings was set in an entirely imaginary time and place, Kong was set in real time and space — like New York of the 1930s and even (the imaginary) Skull Island. CGI was used to recreate these places. While there were miniatures, a lot was created on the computer and rendered on screen. The free form where whole trees and foliage could be added on with a click of the mouse is fascinating."

Miller based the character of the grumpy green ogre Shrek on "my dad and Donkey is actually more like a playful dog. That is because we needed a lively template and if you watch a donkey, he really does not do much — just stands around. Watching and observing is a very important part of animation. I am a compulsive people-watcher and everything I see is filed away in my memory and comes to play at one time or other."

Miller was born and brought up in Los Angeles and was always fascinated by animation. "As a child I would watch cartoons all the time. It was like magic to watch the pictures move. I always knew I wanted to do something in animation. When Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars came out I was into SFX and then when I was in college Jurassic Park came out and it was like Spielberg had jumped a couple of light years as far as CGI went. I watched Jurassic Park three times the same weekend!"

After studying both 2D and 3D animation at the Character Animation Department in the California Institute of the Arts, Miller worked with Disney before moving to Japan to work with Polygon Pictures in Tokyo.

The short film Crocotires, in which he worked, broke new ground in animation, won many awards.

India stint

Miller is enjoying his stint in India, as he "always wanted to work at ground level. India was always on my list. Indian animators have to find their own voice and need to move away from the service model and develop their own content."

Describing himself as a "spice junky," he says his Indian experience has till now been "chaotic and interesting." And there are a whole lot of Indian stuff like our classic head shake that "I am hoping to use some time".

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