The eye in Tintin

There may be no `I' in team, but eyes were one of the most important features for partners Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson when it came to making The Adventures Of Tintin. The film boosts an all-star cast in Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, Andy Serkis and Nick Frost and Simon Pegg as hopeless investigators Thomson and Thompson, yet you won't see them in front of you on screen. What you will see, says Jackson, are their incredible performances and, importantly, their eyes.
``When you're casting a movie or shooting a film the eyes are the most important feature. Any great actor knows that,'' he says.
``You study real eyes, the way the light reflects and the way the irises reflect emotion. You go to great scientific detail.
``We did that with Gollum, King Kong, Avatar and our company (WETA Digital) has put a huge amount of research into the eyes.
``Our actors had to create characters that were just as expressive in the eyes as real people.''

The actors were filmed over the course of 50 days wearing the specially designed mocap suits that translate their movements into a digital outline which is then turned into the 3D animation seen in the film. Spielberg says although it ``may be the digital era in certain kinds of movies'', it's still very much the ``analogue era'' in terms of storytelling. And the success or failure of a story hinges on the performances.
``I always found with costumes and make up - even though it does give you sense of great ambience and environment - it all comes down to the actors looking each other in the eye,'' he says.
``That's where all the drama and comedy happens.
``You see Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon dressed up in Some Like It Hot and when they're looking each other in the eye, that's when something special happens.
``When wearing motion capture suits with the dots and the masks all over their faces, then they're just acting.
``It's their skills as a professional actor that see you through, not what they’re wearing.'' Spielberg bought the rights to Tintin in 1983 and in the many years that he and Jackson have been working on the film together, he says the Kiwi filmmaker has supported him in ``just about every creative decision''. Jackson too says their journey together has been enlightening.
``I find that during the process of making a film you're constantly discovering things you would never imagine would work at the beginning,'' he says.
``When I start something I can shut my eyes and imagine the film, the camera angles and even the music - not the exact music but the type of tune.
``With Tintin the process was even more stimulating because it begins with a very crude animation and visualisation and then it's layering and layering and layering.
``It's been five or six absolutely exciting years because we're seeing new things and things we've seen before done in new ways.''

The result is one of the most visually exciting and ridiculously entertaining movies of the year. As one of the best action/adventures of the decade, it's no wonder the film has already found a fanbase with international audiences despite not being released in the US or Australia yet. With 82 years of history and hundreds of stories, Spielberg sums-up the big screen version of Herge's characters best: ``Tintin is an audience movie.''

The Adventures Of Tintin is out Boxing Day.