Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland: Large Heads and Green Screen Sickness

Throughout the decades, Lewis Carrol’s novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, has been a staple for movie and television adaptations. The most recent adaptation comes from the vivid imagination of Tim Burton.

Shot almost entirely in front of a green screen, and comprised of thousands of digital effects, the movie incorporates live action, animation and 3-D effects in hopes of pulling the audience into Alice’s world of wonder. As interesting as the final product looks, peaking behind the curtain allows us to learn techniques that can be applied to our own special effects adventures. Here are some fun facts from behind the scenes:

– Since a lot of the characters were created digitally, the crew used cardboard cut outs, full-size models, and people donned in green with eyes stuck to various parts of their bodies. This gave the actors something to react to, as well as providing a guide for eyelines.

– Hours of green screen exposure caused the cast and crew to experience green screen induced sickness and fatigue. It became such an issue that Tim Burton had a special pair of lavender tinted glasses crafted to combat the sickening effect of the green screen.

– For filming the Red Queen’s (Helena Bonham Carter) ridiculously large head, the crew used a Dalsa 4k hi-def camera. The camera’s 4,000 lines of resolution allowed Carter’s head to be enlarged in post production without losing image quality.

– The movie’s producer, Richard Zanuck, and director, Tim Burton, decided it would be best to shoot in 2D and then transfer the film to 3D. This saved them from excessive production costs and the hassle of working with 3D cameras. It was decided that, in the end, “you can’t tell the difference.”

Time will tell whether the movie will successfully capture the imagination of movie-goers. However, regardless of box office success or failure, there is always something that can be learned from our fellow movie makers. The film premieres today in London, and will hit theaters March 5, 2010.