TWO MINDS ONE BODY
Fleischer Ruben filmmaker with symbiotic Franklin gets while Trevor Hogg supervisor Paul effects and visual Venom… of the making discussing
Apostapocalyptic producing fter horror Zombieland comedy drama and crime Gangster Squad, Ruben filmmaker of into the realm Fleischer enters Venom. with superheroes parasitic alien A volatile inhabits other symbiote that investigative a host in beings finds (Tom Eddie Brock journalist uncovers the he Hardy) as survivalist plans of a nefarious the Life known as corporation run by Carlton Foundation Ahmed). “It’s Drake (Riz character, always about best casting the each actors for role and providing their they can do a space where to learn I was excited best work. effects aspect of visual the whole done an entirely as I had never film. It’s before in a character CG in my set of skills a whole new filmmaker and is a toolbox as part of modern such a huge filmmaking.”
A core conflict is the ongoing struggle between extremely different personalities seeking domination within the same body. “They’re two sides of a coin,” states Fleischer. “Venom is an adulterated Id of Eddie Brock and is an alien that you have to learn how to train and have behave appropriately in our civilisation. It’s a buddy movie in a weird way. We talked a lot about 48 Hours and Midnight Run where there are these two opposing characters that come together on a journey, forge a relationship, and each leave a little changed by the other.” Venom is also part of the rogues’ gallery for a famous Wall Crawler, but “we decided to make it all about Eddie and Venom, and have their dynamic evolve independent of Spider-man.”
Every scene needed to be storyboarded. “You have to on big action movies, especially when there’s an entirely CG character involved,” remarks Fleischer. “Everything was deliberate. That’s not to say we couldn’t take liberties on the day or inspiration in the moment but we tried to always be as prepared as possible. I’ve tried to have iconic poses and moments that take place in the comics and feature them in the movie. We even have a quote directly taken from the comics: ‘Eyes, lungs, pancreas, so many snacks, so little time’.” An emphasis was placed on the horror aspect of the comics. “Cinematographer Matthew Libatique (Black Swan) has a real aptitude of doing huge action comic-book movies, like Iron Man, but also doing gritty cool indie films. I wanted to have a grittier textured quality that felt appropriate to the comics and reminiscent of classic horror films [from the 1980s], while also delivering large-scale action and visual effects which are expected in a superhero movie of this kind.”
Figuring out how to stage liveaction shots whether Venom was interacting with people or living in the environment was a challenge. “We realised quite early on that things like camera motion capture, which have been used on other films to create digital characters, wasn’t going to work for us because one of the key things about Venom is while he’s humanoid in shape he’s able to move at incredible speeds and can do extraordinary moves,” explains Venom visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin (Inception). “He never moves like a human being. The most important thing was to have some sort of positional reference so you could
frame up for the shot. We got a tall stunt performer who is 6’10”, and because Venom is actually 7’6” we built him up even higher with a Wiffle ball on a stick sticking out of the top of his helmet. Then through the suit we had motioncapture reference markers all over it so we could at least track his body movements and get a proper idea of where he was. After that it was down to the character animators to come in there and take the thing over.”
Comic books have the advantage of being able to draw whatever they want on a frame-by-frame basis. “Venom distorts quite heavily in the comics depending on what he’s doing,” notes Franklin. “We don’t have that luxury in visual effects because we need to make it consistent across all of the shots, so that the audience feels like they’re watching the same character and not completely different versions from shot to shot. Underneath all of that is what you would usually expect to do for a creature animation, like muscles and skin simulations, plus the stuff that combines it to the skeleton to preserve the volume and give him physical mass and presence. Venom has this incredibly strong, densely built muscular physique. Working in tandem with that is this extra layer of effects animation that gives him gelatinous gooey qualities, which is what the character is supposed to be from the comic books.”
