Marc Kolbe talks VFX of "Nightmare"

MakingOf: What would you say is the most challenging part of the process?

(Marc Kolbe) Everything (laughs).  The challenging part I'd say, depending on the film, is coming up with solutions that fit within a time frame and a budget, and try to take it to the next level.  There's a lot of films we work on where we just can't throw money at the problem.  It's very easy to have a lot of money to do really cool effects.  It's a lot more challenging for me to create really cool effects, and I have these parameters that I have to be within.  "Nightmare" was a great example where a lot of the work had been shot before I had come on, and so I had to come in and take what was already done, alter it and make it better, and bring it to a level that everybody is requiring for the next Freddy.

MO: You mentioned re-imagining, or working on scenes that had appeared in the first film.  One that stands out to me that was in the trailer is when she's floating above the bed.  Was that something that you worked on?  Can you talk a little bit about that?

(MK): That one was more of a traditional style, where it was just wire work.  But we had Rooney upside down, we had her flying through the air on wires, and it allowed us to...because of the new painting technique, we could paint out pretty much any wire.  We had her flying through the air on a bed.  So that right now is more of a traditional solution.  Some of the things would be like Freddy coming out of the wall, which was similar to the latex idea that they did in the original, which was completely all CG.  Another one would be Freddy's face, you know, the look that there's actual...half his face is gone and it looks gross and we actually have animation, you know, there's flesh moving, there's little pieces that just kind of enhance it, especially in the close ups.

MO: How did you approach the dream sequences?

(MK): A lot of it is based in the color, in the DI.  So the color and look of those sequences have a unique feel.  Sam and Stefan Sunderfeld of Company Three worked really hard together to create a look for those.  Then there's Sam's trademark squishy lens, which is a lens that he helped develop where it kind of defocuses the outside and gives it a surreal look, which we also emulated on the compositing software so we could do it digitally as well.

MO: Were there any movies that you had worked on in the past that you felt really benefitted the way you approached this material?

(MK): Not on this one.  The interesting thing is every movie I work on has been completely different.  "Where the Wild Things" was creatures, and we did face replacements and that was a whole different genre.  The same with some of the other movies which were more effects driven films.  This was kind of a hybrid where we had a lot of effects but, you know, we had the face...the CG face replacement, and the key thing was to hide it, so it didn't look like, 'Hey look at the work that we did.'  The goal was, we wanted the work to be kind of secondary.  We want it to blend in so that people don't go, 'Oh look at the effects,' they go, 'Oh look at Freddy.'

MO: Do you find when you go to watch the full-length when it's finished...does it look the way that you expected it to look when you first were on set?

(MK): No.  It's always an evolution.  You have an idea of where you want to take it.  You envision that it's going to look real, and it's going to be cool, and as you're shooting all the elements you have an idea of how it's going to go together, but until you see it all together there's always those little nuances, 'Oh, you know, we should do this,' and it's a collaboration.  There's not just one person that does it all, it's a team.  So you get a lot of things from the artists.  All the facilities have their own specialty which they bring to the table, so it works out nicely.  Pixamondo did a lot of the blood work where she falls through the ceiling and the fluid dynamics and all that...it's something that was just an idea, we had an idea of liquid coming from the ceiling and going back up.  But as far as how it evolved...that's where it turns into something really cool.