Flubber Never Existed

Flubber was a CG animation. So, during the shooting of the film, how did the actors interact with something that didn’t exist?

Thursday, January 02, 2003

If you have watched Flubber, you would have been amused by the antics of Flubber, the wonderful new substance discovered by Prof Philip Brainard. The interactions between Flubber and the professor appear so natural that it is difficult to imagine that Flubber was never a physical entity, and is a  completely CG animation that was added during post-production work, by Industrial Light  and Magic. 

It is great to be able to add stuff to footage after the actors have finished doing their stuff. But how do actors do their stuff, if they do not know what the interactions are like? In such situations, the different units involved, the scriptwriter, the actors, the effects people and the director, all work together right from the beginning.

It also calls for a lot of imaginative acting form the actors, and they have to particularly ensure that they look to where the ‘face’ of the CG character would be. The CG team finally has to ensure that the CG character confirms to the real-life acting.

Virtual motion control is also used. That is, you use a motion-control camera in the live shooting. The camera position in the animation software is made to follow the path of the original camera.

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