Earlier this summer, Universal invited us to go to Industrial Light & Magic, the effects studio behind Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and other classic blockbusters.  With the upcoming release of Battleship on Blu-ray, we spoke with visual effects supervisors Grady Cofer and Pablo Helman.  When we look at visual effects, we tend to notice the in-your-face stuff, but the true magic is in effects you never see or immediately think about: the water droplets, the weight of objects, etc.  This is fascinating stuff, and in my interview with Cofer and Helman, we spoke about the challenges of animating water, how they translated the board game pegs into weapons, the sinking of the USS John Paul Jones, creating the shredder, and more.

Hit the jump to check out the interview.  Battleship hits Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital Download on August 28th.

Grady Cofer and Pablo Helman

• 0:15 – Cofer and Helman explain their jobs on the film.
• 1:38 – Taking the pegs from the board game and translating them to a visual effect.
• 3:03 – What were the challenges of animating water in Battleship as opposed to other films featuring water?
• 4:43 – A particularly memorable challenge in the two-minute sequence of sinking the USS John Paul Jones.
• 6:27 – How do they create the shredder when it has no basis in reality?