Two months ago, just when we were on holiday in California, Jeff, my husband, said he had to pay a visit to a friend of his, who is in the FX industry. Also, he told me I was to follow him there. We meet him at his office, a big warehouse, in the outskirts of downtown LA.
The building inside was divided in many different rooms but there was a space, a sort of foyer, in which some of his previous works were exposed on exhibit. There was the latex costume of the Borg Queen (a copy of it, as a matter of fact) from Star Trek, I could see the poster of Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, then on a corner there was a costume of one of the Uruk-Hai from The Lord of the Rings.
Bill was there waiting for us, he greeted Jeff and me and after a little chat we were introduced in Bill's study.
It was a very big room with large windows, there were drawing boards with sketches strewn on them, a multitude of books about cinemas and FX.
I was sort of left outside by their conversation, and was wandering in the studio, browsing the books and the drawings. I overheard that Bill was an associate of the Company, and he was in charge of rendering and 3d models. Then Jeff shot a phrase. "I was wondering, Bill, could you make a 3d model of Trish, my wife?"
"Sure, it is not very difficult. We can do that right now."
And now I was at the center of conversation.
"If you want to follow me?" He directed us in a room, that reminded me of the holodeck on the Enterprise, just to remain on subject.
Floors, walls and ceiling were all designed with yellow lines that formed a square pattern on the entire room. I was awestruck by this, but Bill was very cool, after all it was his work. So he proceeded to explain.
"On the walls there are cameras and sensors. We position the model, Trish in this case, in the center of the room and a photo is made from every camera in the room. Then all photos are fed into a computer and in a matter of hours, days for the most complex models, we get the 3d image of the model in a file. That can be used to recreate the image on screen in a scene or as a reference for moulding and creating costumes."
That last sentence was pronounced looking at Jeff directly in the eyes, as if to suggest something, or to refer to something they had discussed before. Then he conducted me in a nearby room and asked me to strip and to put a lycra blue suit on. It was quite tight, and it had socks and gloves attached, it also had a hood and the only thing that was left uncovered was my face.
Once I was squeezed in that thing Bill instructed me to stay in the middle of the room keeping my arms stretched out and my legs spread a meter apart. Finally he ordered me to stay still while he and Jeff left the room leaving me alone.
This suit was so thin I was feeling like I was completely in the nude, and this bothered me, but then again I realized I was alone in the room, so there was no problem of being seen by anyone.
In a moment I heard electric noises and sort of wiring sounds, then I saw red lines shining through the room creating a grid on my entire body, and in the end I was filmed by the cameras.
Before starting, Bill told me that the whole process would took just a minute, but I felt it was lasting forever.
Suddenly, after a while, the whole room fell silent again, and Bill and Jeff entered the door and told me it was all over and done. Again I went to the locker room to peel off the lycra suit, and dress again in my street clothes.