Civil war in Stereo

To make Black Panther more of a superhero, the team needed to change the actor’s proportions. “The CG Black Panther has a smaller head than we could achieve in costume and more ‘superhero’ proportions to his body,” says VFX supervisor Russell Earl. Black Panther makes his Marvel movie debut Prime Focus world’s creative director of stereo conversion, Richard Baker, provided an extra dimension to imagery along with Stereo d. If there is anything different or unique in the trailer that requires a different approach, it’s a good way of catching this early and agreeing on the direction for it. In the case of Civil War, a good example is the scene in which Cap and the team are seated around the conference table looking at the scenes of destruction in New York, Washington DC and Sokovia on a holographic display. We ended up playing the display much more opaque in stereo than it was originally, keeping the reflections but removing the background and making the display more solid, as there was too much rivalry with the background elements in stereo. The shot with the younger Tony was about 3,500 frames long, so that was a challenge. We broke it up into about five sections to handle it effectively. The biggest challenge was logistical – the time required to upload, download, transcode and submit files of this size. With shots this big you want to get it right first time! Mocap provided data for animators and previz gave the team a clear direction for specific shots for Ant-man Dan Deleeuw, VFX supervisor, Marvel

in a suit made from the same material as the Cap’s shield. It has a metallic look more easily achieved in CG. It’s vibration proof and impervious to bullets. “He’s all CG in this sequence, so we could art direct the costume and push the proportions of...