Davy Jones (Pirates of The Caribbean) - Conception and Creation

Conception and Creation

See also: Industrial Light & Magic, Motion capture, Computer-generated imagery, and photorealism

Before officially casting Bill Nighy, producers also met with Jim Broadbent, Iain Glen and Richard E. Grant for the role.

Like the entire crew of the Flying Dutchman (except "Bootstrap Bill"), Davy Jones's physical appearance is completely 3-D computer-generated. Nighy's performance was recorded using motion capture during actual filming on the set, with Nighy wearing several markers in both a grey suit and his face, rather than in a studio during post-production. Nighy also wore make-up around his eyes, since the original plan was to use his real eyes, if necessary to get the proper lighting, in the digital character; he also wore make-up on his lips and around his mouth, to assist in the motion capture of his character's Scottish accent. Briefly during the third film, Jones appears as a human for a single scene, played by Nighy in costume. Several reviewers have in fact mistakenly identified Nighy as wearing prosthetic makeup due to the computer-generated character's photorealism.