Terrence Malick's TREE OF LIFE features Dinosaurs and IMAX VFX

 

Up until now, we have not known much about Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. Based on the trailer we've gleemed that the story follows two generations of a family (Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain, with Sean Penn playing their adult son) and takes into consideration man’s place in the world, among many other things. Today members of the films effects team have talked about the movie, and their statements make a couple of details very clear. 

According to an interview that VFX Supervisor Dan Glass did with LittleWhiteLies, the creation of the film was quite unconventional.

The script, if you can call it that, was really more like a set of notes that he has written and built up over some 35 years. He has been working on this project since the ’70s. And we actually have negatives that he shot in the 1970s that we incorporated into the movie. So it really becomes a lifting of notes and ideas.

The interview goes on to confirm that some of the film was shot in IMAX and that the effects work was all done to very high resolution:

[Malick] preferred the idea of a patchwork quilt. He might shoot something on a Super 8 camera, then an IMAX camera, then on a digital camera, but in space you might have something based on magnetic resonance imaging or infrared photography from the Hubble. Each would have its own character, and that in his mind would lend to authenticity because you weren’t trying to smooth it, shape it and make it conform…

…All of the work in Tree of Life is done to 5 1/2 K resolution… There’s a genuineness to that; it’s really trying to more closely represent the photography of the real thing. And the music and sound I would say are tremendous. The sound design I was really bowled over by, in terms of how it helps emotionally taking you through the piece.

Check out the interview for a ton more in-depth information. Despite this interesting bit of news, I don't know if I really care about this film. Are you excited about seeing this film?