Source: 20th Century Fox"How do we make action sequences look and feel different from what audiences have experienced before?" That was the first question Wong posed to his team when he began thinking about the action fans would expect from a film based on Dragonball. The answers coming from the acclaimed stunt team, 87Eleven, as well as from director of photography Robert McLachlan and visual effects supervisor Ariel Velasco Shaw, certainly pleased Wong - and promise to delight not only fans of the property, but action movie enthusiasts as well.
VFX supervisor Velasco Shaw employed what Wong calls "fist-cams" - from the noted company Iconix - that are so small they could be attached to an actor's fist, allowing a character's punch to come right into the audience. "It's a kind of 'fist POV'," Wong elaborates. McLachlan contributed the suggestion of using new high-speed digital Phantom cameras to create super-slow motion for key action sequences. "We did a lot of research and development with the Phantom cameras," says McLachlan, who had discovered the-then experimental photography on YouTube. In the YouTube video, a balloon filled with water was popped, with the "action" caught at 1000 frames per second. McLachlan and Wong were impressed with the results. "The most spectacular thing about it was that the water retained the shape of the balloon before it fell," Wong remembers.
More "low-tech," but equally important to amping-up the action, were the training and stunts overseen by 87Eleven, and stunt coordinators Jonathan Eusebio, Julian Bucio Montemayor, and Jared Eddo. Their first order of business was to get the cast in shape, followed by having them undergo an intensive program of action choreography, and finally, making the actors comfortable with the considerable wire work and acrobatics they'd be required to perform. It was an incredibly rigorous program - "When [the actors] weren't working, they were training," says Eusebio.
The young cast members underwent individually-designed training regimens - no two characters have identical fighting styles - as well as special diets to maintain their strength and stamina during production. In Dragonball lore, Goku is the greatest warrior on the planet. And Justin Chatwin took the responsibility of capturing the character's skills, very seriously. Before the start of principal photography, he underwent six weeks of nutritional guidance and stunt and martial arts training with 87Eleven, continuing the demanding regimen during the shoot. "It all got my adrenalin going," says the actor, who also notes he gave up sugar, wheat and pasta during his stint on the film. Chatwin spent a minimum of five hours training each day, studying karate, kung fu and a Brazilian form known as capoeira, which ritualizes movement from martial arts, games and dance. For the more extreme acrobatic maneuvers, Jackson Spidell stood in for the actor. Spidell's signature move: flipping up in the air, then spinning halfway, and, on his way down, striking an opponent.
Chow Yun-Fat, as Roshi, was given "softer" martial styles, like Tai Chi, befitting the character's age and experience. Jamie Chung, as young and ever-enthusiastic martial artist Chi Chi, was given "hard" fighting styles, including kickboxing, karate, and Thai boxing. Chung especially delighted in a pivotal fight scene that has Chi Chi fighting...Chi Chi. (Mai, a shape shifter, morphs into Chi Chi to steal a Dragonball.) "I had to play both sides of the fight and learn choreography for both Chi Chi and Mai," the latter a kung fu practitioner, Chung recalls. Visual effects, including motion control and split composites, enhanced the complex battle.
And what kind of training is required for the actor playing one of the most powerful figures in the universe - Lord Piccolo? According to James Marsters, it was drills involving punching/kicking/blocking combinations. "I thought my body would break," says the actor with a laugh. "But [the stunt team and trainers] knew exactly what my body could take."
An early scene that sees Goku and his grandfather Gohan training on a laundry line, several feet above ground, was one of the stunt team's favorites. "Gohan and Goku are fighting, but in a playful way," explains stunt coordinator Jared Eddo. "Five riggers and a stunt crew of eleven, including doubles and safety experts, were involved in the scene. Pulleys and machines - along with old-fashioned manpower - allowed us to create the illusion that the characters were standing on the laundry line, and a [special rig] allowed us to maneuver the stunt people and actors."
A climactic clash between Goku and Piccolo, set at the elaborate "Dragon Temple," was executed and photographed as an all-out brawl, taking no less than ten day days to complete. Here, Goku executes his signature martial arts movie, "Kame-Hame-Ha," in which he summons energies, both alien and earthly to launch a blindingly intense bolt towards his adversary. For the scene, Justin Chatwin and James Marsters were required to leap from twenty-feet above the Temple's floor, and appear to "fly" up to some rocky ledges - all with the help of wires and cables, of course. Later, they battled in "mid-air," suspended in front of a green screen.
