Michael

Michael tells the story of Michael Jackson’s life beyond the music, tracing his journey from the discovery of his extraordinary talent as the lead of the Jackson Five, to the visionary artist whose creative ambition fueled a relentless pursuit to become the biggest entertainer in the world. Highlighting both his life off-stage and some of the most iconic performances from his early solo career, the film gives audiences a front-row seat to Michael Jackson as never before. 

ILM’s work on the film consisted of a small but complex series of creature shots, focused around a menagerie of the pets Michael Jackson owned at his family estate. The shots included a llama, a giraffe, a python, as well as the infamous chimpanzee Bubbles. The team’s work on the latter was intensive, requiring them to reference videos of various chimpanzee behaviors online to achieve the finer details of animating Bubbles.

The Michael team was led by Visual Effects Supervisor Ivan Busquets, Animation Supervisors Jonathan Macintosh and Adrian Millington, Associate Visual Effects Supervisor Remy Dalmas, Executive Visual Effects Producers Jill Brooks and Jeanie King, and Visual Effects Producers Alun Cummins, Katherine Chambers, and Tini Wider. The work was completed largely byILM’s Vancouver studio, with some support from ILM’s San Francisco studio.