There’s nobody else around, after all.Īnd that’s why we see so many scenes of Finch telling Jeff to imitate and copy him …Įxactly. Artificial intelligence is all about accumulating massive amounts of data.
When I came on to the film, I was very into the notion of artificial intelligence and machine learning and what that would mean in the year 2030. It was part animatronic, part puppeteered, and that was the starting point for us. Legacy Effects built pieces that were Velcroed on to it in order to give him the bulk and physicality and lighting reference, and they also built a real robot that was able to be puppeteered. That’s what we call it, by the way: It’s a lycra motion-capture suit. I look at all the shots in the film and feel Caleb in every shot, because I saw him for so long in his displacement suit. Scott Stokdyk: That’s a complicated question to answer. Digital Trends spoke to the film’s Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor, Scott Stokdyk ( Spider-Man 2, Hollow Man), to learn how the film turned Jeff the robot into such a remarkably human character.ĭigital Trends: It’s always difficult to tell where the performance-capture work ends and the visual effects begin with a character like Jeff, so how much of Caleb Landry Jones’ performance do we see on the screen?
THE HOLLOW MAN 2 ANDROID
While Hanks delivers a powerful performance as a scientist confronting his own mortality, it’s the android named Jeff that provides much of the heart and humor in Finch, thanks to a brilliantly nuanced motion-capture performance by actor Caleb Landry Jones and a blend of practical elements and visual effects. Dying from radiation exposure and forced to abandon his laboratory, Finch sets out on a cross-country journey with his dog, Goodyear, and the android he created to care for his canine pal. Set in the year 2030, Finch follows titular engineer and inventor Finch Weinberg, one of the few survivors of an apocalyptic solar flare that turned most of the Earth into an uninhabitable desert blasted by deadly UV radiation. Nevertheless, director Miguel Sapochnik went all-in on his sci-fi drama Finch by making a robot one of the film’s three main characters, right alongside an adorable dog and two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks.
THE HOLLOW MAN 2 MOVIE
Using a robot as a featured character in a movie is always a bit of a gamble, particularly if you want the audience to form a sincere emotional connection with your nonhuman android.