It took 100 visual effects artists and 3 years to age Harrison Ford in INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF FATE

One of the most impressive and interesting aspects of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was seeing a younger version of Harrison Fordcharacter in action! The first 20 minutes of the film are an Indiana Jones adventure set during World War II.

The shots of a young Ford were impressive and it took 100 VFX artists at Industrial Light and Magic to do it, and they spent three years on the film’s VFX to make it look as good as it was. Part of that time required the improvement and development of their existing anti-aging technology to create ILM FaceSwap.

This was the largest aging reduction project ILM had undertaken and they wanted to make sure it looked good! We have certainly come a long way in anti-aging technology since then Tron: Legacy.

When it comes to technology, ILM’s VFX supervisor, Andrew Whitehurst, said, “We knew we should use all the tools we already had and develop new ones,” so they developed ILM FaceSwap. It explains that “the new toolset allowed the team to fuse a fully computer-generated 3D head, combine elements that had been pulled from on-set photography, and, as Whitehurst explains, use ‘machine learning-based reference material from the previous’ The Indiana Jones Movies.’”

Robert Tessitore who is also a visual effects supervisor, explained some of the additional work that needed to be done by saying that they also needed a 3D CG asset of Ford’s expressions: Marriage of various technologies by the artists to blend between one and the ‘other to get the ultimate performance you’re looking for. What’s important is that there isn’t a single recipe that has been made that can be made for all shots.”

Once that process was complete, the team “began building the 1944 CG head and used other elements from the Lucasfilm archives to help build it.” Some of these other elements included lighting references “for every single setup so they could replicate it in the CG process.”

Weaver added, “On the ILM side there were a few hundred artists involved in the process from start to finish, working on the various shots. They were working on every nuance in every shot. But we managed to achieve this because relying on Harrison’s performance was of the utmost importance. He was the main driving force of what we needed to do for that opening act and do a younger act than that exact performance.

When it comes to Ford and his performance, Weaver says, “We were just blown away by what he has to offer, how fit he is and how much we could rely on him to lead every aspect of the performance.”

They have certainly done a great job and the fruits of their labor have paid off.