American Cinematographer - December 1999 - 52

Lubezki and

production designer

Rick Heinrichs,

by Ron Magid

Early in the prep stage of Sleepy

so

we've done about

other effects. Our work is not there to

shot

draw attention

to

itself."

attempted to create the Headless
"built-up
shoulders" gag. However, the venera¬
ble trick distorts body proportions,
turning the average actor into a
towering headless hulk. When the
filmmakers saw the results, they real¬

shots between ILM and London's

we've done about 220, with CFC

ized that the actor's head wasn't the

handling the rest," Mitchell says. "We

only thing missing - the effect also

were

lacked realism.

shooting all of this stuff, and as we
got started on the effects, I was able

Director Tim Burton asked

Computer Film Company, marking
the first time

an

ILM effects artist has

simultaneously supervised visual
effects at another facility. "Of the
300-some Headless Horseman

to

in London for

seven

interact with CFC

shots,

months

over

there.

[ILM animation supervisor] Mark
Miller and I broke

everything down
that we weren't
intermixing shots in the same
sequence. That way, their shots
would have continuity and so would
ours. Despite the distance between
us, we actually created a consistent
look. They did fine work."
Two actors played the Headless
Horseman: Rob Inch performed in
the riding sequences and daredevil
shots, while Ray Park (of Darth Maul
fame)
handled
the
fighting
sequences. Each wore a blue hood
over his head to facilitate the digital
removal, which was not as easy as it
sounds
especially since Lubezki's
restless camera was forever prowling
over sets filled with billowing fog.
"On every shot involving the
Horseman, we just let Tim and
Emmanuel shoot the plate as if the
head was already gone," Mitchell
notes. "Forget the fact that we were
going to be struggling to erase this
blue head moving through the woods
with fog surrounding it. There are all
kinds of things we'd prefer to stay
away from when we're doing this type
of work, but if you lose those [atmos¬
pheric] touches, all of a sudden it's
into sequences so

Visual effects

supervisor Jim
Mitchell takes

a

whack at the
Horseman's
head.

oversee

To

Sleepy Hollow's visual effects.

minimize

Mitchell also

ILM's

workload,

initially lobbied to do

the Headless Horseman the old-fash¬
ioned way.

"But in the back of our

minds," Mitchell admits, "Tim and I
knew that

something just wasn't
going to be right with that approach.

We

eventually decided that

Headless Horseman would be

actual person

our
an

riding the horse and

flailing his axe around, except that
we'd just digitally erase his head.
"In all honesty, Sleepy Hollow
is not a big effects show like Mars
Attacks!, where we were doing a lot of
animation. The majority of our work
was enhancing the visuals created by
Tim, cinematographer Emmanuel
48 December 1999

-

not

the

same

doesn't have

of visual, and it

power."
they removed the actors'
from the picture, ILM and

Once

heads

sort

same

reinstate the

to

backgrounds

elements of the

Mitchell divvied the Horseman

ILM's Jim Mitchell, who brought CG
Martians to life in Mars Attacks!, to

foggy

eight matte paintings and a bunch of

Hollow, the film's effects team

Horseman with the old

CFC's artists still had

and

other

"We

scenes.

never

anything with motion control,
so there was a lot of 2-D
tracking to
match things up, and frame-byframe paint work to replicate the
backgrounds," Mitchell says. "The big
problem for us was [that] every shot
involving the Horseman also had
lightning and fog, which was
constantly moving and always
changing, as opposed to trees and
buildings, which are rigid. Whenever
lightning hit the Horseman, we had
to make sure that when we replaced
his collar or any other parts of his suit
that his head was blocking, we put
the same lighting effect on it."
Equally tricky were fight
scenes

in which the faces of actors

Johnny Depp or Casper Van Dien
were blocked by the Horseman's blue
hood.

"Once

erased

we

Horseman's head,

we

the

also erased

Johnny or Casper's face, and we had
to replace that," Mitchell reveals. "I
would have Johnny or Casper go
through the same actions without
the Horseman in there, and we'd just
put their head into any frames where
the Horseman's head was blocking
theirs. It's a tricky process, but it was
actually pretty effective."
The old prosthetic shoulderand-neckpiece gag did come into
play for a few Headless Horseman
shots. Kevin Yagher, Sleepy Hollow's
co-producer, co-writer and makeup
effects supervisor, explains, "If the
Horseman's coming straight at you,
the guy's got his head [tilted] back,
and there is a portion of the torso
and shoulders that

are

built up to

hide it. When

they shot the reverse
angle, we had a different piece where

he

was

bending his head forward.

We also did
one

point

a

a

torso

that

we

used

at

close-up in which

Ichabod looks down into the horse¬
man's 'neck hole' and
worms

and insects

sees a mass

of

crawling around."

ILocMurft.esy
Phot
American Cinematographer - December 1999

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