A Chat with Ariel Shaw
We recently had the pleasure of speaking with the visual effects supervisor for Dragonball: Evolution, Ariel Velasco Shaw, who had completed his work on the film. Ariel answered some questions that many of you have been asking lately.
DBthemovie: Were you (or the team) familiar with Dragonball before this film?
Ariel Velasco Shaw: Yeah, I have a 12 year old son, Milo who is a huge fan. I have always loved the series as well. It’s funny how excited the Visual Effects Houses were to get on the movie. They would do these Ki Energy tests where the CG artists would throw the Ki and then put in their incarnation of the effect.
Q: In the anime, everything seems to be bright and vibrant with fluffy cloud-filled skies. I noticed that, in the trailer, the scene with Gohan training Goku is very similar. Does that [scene] represent the overall look of the movie?
A: What I love about the look of the film is that it arcs from a terrestrial (earthly every day look, albeit, bright and hopeful) to something that is foreboding and other worldly. We went through a look development process (Look Dev) where we had our VFX houses develop the arc.
Q: Some fans were confused that the “Kame Hame Ha” [in the trailer] was executed with one hand. Was this the actual “Kame Hame Ha” or just a “Ki” blast put in the trailer to not spoil it?
A: The one handed ki blast was just a shadow crane strike. Goku has a limited arsenal of energy blasts that culminates in a Kame Hame Ha. Roshi’s arsenal is more powerful than Goku’s, and Piccolo has many types of energy blasts that culminates in a Spirit Bomb. I gotta say, the energy fights are pretty cool.
Q: Do any of the characters have auras in the film?
A: Yes.
Q: If Dragonball: Evolution does well, are you up for working on a sequel?
A: This was a great project to be a part of. The cast and the crew were fantastic. The Fox VFX department is second to none on helping the process along. Of course I’ll come back and join the party.
Many thanks to Ariel for taking the time to answer these questions.
Loading ...
@goku: Yes but that means I would have to kill you in the end, you down for that?
And are you bald with a mustache? Because I match the physical description to Vegeta’s only thing is I’m younger than Chatwin by about 5 years, but I’m sure that doesn’t matter on account that Saiyans don’t age past a certain point.
King Piccolo never knew the Spirit Bomb. King Kai didn’t even teach Piccolo Jr the Spirit Bomb.
@Tasunara:
“Maybe that’s how he gets Goku out of his Oozaru form, because I’d hate to see Piccolo taken down by Oozaru.”
Wouldn’t it make more sense for Roshi to blow up the moon or for King Piccolo to cut off Oozaru’s tail?
u ne wats funny??my name is ariel lol thanxs ariel for da best vidual effects lol
u neo wats funny??my name is ariel lol thanxs ariel for da best visual effects lol
I still miss Krillin! I wish Century Fox has being hidden this character and will make a surprise to us all. But that’s impossible (or not?)
Piccolo uses the spirit bomb? What?!
@Umika: Wow, yes thanks. Do you happen to own all the vids. in Japanese? It would clear up a lot of confusion about further issues.
SO-KI-DAN= SO=contextually; once before, formerly, ever, never as in the negative, former,
altar of sacrifice – KI=contextually; spirit, many others but this one seems most appropriate – DAN= mandala; contextually, a symbol of the universe, perhaps in this instance a pattern in the form of a circle or maybe ball.
Genki Dama= Genki-contextually; robust, vigor, energy, vitality.
Dama= coin
What’s interesting these words can be broken down further into root meanings. I’ve done that work but I believe people should draw their own meaning out of the words for themselves.
Another point, there are words for the English word bomb; bomu and bakudan. So it would be pretty easy to distinguish the difference between Genki Dama and Genki Bomu or bakudan when listening.
1. There is a chance Piccolo will have the Special Beam Cannon though. Though he should only have it after Goku kills King Piccolo and Piccolo Jr. fights him years later.
If he for some reason has some sort of massive blast, it better, in no way, have anything to do with a spirit bomb.
I know other characters in the show had moves like the Spirit Bomb (aka Frieza and his Death Ball) but they were just massive amounts of their own KI while Goku’s comes from the anything living around him.
2. Yamcha did have a Spirit Bomb, though its in no way like Goku’s.
Yamcha has complete control over his blast giving it less strength while Goku’s is a one shot kill. No moving, nothing…his blast comes down and whats underneath should be dead.
In this way, Yamcha’s blast is more of a Spirit Ball then a Spirit Bomb.
But yeah anyway…I’m excited to hear that theres going to be Energy Auras around them during this thing…that’ll be awesome!
@MicaB:
In the tv serie Krillin was killed by King Piccolo’s monster creation in the first episode of the King Piccolo saga so no Krillin in this movie but maybe in the sequel together with Tien.
In the tv serie grandpa Gohan was death before the King Piccolo saga.
@Sal: I guess with the word Dama = coin in English, which we would associate with payment, maybe the proper description is spiritual payback! Which in another context might be thought of as a bomb. We considered the A-bomb drops on Japan as payback for Pearl Harbor, so it’s not without contextual reference.
Umm…did he just say Piccolo will do Spirit Bomb!!!…I swear Spirit Bomb was first introduced in DBZ???….anyway i still can’t wait for the movie..!
@Andrew: Well I think Mr. Shaw doesn’t have a grasp of the finer details of what the techniques mean to the fans. Not his fault I guess, he seems uninformed on this point and I think he had more to think about than to ask, or dig out an answer… It must be something along those lines, or he can’t reveal, which means it’s something we haven’t seen before. A new technique perhaps to stand in as a rival to the Kamehameha technique. Perhaps this is what becomes the face off final scene of the movie. what do you think? A pretty good twist, It’s not the special beam cannon. We see it I think, when Piccolo destroys France, standing in for the Ki beam he uses in the Anime. Piccolo would use it as a last resort to attempt to counter the Kamehameha. Of course he fails…
@the old man: I have all episodes of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT and movies and specials on a 1TB external hard drive in both Japanese, and English Audio in .rm & .rmvb file format that can be played on RealPlayer.
I don’t want to be over critical but he said that piccolo’s final blast was (spirit bomb)
The only person that King Kai teaches that to is Goku.
Hopefully he doesn’t say “spirit bomb” when he shoots it.
By the way the best thing Piccolo should have is Special Beam Cannon.
Although this is “evolution” and not “Z” so of course it doesn’t have to be exactly the same.
I can dream….
Hey guys, you have a great blog, I’ve been following it for a year, but this is the first time I’ve posted a comment.
I was a previsualization animator at Ollin Studios in Mexico and I had the pleasure to work closely with Ariel and the rest of the team at Ollin on the visualization of various action sequences. The best thing about working with him was that he knew the anime and the world of the story and was passionate about it. I personally had a blast working on the film.
Keep up the good work on the blog!
Sant
i want to know if the fighting characters will have raw strength and speed and that goku being a saiyan can get more powerful like in the series after a beating? whats up with piccolo doing the spirit bomb? and the dragonballs were created by the nameks not by some random 7 mysitics on earth!!!!!!!!
Love all the DBz and cant wait for the movie everything looks great the only thing which puts me of is the cast i tought gku ws meant to be a kid in the first series and wht will really mes it up is if they make a movie on GT cause agian goku is meant to be a kid so i think they should hav tought of that before doing the first one.
does goku turn into the giant ape?
phew at least that cleared up my worries about the kamehameha
aura’s as well canni friggin wait
Great Interview, Went into enough detail for me, The movie looks promising
@Umika: VERY NICE. Now we know who to bug about reference.