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When Walt Disney Pictures first decided to film the story of a lifelike car in the late 1960s, the filmmakers had no idea what model of vehicle they were going to use. To get a sense of how ordinary people reacted to a variety of familiar cars, they filled a Disney backlot with models ranging from Chevys to Toyotas to MGs to swank Aston Martins and asked employees who they would most like to see in the role of Herbie. What they discovered was that the one and only VW Bug on the lot was the car that people actually touched, petting it as if it were a favorite friend. The spontaneous, emotional response to the VW sealed the deal and “Herbie the Love Bug” was born. Now, director Angela Robinson and her technical team were faced with the task of recreating Herbie in a 21st-century world in which cars have come a long way. Herbie would still be a 1963 VW Bug at heart, but this time around he had to be able to take on the challenging demands of a story that has him facing monster trucks in a demolition derby, getting an extreme makeover into a NASCAR and even falling in love with a gorgeous, shiny New Beetle. From the very start, Robinson made the decision that she wanted the film’s Herbie to seem as tactile and real as an enchanted car possibly could, which meant that when it came to using CGI and digital effects...less would be more. Though the film is sprinkled with virtual racetracks and various green-screen effects, Herbie’s personality, movements and expression are deeply rooted in the use of actual automobiles that have been refashioned to operate as giant robotic puppets. One of the team’s first challenges was rounding up an entire herd of Herbies! Herbie sports some three dozen “costume changes” in HERBIE: FULLY LOADED, and each one required its own automobile. Picture car coordinator Randy White was handed the early task of scouring the planet for vintage VWs still in good working condition. “I obtained about half of the cars via the internet, through a website that’s dedicated to Volkswagens. Our Herbies hail from all over the United States—from Ohio, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Utah, New Mexico and California,” explains White. “VW Bug owners, and particularly Herbie fans, are really dedicated and knowledgeable, and they’ve been an incredible asset to us on this film. Not only did they help us find dozens of cars, but they also helped to supply the kind of details about Herbie in his progression through the previous Herbie movies that only a fan would know.” One of the most special cars featured in HERBIE: FULLY LOADED is none other than the original “Herbie the Love Bug” himself! When White heard that the “retired star” was still in action, he tracked down the car’s owner. “The original Herbie was in Ohio, we discovered,” explains White. “The owner had given it a new high-performance engine and transmission and, although he was initially reluctant to sell it to us, he decided that returning Herbie for an encore performance was too great an opportunity to ignore.” White also obtained a second VW Bug from the same owner, a red 1963 ragtop, which was transformed into one of the tricked-out Herbies in the film. “We received these cars with the owner’s best wishes, and he even included the original decals and stripes,” notes White. With a bevy of Herbies at their disposal, the filmmakers began to develop his many different looks and moods, divided into four main categories: • Junkyard Herbieis riddled with rust, scratches, flat tires and a look of doom, but still manages through his wily tricks to win Maggie Peyton’s affection. • Once Maggie rescues Herbie and takes him to mechanical wiz Kevin, he gets tricked-out with the latest in cool urban gear, becoming Street Racer Herbie, sporting a new pearlescent paint job, slick gauges and booming speakers. • Later, when Herbie is separated from Maggie, he transforms into Demolition Derby Herbie, where he lives in fear for his own chassis and is seen in a more bare-bones incarnation, without his spoiler or even his protective windshield. •Finally, Herbie morphs into his ultimate dream: NASCAR Herbie, a muscular version of the little VW, complete with a rear spoiler wing, racing tires and a roll cage that have him ready for blazing speed. Production designer Daniel Bradford gave Herbie’s exterior details an initial modern makeover and then added on to them from there. He explains: “Part of Herbie’s appeal is his kind of Old School style and innocence, so we wanted to keep that while freshening up his look a wee bit. For example, we felt the graphics of his number 53 were just a little bit frumpy, so we gave him a more clean, crisp, modern numbering that still harks back to what was done in the original movies.” The next