THE VISUAL EFFECTS SPECIALISTS

Generally speaking, the job of a visual effects team--even in movies that present strange, imaginary worlds--is to make those worlds seem as realistic as possible.

Imagine the freedom and the difficulty, then, of “What Dreams May Come,” the Robin Williams movie that portrays the afterlife as fantastically otherworldly yet familiar.

“We’re not usually called on to create beautiful worlds,” said Stuart Robertson, the visual effects supervisor at Pacific Ocean Post Film and Animation and one of four nominees for the film’s visual effects. “Usually we’re told, ‘Here’s the future, here’s what it looks like. Put a spaceship in the middle of it. Or make a creature to put in it.’ ”

Multiple teams were recruited to design the look of this movie. The director, Vincent Ward, is also a painter, and he and production designer Eugenio Zanetti wanted this world to reflect the influence of painters ranging from the German romanticism of Casper David Friedrich to Van Gogh and Monet. Visual effects producer-supervisor Ellen Somers supervised the teams.

The “painted world” sequence was particularly striking. By building upon computer software developed by technical advisor Pierre Jasmin, a team headed by nominees Nicholas Brooks and Joel Hynek (a previous Oscar winner) devised a method of applying paint strokes to moving images captured on film so portions of the movie look like a three-dimensional moving painting.

Another portion of the movie supervised by nominee Kevin Mack of Digital Domain developed a sequence involving a tree that Mack “grew” using L-System software, a program for defining the algorithmic development of plants and branching structures. The tree contained thousands of branches and 500,000 leaves, all of which are blown off and scattered in the wind.

Robertson said he is convinced they did significant, groundbreaking work. “In your little heart of hearts, you want to do something that people will recognize 50 years from now. . . . I have a feeling that this movie is going to grow on people.”

How did you become involved in the movie?

Initially, Ward assumed Industrial Light & Magic, George Lucas’ special-effects company, would be the natural choice. One of the movie’s producers, though, had worked with Mass.Effects on another film and suggested seeking bids from them, said nominee Joel Hynek, who was with the company. After doing test shots using the new “motion paint” technique, the firm was hired.

The team faced its first and biggest crisis, however, when the parent company sold Mass.Effects and the new owner decided not to take on the film. “This was right at the creative apex of the whole thing, where we were just starting to produce shots and define what the whole thing was going to look like,” Brooks said. Somers brought in other visual effects houses and freelancers to complete the picture.

What was the biggest challenge?

“As soon as I read the script, I knew we’d have to use a new technology,” Brooks said. “I knew what this world should look like. One of the hardest challenges was expressing what that world looks like to other people and explaining it.” Similarly, it was difficult for the director to communicate his vision to the effects teams. “He [Ward] had a lot of different ideas and he sort of spewed them all out and we had to try to get the overall vibe,” Mack said.

What is your favorite part of your job?

In various ways, they all said they most enjoyed the creative problem-solving their jobs entail. Brooks said he particularly enjoyed working on “What Dreams May Come” because it was the rare movie where extensive visual effects are used to depict a world of beauty instead of violence.

Your least favorite part?

Nearly all said the long hours away from families and on location, and intense deadline pressure. It is enough sometimes to make Hynek wonder why he ever got into the business, but “then when you get it just right and it’s used in the movie and it looks good, you know why again.”

What would an Oscar mean for your career?

Brooks hopes it can make it easier for him to get involved in movies from the beginning. Mack hopes it might help him gain the clout to develop and direct and do the visual effects for his own movies and also allow him to continue to explore his scientific research in neurology and apply it creatively to movies.