Industrial Light & Magic has worked on all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, was nominated for Academy Awards in visual effects for the first three installments, and won Best Achievement for Visual Effects on Dead Man’s Chest. The latest installment, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, presented new challenges for the visual effects teams in San Francisco and Singapore. This included having to deliver the effects in stereo 3D.

ILM was responsible for, among others, the man-eating mermaids, the ships trapped in the bottles, and majority of the water effects. Mohen Leo will talk about the mermaids and how the studio created the translucent creatures with their shimmery skin and inhuman features. He will be joined by Ben Warner who will present a breakdown of one of the movie’s more complex scenes – a variety of ships trapped in bottles– delivered in stereo 3D. He will detail how the bottles were created with different environments, and how the artists created realistic water and fluid simulations for the oceans, changing weather and cloth simulations for the ships’ sails.

Mohen Leo, ILM Singapore

Ben Warner, ILM Singapore