Paul

Clever, cheeky and very, very funny

Credits

Director

Greg Mottola

Producers

Nira Park, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner

Writers

Simon Pegg, Nick Frost

Production Companies

Relativity Media, Working Title Films, Big Talk Pictures, Universal Pictures

Studio

Universal Pictures

Dneg VFX Supervisor

Jody Johnson

Dneg VFX Producers

Alex Hope, Hal Couzens

Dneg 2D Supervisor

Gruff Owen

Dneg CG Supervisor

Julian Foddy

Release Date

18th March 2011

Greg Mottola’s new movie, Paul, stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as comic book geeks who have close encounters with an alien as they travel across the U.S. in a RV.

… the alien is all head, big shiny eyes and gangly limbs, a first-class CGI creation that fits seamlessly into the film.The Hollywood Reporter

DNEG’s Team

Double Negative was responsible for all the VFX in the film and the team was led by VFX Supervisor, Jody Johnson, Animation Supervisor, Anders Beer, VFX Producer, Hal Couzens and Line Producer, Karen Clarke.

The challenge for the animators was to create a believable and compelling character performance for the CG alien, Paul. Seth Rogen (Kung Fu Panda, Horton Hears a Who!) was cast as the voice of Paul, and the animators were tasked with marrying Rogen’s larger than life, gravelly voice, with the 4ft tall, grey alien, whilst maintaining an appealing and photo-realistic performance that wouldn’t be questioned by the audience. “The animators did an amazing job integrating the two so you don’t question it,” says Animation Supervisor, Anders Beer, “they really threw themselves into it.” The result is a rich, characterful performance, which has been achieved, through great skill and teamwork, as a sustainable performance across a team of two dozen animators.

In addition to the creation of the Paul character, DNEG also developed and animated the other alien crew members, each one being based on crew members from Nostromo in Alien. The team also worked on concepts and realisation of the spaceships, augmenting the partial model built for shooting and also adding lights, dust and smoke. Other VFX work included Paul’s invisibility, the mind-meld sequences, the digital bird and a multitude of greenscreen driving shots.

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