Development Screenwriter
Darren Lemke first proposed the idea of contemporizing the "
Jack and the Beanstalk" fairy tale with
CGI in 2005 before the release of other contemporary films based on fairy tales such as
Alice in Wonderland (2010),
Red Riding Hood (2011) and
Snow White and the Huntsman (2012). In May 2011, production moved to
Somerset, England for two weeks with filming scheduled in
Wells,
Cheddar and secret locations in the county including scenes filmed at
Wells Cathedral. Also in May, scenes were shot at
Puzzlewood in the
Forest of Dean near
Coleford, Gloucestershire. Puzzlewood, which features unusual tree and rock formations, has previously been used for filming of the
BBC TV series
Doctor Who and
Merlin. The same forest is said to have inspired
J. R. R. Tolkien to write
The Hobbit. Later that month, filming took place at
Norwich Cathedral in
Norwich, Norfolk. About the
motion-capture process Singer stated, "It's fascinating ... It takes you back to play-acting as a kid in your living room because you are running around and having to imagine that you are in Gantua and imagine that there are these weapons and all these giant things. But there's nothing when you are there other than styrofoam and blocks. It forces the actors to regress to when they would play-act as kids or do minimalist theatre. But in that way it's fascinating - I can see why
Robert Zemeckis and
James Cameron have started to shoot pictures this way".
Visual effects and post-production In January 2012, Warner Bros. moved back the release date by nine months, from June 15, 2012, to March 22, 2013.
The Hollywood Reporter stated: "Warner can likely afford the move because of
Christopher Nolan's
The Dark Knight Rises, which opened in July. And moving the film back gives the studio more time for special effects, as well as a chance to attach trailers for it to
Peter Jackson's Christmas tentpole
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey". In October 2012, Warner Bros. again moved the release date, this time to March 1, 2013, three weeks earlier than the previous date. Warner Bros also changed the title of the film from
Jack the Giant Killer to
Jack the Giant Slayer. The film's visual effects were completed by seven different
visual effects houses:
Digital Domain, Giant Studios, The Third Floor,
Moving Picture Company (MPC), Soho VFX,
Rodeo FX and Hatch Productions. Creating the giants took four main steps. The first step was Pre-Capture, in which
motion capture was used to capture the actor's facial and body movements and render them in a real-time virtual environment. The second step took place during principal photography, where Simulcam technology was used to help the human characters virtually interact with the giants that were rendered earlier in Pre-Capture. The third step was Post-Capture, a second motion capture shoot to adjust giants' movements to seamlessly fit the live-action performances. The final step involved putting the finishing touches on the giant's animation, skin, hair and clothing, and composition in the shots. Creating the beanstalk involved two main requirements:
set extension for shots of the actors interacting with the beanstalk, which were shot against a
bluescreen, and complete
CGI renderings for shots of the beanstalk growing and extending from Earth into the world of the giants. Singer stated that he had to tone down the visual effects to keep the film age-appropriate for children. He said, "This movie probably has a bigger on-screen body count than any movie I've done before. It's done in a way that's fun, but it was a challenge to get away with that without it becoming upsetting to people ... It was about creating a tone like
Raiders of the Lost Ark or
Star Wars that allows you to get away with a lot of stuff because it feels like a movie." ==Soundtrack==