element in bringing Herbie to life was bringing in special-effects designers and puppeteers who could impart to Herbie a wide variety of feelings, expressions and, best of all, all kinds of wild stunts. Supervising puppeteer Robert Short, who won an Academy Award ® for his innovative creature effects in “Beetlejuice,” meticulously studied the original Herbie films to get a feel for Herbie’s many faces. He jumped off from there, using his own imagination and the themes of the screenplay to inspire a series of drawings that had cast and crew falling in love all over again. “After discussing Herbie’s personality traits at length with Angela Robinson, I sketched out drawings of all the different expressions Herbie would have to make throughout the film. These drawings also allowed Matt Sweeney’s terrific special-effects team to get a feeling for Herbie’s movements in order to achieve the right emotions,” explains Short. “There are five to seven universal facial expressions, such as fear, sadness and joy, that are recognized the world over, no matter what the language. I would choose different eyebrow, bumper and body positions to convey each of these emotions Herbie was feeling. And if you know Herbie, you know he can become ecstatically happy or very, very angry in the blink of an eye!” When special-effects supervisor Matt Sweeney looked at the drawings of Herbie, he knew he would have his work cut out for him—but he was ready to hit the gas and take on the challenge. Sweeney was responsible for developing and customizing all the mechanical Herbies—the Herbie that does wheelies, the Herbie that drives backwards, the Herbie that goes up on his right side, and one of his favorites: the Herbie that shakes himself after a car wash just like a dog. Says Sweeney: “Herbie had an extensive list of physical actions he needed to perform, from making his ‘eyes,’which are actually his headlights, roll back and forth to jumping up and down on his wheels to flipping his sun visors. So we rigged each of Herbie’s car parts with radio-controlled cables so that they could each move individually. His hood can go up and down, his doors can open and close, and his visors can flip at a moment’s notice. We also installed radio-controlled servos under the hood and individual air rams on each tire, allowing Herbie to lean right or left and to raise his front or back end. We even gave him a little radiocontrolled electric motor which can make his antenna wag back and forth!” One of Herbie’s earliest challenges is narrowly escaping imminent destruction in the junkyard. “For that scene, we had to have a crane pick up Herbie in one continuous shot and ‘accidentally’drop him from 20 feet in the air onto another car, which he smashes,” explains puppeteer Robert Short. “Of course, Herbie is beeping and flapping his doors the entire time, and our timing had to be perfect for the shot to work. Everything went off like clockwork as Herbie crushed the car as flat as a pancake and continued to beep and wag his antenna in exhilaration, all in one take. Matt Sweeney even created a specially reinforced Crusher Herbie that could withstand multiple plummets.” Another demanding shot involved Herbie being knocked unconscious after getting rammed by another car. Herbie’s whole world begins to blank out as his eyes blink and roll and his chin gets shoved into the dirt. “Sound easy? Not if you have to shoot it with a high-speed camera to turn it into a slow-motion sequence, which meant all of Herbie’s actions had to take place within three seconds, and each move had to be just right,” recalls Short. “Luckily, we had it all worked out to the tiniest details, and after two takes, it was complete.” Just keeping up with Herbie’s minor “aches and pains” became a full-time job. “We had six mechanics, working 14 hours a day to keep up with the filming,” recalls Randy White. “As scenes were being shot, we worked feverishly to maintain the vehicles being used while simultaneously preparing other cars for the upcoming scene requirements.” As the team took Herbie through the grandest extremes of vehicular life, the one thing they never forgot is that Herbie is always much more than just a car. “We knew our job was to capture the magical aspect of Herbie, the emotional side of him, which gets a real workout in this story,” says Sweeney. “His transformation is more than just about sheet metal and instrument gauges. He goes from being down in the dumps to coming back strong to win the hearts and souls of his friends. He’s a real champ because every time he gets knocked down, he picks himself up and tries even harder. Creating a character that goes from steel and rubber and glass to a flesh-and-blood hero that you want to root for was a lot of fun.”
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