MPC's Adam Valdez: The Jungle Book Advances Photo Realistic Movie Genre By Pushing Boundries of VFX, Color and Artistry
Adam Valdez, Visual Effects Supervisor at MPC, a Technicolor company, played a key leadership role on the Disney movie The Jungle Book. In this podcast interview for journalists, Valdez says the project required a new collaborative approach to every stage of movie production, MPC's vast experience in digital cinematography and a team of 800 people to produce a movie so realistic that audiences were easily able to suspend disbelief.
The Jungle Book was created with a digitally created cast of animal characters and one human actor in a totally digital jungle that has elevated the genre of photo realism.
He was able to draw on the experience of many visual effects specialists at MPC when planning how to create the combination of live action footage and animation demanded by The Jungle Book. He also integrated talent and technology from Technicolor for the movie's color pipeline. He consulted with the color scientists at Technicolor Hollywood as well as Steve Scott, the colorist – who has worked with Jon Favreau on several other projects. By setting things up properly with Technicolor in Hollywood he knew we had a good set up that was robust and that would allow him to proof the color at the end of the chain.
Podcast Interview with Adam Valdez
"The Jungle Book was a very ambitious project," Valdez says. "But MPC's teams have built up a lot of expertise in this area. We had a partner in Disney that really believes strongly in quality as part of their identity and what they want to offer audiences. We had a director in Jon Favreau who has one of the most discriminating eyes I have worked with. We had everybody agreeing that we are going to push this to another level.
"So we had all the right technology, the right show, the right studio, the right attitude. What then happened was that our artists — and we had 800 people involved in this show — gave their best because they could feel this to be something extraordinary."
The Jungle Book has raised the bar in filmmaking and he hopes it will inspire others to match, or even surpass, its achievements.
"The Jungle Book is a reminder that there is undiscovered territory out there, that there is still stuff to innovate, stuff to try. It is one of those films that makes filmmakers be brave and be bold in what they want to undertake. It's the same for the studios. They see the rewards of something that is well received."
