Technology gives new look to upcoming film

When moviegoers take a ride on “The Polar Express” this November, they’ll see a new film technology that’s like watching the pages of the classic Christmas story come alive.

“I wanted it to look like a movie in an oil painting, then have all the warmth, immediacy and subtleties of a human performance,” director Robert Zemeckis says.

A trailer from the movie will be shown on television beginning today and will be in theaters starting June 4.

The classic children’s tale, by Chris Van Allsburg, is about a boy who takes a night train to visit Santa in the North Pole. It stars Tom Hanks, who also is executive producer of the film, and Nona Gaye, the late Marvin Gaye’s daughter.

Actors recently finished shooting the movie, which involved a different process than usual to achieve the painterly effect. Here’s how it works:

• The actors film the story in what is called a “black box theater,” where they perform their scenes as if in a theater in the round. But they are wearing more than just makeup: Their faces are painted with hundreds of little reflective dots on every muscle, eyelid, eyebrow and locus of expression.

• Computers with infra-red receptors surround the actors, recording the nuances of their performances.

• That digital information is transferred to a computer, which then places the actor’s image in a painted setting from the book.

“When Tom (Hanks) and I were thinking about how we could do this book as a movie, we scratched our heads and asked, ‘How do you do a train going to the North Pole at night on Christmas Eve’? ” Zemeckis said.

“We decided to explore all aspects of digital cinema. We tried human characters against a blue screen. We went through every possible technique. Then we tried this very new form and when we got the results back, we decided this is the only way we can do it.”

Since scenes are shot from beginning to end, in chronological order, more of the script gets covered in a shorter amount of time. “The actors don’t have to stop for setups or camera angles,” says Zemeckis.

“Everything is in continuity. So it’s wonderfully liberating for the actors: They can just act. They don’t have to think of all the technical things.”