‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ Team on Weta FX’s Latest Tech and the Most Challenging Sequences

variety.com:

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor It took a village of storytellers to bring “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” to life. At the heart of it all was VFX house Wētā, which had a crew of over 1000 artists working on delivering 1500 visual effects shots.

The film, which won Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature at the Visual Effects Society Awards, is also nominated for an Oscar in the VFX category.

Speaking at the Variety FYC screening, presented by 20th Century Studios, VFX supervisor Erik Winquist explained how performance capture technology had advanced since the last film, “War of the Planet of the Apes.” Over six years, tech advancements allowed Winquist and his team to give the apes even more realistic features.

He explained, “All the advancements had been brought into the mix. Instead of using a single camera on active spaces, we’re using a pair of cameras that allowed us to get a 3D mesh of their faces at 48 frames a second.” In the previous trilogy, apes communicated via sign language.