COURTESY OF SENG JEORNG AU
Ann'e Au, right, and Harlan Lee do battle in a sword fight wearing gear for motion-capture technology developed by Square USA and used in the "Animatrix" short "Final Flight of the Osiris."
A trio of isle residents provide
the martial arts movements behind
a segment of "The Animatrix"
Even in the fantastic world of "The Matrix," there's a little bit of Hawaii. If you're one of the many fans of the film trilogy who'll either buy or rent "The Animatrix" DVD being released in stores nationwide today, check out one of the nine anime shorts titled "The Final Flight of the Osiris." There you'll find the work of Seng Jeorng Au, his daughter Ann'e and Harlan Lee.
It's their martial arts movements you'll be looking at in a sword fight scene, not their actual bodies. They've been transformed and rendered into CGI animation and motion capture technology developed by Square USA, the former Honolulu-based computer animation studio whose one claim to notoriety was the feature-length "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within."
The Aus and Lee did their work in the Diamond Head Studios, where Square USA had their motion-capture system set up before closing up shop last year.
The trio worked with "Final Fantasy" co-director Andy Jones, who was one of nine other notable anime creators from the United States and Asia who worked on "The Animatrix."
All of the "animetors" worked off of bare-bone miniscripts from "Matrix" directors Andy and Larry Wachowski. The stories are offshoot scenarios from the world of "The Matrix" and flesh out more of the back story behind the original movie and the "Reloaded" sequel in theaters now.
"Osiris" actually had a theatrical release earlier in the year, playing with the tepid Stephen King horror-thriller "Dreamcatcher."
SENG JEORNG AU, unfortunately, didn't see "Osiris" on the big screen because he was in China on business when it screened. The respected chief instructor of the downtown Au's Shaolin Arts Society was hired on to create the sword-fighting action.
His daughter Ann'e auditioned and was picked to do the motion capture for the female lead, using a Chinese straight sword, against the male lead's Japanese sword, played by local kung fu master and Au's martial arts "brother" Harlan Lee.
"All of the stances and moves that you see are authentic," Au said, "and I pride myself in showing the differences in the ways the weapons are handled -- the samurai movements are big and sweeping movements, while the straight sword work is more refined, using a smaller circle of movement."
COURTESY OF SENG JEORNG AU
A scene from "Final Flight" is shown above.
Au said that "while the first stream movements of the female character were initially done by me, it was later felt that I didn't move like how a woman would, so Jones and his crew auditioned other women that were either dancers, gymnasts or martial artists." The search came down to two women -- trained separately in karate and kempo -- but neither could execute convincing sword movements. "It was only then that someone recommended that my daughter try out," Au said.
He was awed by the motion-capture technology "and seeing these young people involved -- it was beyond my own capabilities."
"People who saw the short in theaters told me it was pretty good," he said. "The leads are boyfriend-girlfriend, who are crew members of the gunship Osiris, which is referred to in the second 'Matrix' film.
"But we don't know their relationship as they go into virtual reality, blindfold themselves and do this swordplay. It looks like some kind of mutual admiration thing, and they start slicing each other's clothes off like 'Zorro.' It's not total nudity, even though the female ends up in just a thong.
"It was a nice experience working on that episode," Au said, "and even though we didn't get any credit for our work, I still feel totally honored."
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