An Inside Look At Disney's The Jungle Book With Jon Favreau! ⋆ Brite and Bubbly

An Inside Look At Disney’s The Jungle Book With Jon Favreau!

By: Vanessa Diaz | 0 comments

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Back in January, I had the fantastic opportunity to attend a small special behind the scenes look at Disney’s upcoming visually spectacular film The Jungle Book. The event was hosted by Director Jon Favreau and the films Visual Effects Supervisor Rob Legato. We viewed some never before seen footage in Dolby Extended Dynamic Range Laser Projection, which has never been used to project a film before. This state-of-the-art technology creates a visual cinematic experience unlike anything ever seen on the big screen.

It takes the photo-real imaging, textures, and the environmental detail created for this film to a whole new level. I’m not just saying this because I’m a fan of Jon Favreau and Disney, I’m saying it because the CG (computer generated) footage we were shown literally blew my mind! I was talking about how beautiful it was for days. Dolby Extended Dynamic Range Laser Projection will unfortunately not be available at every theater in the country when this film releases, but if you happen to find one that does, I highly recommend you pay what ever you can to see this film in that format.

These are two never before seen still images (above and below) from the film to give you a sense of what to espect from this visually stunning film. Frankly these stills don’t do the beauty of the film justice, but it’s a preview.

These CG animals and full landscape jungle worlds created for this film were astounding. It was hard to tell what was not CG and what was CG, as everything was photo-realistic. It was absolute perfection on the big screen and I can not wait for the full movie to be released. I haven’t seen CG done this well ever! This film will surely change the future of film making. I of course had to ask Jon Favreau and Rob Legato about how this came to be and just how many effects studios were working on this film. I was sure it had to be every studio in the world! My mind was blown when Jon told me it was only 2 studios!

Jon Favreau:

It’s only MPC (Moving Picture Company) and Weta (Weta Workshop) working on the visual effects for the film. We wanted to really limit how many visual effects studios were involved in the film so we can keep a unique visual style and focus on the design.

Rob Legato:

We shot on the Pace System which was used on Avatar. (Rob also worked on that blockbuster film)

Jon also touched on how casting the film was extremely difficult, especially the character of Mowgli. He saw 2000 boys for the role and ended up casting the last and final boy seen (newcomer Neel Sethi). This is Neel’s first film and Jon found him in my home town NYC! Woot! We do have lots of talent roaming the streets in New York.

Jon Favreau:

Neel really seems to capture for me what I remember of Mowgli in the film. He wasn’t just a cookie-cutter kid. He had spunk. He’s just a great kid and I love working with him!

The process of shooting this film was unlike anything Jon has ever done before. They did visual tests with the technology and created birds. We saw this footage and I could not believe these birds were CG. It was seeing these birds that convinced Jon he could make the Jungle Book the way he envisioned. I would be convinced after seeing these birds as well.

The shooting of this film was also a very tactical process for Jon. Creating the visual effects of the film to work is extremely time consuming and difficult. Jon and Rob shared that first they have to create and shoot an Animatic (an animated mock up of the scene), then they have to do motion capture of the real actors and landscape, lastly they digitally impose the real character of Mowgli into the film. They did have to build some sets in order to make it have the seamless look it does.

I was beyond the point of impressed at how much thought and detail was put into the making of this film. Jon and Rob even studied the way animals moved their mouths in order to ensure the animals looked realistic when they spoke. They didn’t want the animals making any unnatural movements with their mouths.

Seeing this footage and learning about this film truly solidified this film is going to surely be one (if not the) movie to see this year. It’s going surely to be one visual masterpiece that will withstand the test of time in film history.

The film stars newcomer Neel Sethi stars as the film’s only human character, Mowgli and an all-star cast including Bill Murray (“Lost in Translation”) as the voice of Baloo, Ben Kingsley (“Learning to Drive,” “The Walk”) as Bagheera, Idris Elba (“Star Trek Beyond”) as Shere Kahn, and Lupita Nyong’o (“12 Years a Slave,” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”) as the voice of mother wolf Raksha. Scarlett Johansson (“Avengers: Age of Ultron”) gives life to Kaa, Giancarlo Esposito (“Breaking Bad”) provides the voice of alpha male wolf Akela, and Christopher Walken (“The Deer Hunter”) lends his iconic voice to King Louie.

THE JUNGLE BOOK opens in theatres everywhere in 3D, RealD 3D, and IMAX 3D on April 15th!

Check out the trailer below: