Furious 7 is considered by many fans the best entry in the entire The Fast and the Furious franchise, even above Fast Five. But what separated this film from the rest was the death of Paul Walker, and the decision to reconstruct his image digitally with the help of his two brothers. The titanic task was carried out by Weta Digital, the effects company founded by Peter Jackson. In total, more than 350 shots were processed, of which 260 were edited with the digital version of Walker.
The Power of Digital Character Editing
Digital character editing is becoming more powerful. Hollywood knows it, and it’s not going to stop. We all remember Gollum in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Disney de-aged Jeff Bridges by decades in Tron: Legacy, and then left the whole world speechless with Rogue One and the “resurrection” of Peter Cushing. In general, these reproductions have been very poorly received, citing ethical, moral and legal issues. But in Furious 7, all that was set aside. The loss of Paul Walker was so traumatic and surprising that the project was on the verge of cancellation. The only way it could go forward was with the complete cooperation of his family, and what at another time would have been just another technological advance, now was a mission. Furious 7 had to preserve the memory of Walker intact.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/NbT93SoFkrwThe Task for Weta Digital
The film’s executives contacted Weta Digital, founded by Peter Jackson. Initially, the available material of Walker was not extensive enough to develop a complete quality reconstruction, but the situation improved greatly after Walker’s brothers, Cody and Caleb, joined the project. This allowed Weta to concentrate all its firepower on Paul’s face. By digitizing the faces of both brothers and combining their results with specific scenes of Walker in previous films, Weta managed to reproduce aspects such as the reaction of the skin to light, and its dynamic changes due to vascular constriction, stress and fatigue.
The work of Weta, the Walker brothers, and a third actor (John Brotherton) reached 350 shots. 90 of them “recycled” previously filmed material, while the rest received the total face replacement generated via computer. Now it remains to watch the movie again, and try to find them all.
