Star Wars star Hayden Christensen may be best known for his Force abilities, but visual effects artists have nothing but praise for the special effects featured in another of his sci-fi outings. Beginning his acting career at just 12 years old, Christensen would eventually make his film debut in John Carpenter's 1994 horror film, In the Mouth of Madness. However, in May 2000, Christensen quickly achieved international fame when it was announced that he would play the young adult version of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.
Playing not only the impetuous young Jedi Knight who would later become the Star Wars The most feared Sith Lord in the galaxy, Christensen would also insist on personally wearing Darth Vader's iconic armor during the final moments of the 2005 film. Revenge of the Sith. After completion of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Christensen would lend his talents to several smaller projects before finally returning to the Star Wars franchise in 2022 Obi Wan Kenobi and 2023 Ahsoka.
Christensen's Jumper makes the most of clever visual effects tricks
Teleportation effects can be increased with simple additions
Although Christensen's time in Star Wars universe left him intimately familiar with large-scale visual effects, his 2008 sci-fi release Jumper highlights the immense potential that comes from doing comparatively simple effects well. The film itself was panned by critics, with just a 15% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an audience rating of 44%.
The VFX artists in Runner Crew turn your attention to teleportation effects. Focusing on the fight scene between Christensen's David Rice and Jamie Bell's renegade Jumper, Griffin O'Connor in the Coliseum, Wren Weichman reveals that the scene includes multiple versions of the characters in a single moving shot that is achieved by using multiple stunt doubles and substituting their faces during post-production. Although parts of the scene were filmed at the Colosseum, most of it the fight sequence was filmed on a sound stage where the interior of the historic structure has been faithfully recreated.
That picture over there, that's Jamie Bell on the right, and then [again] up there, all in the same scene. They're also not doing digi-doubles. So they actually have a bunch of stunt doubles, who look like them, and they have stitches on their faces and they're doing face replacements.
As for the teleportation effect itself, the trio explains that for the transition to appear kinetic it is necessary to avoid making a simple sudden cut. Instead ofa single frame of film needs to be added to provide the illusion that something else is happening. As Niko Pueringer points out, this is best achieved with a standard frame rate of 24 frames per second.
There's something magical about 24 frames per second. Like we can have movies at any frame rate we want, [but] 24 frames per second is a magical amount of frames per second where we see movement, but we see each individual frame. When you get to 30 frames per second, it becomes very difficult for the average human to capture an individual frame. At 24 frames per second, you see that flash that's there for a frame, and as an artist you have a lot of power with a frame to do something. As in Jumperand you get that picture of just a strand there or the hair flipping up.
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Impressive effects were hampered by a confusing script
Despite the impressive use of visual effects, Christensen's first science fiction film after the Star Wars prequels was far from a critical success. Panned by critics, most critics suggested that despite the film's interesting premise and impressive effects, In the end he was disappointed by a lifeless and incoherent script and appropriate pace.
However, despite the film's narrative problems, the underlying premise has managed to achieve some degree of atonement in the years since. Although plans for a Jumper the sequel never happened, in 2018 a spinoff television series Impulse introduced a new 16-year-old Jumper named Henrietta "Henry" Coles, who discovers that her abilities are triggered by emotional distress. Based on the third novel by Steven Gould Jumper new series, the critical response to the show was a huge improvement over the original Jumperand, for many, it even helped to compensate for their various deficiencies.
Source: Runner Crew