On the eighth of March of this year, Marvel studios release another inventive, action-packed film. As the last film before ‘Avengers: Endgame’, ‘Captain Marvel’ had a lot to live up to in terms of VFX. There are a lot of secrets and techniques to getting the scenes just right, and most of them are surprisingly simple and logical.
The directors of Captain Marvel were both practical film makers, meaning their first instincts were to shoot as much live-action footage as possible, which is a good tactic to keep costs down (Marvel movies are known to cost from $150 million to $356 million). Their aim was to be as grounded as possible, but still have the freedom to create a fantastical world.
Another thing they did in some scenes was shoot with ’interactive lights’, meaning they could control what the scene of a character could look like before the footage was even sent to the VFX teams. Of course, this limited them in what could be done after , and if something about the lighting needed to be changed, the take would have to be reshot. This technique was mainly used for Captain Marvel’s ‘Photon Blasts’, which was a commonly used attack in the film. Another very similar effect they added in post was Captain Marvel’s ‘Full Binary’ ability, which causes her power to appear all over her body. The directors made it clear that they didn’t want the power to look like it was coming from her suit, so VFX team kept this in mind when editing the footage. They also didn’t want her to look like she was on fire, and wanted her powers to have a “unique” feel to them.
Another thing that was taken into consideration was the various alien species that appear in the film. The hair, makeup and costume teams needed a clear image of what they needed to design and create. The directors didn’t want anything as fantastical as the creatures from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, and said that they wanted these aliens to appear as if they had been “mixing” with humans. This meant the budget for hair, makeup and costumes would be way lower, since most aliens in the film would just have different coloured skin or a few prosthetic limbs. Some of the other aliens needed prosthetic face plates, as they had bumps in their skin, or details that couldn’t be flat. They decided that the makeup for these aliens needed more flexibility and mobility, as the actors would be talking in character, and it wouldn’t be right if their faces were stiff. The Skrull aliens are of green complexion, and are easily recognisable because of their lined faces and pointed ears. The ears were what the film creators wanted to be the signature feature of the Skrull, as they were a new alien race to the series of films.
These are only a few of the fascinating behind the scenes facts of ‘Captain Marvel’. Another is that Brie Larson was filming for ‘Avengers: Endgame’ before she was even on the set for ‘Captain Marvel’, which is highly confusing, and interesting, because it meant the two film teams had to coordinate on how Captain Marvel’s powers were going to look in their respective films. This could’ve also been a good thing, as it meant the effects could be the exact same.
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