The unique look of the film's action scenes complements its art direction and cinematography. Production designer Bruton Jones, along with visual consultants Richard Holland and Bruce Crone, referenced the Dragonball manga and anime, as well as a melting pot of styles reflecting the film's multicultural, past/future reference points. The Dragon Temple, for example has Russian, Japanese and Chinese architectural influences.
Before production started, director of photography Robert McLachlan tested various film stocks before going with Fuji, which helped provide the heavily color-saturated look he was after. The color saturation adds to the intensity of the film's solar eclipse, which in the story signals a potentially cataclysmic event. "We wanted our eclipse to be much more surreal [than a typical solar eclipse], with weird, intense, reddish colors," says McLachlan.
Ariel Velasco Shaw oversaw the film's many and varied visual effects, including the energy force known as Ki. Harnessing the power of Ki is one of the central tenants of Eastern philosophy - and connects the incredible goings-on of Dragonball to our real world. In the "air bending" technique of Ki, the practitioner pushes out from his or her chest, causing the air around them to ripple with distortion - and the ensuing energy force to impact their opponent. Ki is so strong that it draws the power of the universe as it is channeled through the practitioner skilled in its technique. Its ultimate manifestation is Goku's "Kame-Hame-Ha" move.
Velasco Shaw and his team created various, character-appropriate forms of Ki. For example, a human character would possess a different Ki than an alien or a human-alien hybrid. Moreover, there's a "younger" Ki for the more youthful characters, and an "older," more developed Ki for Roshi.
The iconic and mystical Dragonballs were largely the creation of the visual effects team. "Everybody had an idea about what they should look like and what they needed to do," Velasco Shaw says. The Dragonballs, courtesy of some intensive CG magic, have an otherworldly luminescence befitting their numinous properties.
Velaco Shaw also oversaw the two fully-realized CG creations: the monstrous creature Oozaru, as well as the Fu Lum, demon assassins, who regenerate when dismembered.
Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr., principals of one of the industry's top special makeup and prosthetics houses, Amalgamated Dynamics Inc. (ADI), designed and created the prosthetic makeup for Lord Piccolo. The sophisticated prosthetics for Lord Piccolo, designed by Gillis and Woodruff, were applied by prosthetic makeup artist Edward French.
"DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION" began production in Mexico City, where a private, ultra-modern school stood in for Goku's high school. More than one hundred students were used as extras filling in the classrooms, parking lots and hallways. A sprawling private mansion in an exclusive residential area with English Tudor and Asian architectural elements was utilized for a high school party scene. An area within the city limits became Paozu City, where Roshi lives in a shack situated amidst towering skyscrapers.
After six days of filming in Mexico City, the production moved to Durango, Mexico, where the rest of the filming took place. "Durango has the spectacular outdoor locations including the high mountains, rock formations and deserts we required," says executive producer Tim Van Rellim, who had worked on a film production in Durango a decade earlier. The production transformed an abandoned jeans factory with a million square feet into a working studio production facility with office, storage and mill spaces, along with a wardrobe warehouse, practical soundstages, and a ten-acre outdoor area that was turned into a backlot for outdoor sets.
High mountain desolate rock formations at Mexiquillo became the secret Toi San training facility. Over 200 local Durango martial artists and their instructors were recruited and transported to the remote location for a big martial arts training scene. The cast and crew faced daily extremes in temperatures from chilly early morning lows of 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) to hot afternoon highs of 80 degrees (F.), as well as occasional dust storms fanned by windy conditions. Later in the shoot, the filmmakers utilized a major recreation facility in Durango as the location for the Toi San Tournament competition arena. One thousand extras filled the structure, cheering the action.
Los Organos State Park, with its spectacular rock formations that resemble church organ pipes, became the setting and inspiration for the story's Dragon Temple, where pivotal action set pieces where captured. Towering desert sand dunes, called "Las Dunas De Bilbao," north of Durango, were used for traveling scenes and as the exterior of a desert cavern in Yamcha's habitat.
The Toi San marketplace was realized out of a grain storage facility from the 1800s that was found just outside of Durango. New architectural elements were added and then enhanced by set decorations mixing Middle Eastern elements with a flea market atmosphere.
Interior sets constructed and housed at the Jeans factory production facility, included the two-story interior of Roshi's shack, a 20 foot high cavern interior, the Toi San Temple courtyard and corresponding interiors, Lord Piccolo's Genesis Chamber and dirigible, as well as the green screen sets.
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