Felton native Hoyt Yeatman has made it to the top — literally.
Yeatman, a 1973 San Lorenzo Valley High graduate, is the director of Walt Disney Pictures’ “G-Force” — the movie listed at the top of the Scotts Valley Cinema marquee that can be seen from Mt. Hermon Road.
“G-Force,” a partially animated flick about action-hero guinea pigs, is Yeatman’s first as a director and has climbed to No. 3 in the current box-office tallies, grossing $86.1 million during its run in theaters nationwide.
“It’s been fairly successful,” Yeatman said.
Yeatman came up with idea behind “G-Force” after his then-5-year-old son started dressing up his classroom guinea pig in G.I. Joe gear while the family had the pet for a week.
“From a kitchen table discussion with your 5-year-old to a Hollywood film — it was quite a ride,” Yeatman who lives North of Los Angeles in the Santa Rosa Valley, said.
It took six years for the project to come to fruition, but Yeatman, who has worked on nearly 100 films as a visual effects consultant or supervisor, eventually pitched it to Jerry Bruckheimer, who liked the idea.
The film is a hybrid between live-action and four animated guinea pigs and a mole — collectively named G-Force — that save the world from the evil Saber, played by Bill Nighy.
Yeatman said “G-Force” was the biggest digital graphics undertaking that Sony Pictures Imageworks has ever completed, beating out “Spiderman” in the graphics department by 1½ times.
The movie plays fully in 3D, something Yeatman is proud of. The way the movie was shot allows a more interactive experience, he said.
“It allows the characters to break the apparent frame (of the picture on the screen),” Yeatman said. “It brings the characters into the audience.”
The level of detail in the movie is astounding.
Computers rendered 271 billion hairs in 18 million hours of computer processing, Yeatman said. Supercomputers worked days and nights making each hair on each animal in the movie perfect.
“Today’s technology is really amazing,” Yeatman said. “There are only two limitations — No. 1 your imagination, and No. 2 your pocketbook.”
Yeatman has his own page on the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), and his latest work is on the graphics for the animated film “20,000 Fathoms.”
Occasionally, the University of California, Los Angeles, graduate even makes his way north to his old stomping grounds.
Even though his parents moved from the area about 20 years ago, he said, he likes to roam the San Lorenzo Valley High campus in search of his former chemistry professor, Preston Boomer, the well-known and longest serving teacher at the school.
