How War for the Planet of the Apes turned a visual effect into a reluctant hero
If you’re a filmmaker trying to bring fantastic characters to life with the most realistic, lifelike performances possible, you’re probably going to want to talk to Joe Letteri. The longtime visual effects supervisor has been working with computer-generated characters going all the way back to James Cameron’s The Abyss. As part of WETA Digital, he helped the director bring the Na’vi to life in 2009’s Avatar. Peruse Letteri’s filmography, and it’s hard to find a film he worked on that didn’t break significant new ground in one form or another.
Over the past six years, he’s been part of the Planet of the Apes trilogy, which hasn’t just used CG characters to surprise and awe audiences, but to carry the increasingly complex emotional weight…
