Releasing today on Digital and January 21 on Blu-ray and DVD, the film reunites the ‘Forrest Gump’ director, writer, and stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, who through AI-enabled VFX tools from Metaphysic, travel through several generations of family love, laughter and loss.
Director Robert Zemeckis reunites with the writer and stars of Forrest Gump on his latest film, Here, an original film about multiple families and a special place they inhabit. The story travels through generations, capturing the most relatable of human experiences. Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Cast Away, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Contact, Back to the Future) directs from a screenplay by Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Killers of the Flower Moon, Dune: Part One, A Star is Born) and him. Told much in the style of the acclaimed graphic novel by Richard McGuire on which it is based, the film stars Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany and Kelly Riley.
The film releases today, November 26, on Digital and January 21 on Blu-ray and DVD.
To help convey the characters at various ages throughout their lives, VFX Supervisor Kevin Baillie enlisted creative studio Metaphysic to digitally augment performances via its proprietary generative AI technology. The process involved a talented team of digital characters artists led by Metaphysic’s VFX Supervisor, Jo Plaete.
Metaphysic’s proprietary process involves training a neural network model on a reference input with artist refinement of the results until the model is ready for production. Multiple models were trained for each actor to meet the diverse needs of the film; Hanks is portrayed at five different ages, Wright at four ages, and stars Paul Bettany and Kelly Riley at two ages each.
Enjoy the featurette:
Source: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.