February 16, 2017

Master Class in VFX Takes a Page From The Jungle Book

Aspiring filmmakers and film enthusiasts pack the house at the Museum of the Moving Image to hear from Rob Legato, master of visual effects.
  • Rob Legato’s master class highlighted his collaboration with MPC, a Technicolor company, on the Academy Award nominated The Jungle Book.

A very special master class presentation by Academy Award-winning VFX supervisor Rob Legato, ASC, made possible with support from Technicolor, was held at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI), as part of an on-going retrospective on his longtime collaborator, filmmaker Martin Scorsese. Nearly 300 people filled the museum’s new state-of-the-art theatre, adjacent to the legendary Kaufman Astoria Studios.

Legato explored in detail his visual effects “virtual production” methodology that was fully realized on Jon Favreau’s successful adaptation of Disney’s The Jungle Book (2016). While talking about the director’s deft handling of the Disney animated classic, Legato highlighted the incredibly lifelike character-creatures largely produced and delivered by Technicolor’s VFX brand MPC.

With anecdotes from films and creative relationships spanning the last 25 years, Legato expounded on the notion of “defying the normal conventions of filmmaking” to achieve a degree of camera-derived photo-realism. He traced the evolution of his methodology on films such as Scorsese’s The Aviator (2004) and Hugo (2011), projects on which he has noted the influence of Technicolor throughout his career.

Go behind the scenes on The Jungle Book with Robert Legato as he talks about using photo-real techniques to tell grander stories.