A lot of work went into designing the individual characters so that they are recognizable in both live action and as skeletons. “Some of them have particular bits of wardrobe or particular facial features that we try to carry through,” says Knoll. “Ragetti’s got a wooden eye and he’s skinny with bags under his eyes. Pintel has got long hair and he’s bald on top, so he’s got a lot of exposed skull up top. Koehler’s got these really interesting dreadlocks; when he moves they sway all around. Twigg has got a beard, and he has this knit cap with a big hole exposing skull through it. Jacoby has got this very long beard—kind of in the form of dreadlocks—and he’s got fuses woven into his beard. When he is fighting they are lit, so they are smoking.”
“When you see the characters as skeletons, you’ll know immediately which pirate is which,” says Verbinski. “Even when they’re 100 percent computer generated and their clothing is in shreds, you’ll know. Not just from the actor’s voice, but from every nuance, which is why we shot entire scenes only as reference.”
The most problematical challenge for filmmakers was illustrating the fight sequences; Verbinski and director of photography Dariusz Wolski were forced to rely on a combination of skill and guesswork.
“It wasn’t only difficult for us, it was equally demanding for our stuntmen, our stunt coordinator, and ultimately for our cameramen,” says Verbinski. “They had to do a lot of handheld composition during the swordplay. First we’d photograph the British Navy and the pirates fighting. Then we’d do another reference pass with just the Navy, followed by another with just the pirates. The guys are essentially fighting air, which looks pretty silly by itself.
“We’d be photographing air,” the director continues, “and then pan over to a skeleton that wasn’t there, saying his line of dialogue, and panning back to another skeleton. We had a lot of technical discussions about how to pull focus to a fictional point of reference while still keeping the excitement of a combat scene. We really didn’t want to get into motion control and that sort of static, sterile composition.”
Always on the cutting edge, the artisans at ILM rose to the challenge.
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