‘Child’s Play’ Breakdown: How Kalos Studios enhanced and animated Chucky’s face using KeenTools
Child’s Play, the modern reboot of the classic horror film franchise, was released in 2019 and brought to life, once again, one of the most iconic movie villains — the evil doll Chucky. To create this truly frightening character, the production used several dolls on set during principal photography some of which were enhanced and animated in post-production. One of the vendors responsible for Chucky’s VFX was Kalos Studios in Vancouver. We spoke with owners Armand Vladau, VFX Supervisor, and Joon Lee, Compositing Supervisor, about the visual effects pipeline for the film and to learn more about how they used KeenTools to simplify the process.
Images courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
Question: What was Kalos’ role in the Child’s Play VFX post-production?
Armand Vladau: We were brought on board to polish up Chucky and bring his bright LED eyes to life in one of the film’s pivotal sequences — where Chucky starts to glitch out a little bit, giving audiences a glimpse of the chaos to come. Kalos was tasked with cleaning up the practical animatronic doll, digitally restoring the soft plastic look of the face, and CG eye replacement and animation. We also had a hand in the Buddi Bear eyes and some other invisible VFX shots throughout.
Images courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
This specific sequence involved a lot of face tracking, re-projections, animation, and compositing work. The delivery schedule was very compressed, and it was clear that a traditional VFX approach, involving multiple departments, would be too time-consuming. We immediately pivoted to the innovative tools offered by KeenTools, implementing them quite quickly into our pipeline and workflow.
Question: Can you tell us more about the work and pipeline involved with the Chucky face enhancements?
Armand: On set, there were several variations of the puppet and, from my understanding, each one had a different purpose — one was rigged with animatronics, another was a static puppet for stand-in/lighting, and so on. The different dolls had the same overall structure but ultimately did have some variations from shot to shot and we were brought in to unify the look across the sequence.
As Chucky’s performance had to be maintained, we decided early on to use a 3D solution and give artists more control with an accurate representation of the face. In the film, Chucky moves his head a lot; he talks, there’s a lot of facial deformation, perspective changes, and eye blinking that had to be enhanced and at times retimed or replaced. We needed a solution that would work and scale. That’s where KeenTools came in and really saved the day.
Joon Lee: With a standard 2D solution, it is difficult to achieve the correct perspective and parallax when there is rotation on the Y-axis. But when you’re doing it all in 3D, with the proper UVs and geo, it just makes life so much easier and precise.
We explored SmartVectors but it simply didn’t work across multiple shots. The setups had to be as efficient as possible, so we picked KeenTools where everything is procedural and changes can be made all in one, easily and quickly.
Question: How did you work with Chucky’s Face?
Joon: We referenced the prop shoot images from the set (provided by on-set VFX Supervisor/VFX Producer Reina Sparks) and explored the CG asset built by another vendor, but we still needed a solution that was more sequence specific for the object tracking to work perfectly. We had two approaches in the end: one used FaceBuilder for some shots and one used a 3D model created in Maya, both of which were then tracked using FaceTracker. In the early days of FaceBuilder, deformation was not an option yet, and we were also dealing with a non-human face. For most shots, we imported the Maya geo with UVs to Nuke and used KeenTools. Luckily, FaceBuilder is now a very robust solution that has allowed our artists, on more recent shows, to work entirely in Nuke.
Armand: FaceTracker almost always gave us a solid object track. As Joon mentioned, Chucky’s face was not a typical human head, so being able to activate and deactivate certain parts of the face for tracking gave us a lot of flexibility. It was essential. Once the artists picked up KeenTools, they could work independently and take their shots through to the final. That was a massive time saver.
Joon: One shot was particularly challenging and required a bit more manual work to object track the head, but once it was done, everything else just worked! We were able to animate the face, the eye movement, and the blinks without issue, all procedurally.
I would say 80% of the work was done using Nuke and KeenTools and the rest were one-offs that needed some additional lighting for the eyes and jawline. But for most shots, the artists remained in one package from start to finish.
Question: Speaking about the difficulties, which scene was the most challenging?
Joon: The most difficult shot on our side involved Chucky and two actors crossing the frame while Chucky is looking around from actor to actor. We had to maintain Chuck’s performance, as the camera moves, his head rotating and changing perspective, and across crossing over. To solve this, we tracked a small part of his chin and a bit of ear using KeenTools. It was tricky, but it all worked. SmartVectors and 2D tracking were also options but would have required a lot of stitching and blending and just far too manual if any animation or timing notes came in from the client. Using KeenTools removed a lot of the guesswork and allowed us to focus on the creative. It worked like magic.
Images courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
Question: The final question — what are your general thoughts on the result?
Joon: It was incredible to work on Child’s Play! And I’m grateful we get to explore all these new innovative tools and technology. Pivoting to such an experimental software, at the time, would be unthinkable in the big studios mid-production. At a larger facility, when the camera or track doesn’t work, an artist has to flag it, talk to a coordinator, a lead, and they have to kick it back up the chain for revisions. The artist has to wait days sometimes to move forward with the shot.
Armand: Exactly. Artists could take their shots from start to finish on their own, without any time-consuming handoffs. This approach allowed them to focus on crafting their shots instead of waiting on updates to trickle back down the pipeline from different departments. With such a challenging timeline and the number and nature of shots that had to be done to a feature film standard, we were really pleased that the team wrapped on a great note. Actually, the best part was when we wrapped the show and then walked up the street to the Scotiabank Theatre to watch the film!
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