Yesterday we highlighted the technology behind
Big Hero 6 (see
BIG HERO 6, Disney’s New Superhero Movie, Is Over Twice As Big As Frozen & Wreck-It Ralph). Today we're going to look at San Fransokyo. "San Fran... What" you ask? Well, as some of you know, the
Big Hero 6 is a title that revolves around a Japanese superhero team from the Marvel comic of the same name. Marvel gave the filmmakers creative freedom for the project to “make it their own” and they decided to set their story in an all-new world that embraced the Japanese influences, but provided a fresh setting unlike anything audiences had seen before. “I thought about San Francisco,” says director Don Hall, “which is cool, but I thought ‘What if it was San Francisco mashed up with Tokyo.’ It felt more interesting as a setting – more playful and exotic. It was something we could create and the visual possibilities of those two cities – which are pretty different aesthetically – mashed together felt like a really cool place to set the story.”
“San Francisco has so many incredible landmarks and such a rich history – it’s a world-class city,” says producer Roy Conli. “Tokyo – with its neon lights and energy – is amazingly beautiful. The two of them combined is the ideal location for this film.”
To create San Fransokyo the artists turned to a software program that provided them with a blueprint for San Francisco, including the layout of the streets, lot sizes, business zones, residential zones and more. Using this blueprint they were able to specify the types of buildings they wanted in particular areas and modify them procedurally within the program for variety.
“It actually looks like San Francisco from a distance,” adds Driskill. “It has the right buildings in the right places, and they’re the right size. It wasn’t all made up – it was actually crafted from real data so that it would look authentic.”
Artists then stylized everything to make it San Fransokyo – some of the hills are steeper, some of the buildings downtown are taller, etc., but it all started with the actual geography of San Francisco. Tokyo lends the aesthetic elements, including signage, which took a graphic designer more than two years to create the massive amount of designs needed to fill the gigantic city.
“We adopted Toyo’s visual styling of the architecture,” says production designer Paul Felix. “We were inspired by the urban design in Tokyo – the giant public works and the density, and even how some of the streets are organized: there are minimal sidewalks in some areas, for example. We wanted to make sure that we captured those ideas so the audience would feel that this could be in an Asian country.”
One thing is for certain, San Fransokyo is unlike anything you’ve ever seen, yet oddly familiar at the same time. You’ll get your first real look at the new city this Friday when
Big Hero 6 hits theaters!