It’s hard to imagine a project better suited for director Tim Burton than Alice in Wonderland. The mind behind Edward Scissorhands and Nightmare Before Christmas has taken Lewis Caroll’s memorable characters and filtered them through his ornate filmmaking style, the results of which are unlike any other adaptation of the classic children’s story captured on screen.
Burton’s vision has also been a hit with audiences, topping box office charts throughout its first weeks of release, and becoming the biggest March opening in history. Following that record-breaking debut, we caught up with a group of Full Sail alumni who helped bring Alice to the screen – Recording Arts grad Chris Holmes, and Computer Animation grads Andrew Hwang, and Fred Stuhrberg.
Fred and Andrew worked on the film’s impressive visual effects at different stages during the production. Fred’s role as 3D Scanning Engineer had him involved early in the process, where he was responsible for making digital scans of physical models that were used to build the final characters for the film. As Modeler/Texture Artist, Andrew’s job was to take those characters and bring them to life by animating the way they moved and interacted with the actors and environments. The combination of this work has helped create a film that is rich with visual detail, giving the audience a new level of immersion into Alice’s world.
“It’s so far out there, but that’s the great thing about Tim Burton doing this,” Fred says. “He’s taken it to that whole other level, and the environment that they’ve created is just amazing. We were actually using the technologies that are available today to really bring something special to the screen. You get absorbed into the environments, and you honestly don’t think of it being a special effect anymore, you really want to believe that it’s real.”
The strength of these visuals is also enhanced by the quality of film’s soundtrack, which has spawned two separate albums. There’s Danny Elfman’s original score, as well as a collection of rock tracks inspired by the film – the latter of which features the work of 2000 Recording Arts graduate Chris Holmes. Chris is a freelance engineer, producer, and songwriter in Los Angeles, and assisted in recording the track “In Transit,” written and performed by Mark Hoppus (Blink-182) and Pete Wentz (Fall Out Boy).
“I’ve worked on a lot of records in my career, but the Alice in Wonderland thing is just awesome – definitely one of the projects I’ve been most excited about,” he says. “That track has been picked up by one of the stations in L.A, and just to hear something that I had a big hand in producing on the radio, and then on the soundtrack to this huge movie – those moments are what you do this for.”
Alice in Wonderland is one of those rare Hollywood films that gives audiences something exciting and unexpected with each of its components – from the acting and directing to the visual effects and audio. These grads all noted that their work on the film was among the most rewarding of their careers, and the excitement they’ve had hearing audience’s reactions to Burton’s latest adventure.
“I honestly think it’s surpassing people’s expectations because I don’t think they’re ready for the 3D part of it,” Fred says. “The environment that’s been created is just so much more detail than any other adaptation of this story that’s been done before. For once you’re going to actually feel like you’re completely absorbed in the Alice in Wonderland world – it’s a lot more than people expected, even me.”
