What's old is new again: Digital Domain creates a state-of-the-art digital human for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.(CG Character)(Cover story)

In computer graphics, the Holy Grail has long been the creation of a digital human. In this quest, Digital Domain's artists discovered that both god and the devil are in the details as they delivered an emotional performance by a digital actor for Paramount Pictures' The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The result is a milestone in computer graphics and in filmmaking.

Based loosely on a short story by E Scott Fitzgerald and directed by David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a fantastic tale of a man who is born old and ages backwards. Brad Pitt stars in the title role. Cate Blanchett is Daisy, the love of his life; Tilda Swinton is Elizabeth Abbott, his first lover; and Taraji P. Henson is Queenie, the woman who raises Benjamin in her old-folks home.

To create the newborn but elderly Benjamin, Digital Domain immersed Brad Pitt's performance in an aged version of a digital double. Creating a digital human is difficult enough, but two things made this particular task especially thorny. First, Pitt has one of the most recognizable faces in the world. Second, Digital Domains reenactment of Pitt's performance stars in the first 52 minutes of the film, from the time the character is born until he is full grown. The audience must believe in Digital Domains CG character right from the beginning to become absorbed in the story, and must remain convinced.

When Benjamin is young, actors of different ages and sizes always perform his body, but his wrinkled face and head, from his clavicle and shoulders up, is always computer generated. Benjamin's face is digital during his bath, when he crawls into a tent with young Daisy and she touches his face, when he struggles to walk during a revival, when he meets his father, when he gets drunk in a bar, when he works on the tugboat, and all the coming-of-age moments in between.

Digital Domains work ends on the tugboat. "You see him at the side of the boat reading letters from Daisy," says Ed Ulbrich, executive VFX producer at Digital Domain. "[His face is] CG then. In the next shot, we see the real Brad Pitt in makeup. That's the handoff."

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Creating the System