There are two different forms of Venom. “The symbiote looks like an oily, gelatinous, slug-like amorphous creature that has no skeleton and is constantly changing shape and swashing
“I wanted TO have a grittier Textured quality That felt appropriate TO The comics and reminiscent Of classic horror films” Ruben Fleischer, director, Venom
around before bonding with the host,” explains Franklin. “Then when the bonding takes place, Venom produces this thick rubbery exoskeleton that surrounds the human host who is inside. This stuff emerges out of the skin of Eddie Brock, completely envelops him and transforms him into Venom, which is a large, physically muscular character. Depending on whether Venom is in the fully humanoid form or in the raw symbiotic state you get various stages of gelatinousness.” Every shot of Venom involved effects animation to create all of the goo, in particular how it moves on his face. “We didn’t want Venom to feel like a guy in a suit. You wanted to always believe that this character could morph into slimy tendrils. We had this constant effect animation pass that created the movement of the edges of the eye and the way that the strains of goo stretch between the jaws as he opens his mouth, which is a characteristic of the comics.”
When it came to villains there were a lot to draw from the Venom comic books. “With Riot, he’s a personal favourite who is a real badass and looks like a worthy adversary for Venom,” says Fleischer. “He’s bigger and more menacing. I liked his colour and attitude. Riot felt like he would be a great foe for this movie.” Riot developed a lot further from the source material. “He has an angular, rough, broken gunmetal finish to his surface that played to the strengths of lighting and rendering,” explains Franklin. “He doesn’t have anywhere near as much dialogue to deliver. The general mode for Riot is furious.” Symbiotes can form various shapes and objects. “Venom tends to form tentacles and shields with his goo. Riot has the ability to form axes, knives, darts and spears that can also be thrown as projectiles from his body, which becomes an important part of the story.”
Though Venom is set in San Francisco 95 per cent of the principal photography took place in Atlanta. “The challenge was trying to find San Francisco in Atlanta,” states Fleischer. “But I wanted to make sure to get as much of San Francisco in the film as possible. We tried to shoot all of our exteriors there and get as much production value crammed into every single frame that we had to showcase the city.” Helping matters
was all of the night-time shooting. “What we mostly did was paint out things that told you it was Atlanta, like street signs and giant Cococola signs that are landmarks in Atlanta. Editorial did a lot of work as well where they would cleverly intersperse it with action location material from San Francisco. We’ve done a little bit of CG augmentation to the skylines to add a key building which features in the story.”
For the most part what is seen is the real world. “You are looking at the challenges of ensuring San Francisco and Atlanta mesh together in terms of the textural qualities of those different locations,” states Franklin. “The biggest part of world building in the whole film is the end when we go to the Life Foundation’s rocket launch site, which is this fantastic privately run shuttle base built onto the Marin Headlands outside of San Francisco. That required a lot of effort, particularly when it came to the finale, because we see it at night and had to come up with a dynamic lighting scenario that was consistent, so you’d understand where you were at any time in the sequence, but at the same time looked dramatic and exciting. A lot of effort went into that.”
Previs was produced for the action sequences by The Third Floor and DNEG. “That allowed us to figure out what the physical gags might be,” explains Franklin. “In the case of the apartment fight, that was handed over to the stunt department. Chris O’hara, who was our stunt coordinator, devised some visceral action using as many practical stunts as possible.
Then what we would do digitally is connect all that up with the tentacles, because quite often Eddie is attacking somebody who is on the far side of the room. We either have Tom Hardy or Tom’s stunt double Jacob Tomuri and the stunt guys doing what they needed to do. Maybe they would be on wire rigs or crash mats that we would have to paint out. If Eddie was striking somebody who was several feet away from him, they would spend a lot of time getting the timing right and then we would track the tentacles onto Eddie’s body, extruding out from his arms and slapping into other people’s faces or grabbling them around the neck. The most time-consuming part of that was the body tracking which had to be absolutely spot-on.”
A signature sequence is the motorcycle chase. “We did a lot previs with DNEG and then Spiro Razatos, our second unit director, took that and ran with it,” says Franklin. “Pretty much all of the beats that we created in the previs have their counterparts in the real world, but once you get to the liveaction unit you begin to find that reality imposes restrictions upon you. Maybe the bike can’t go as fast as you had it in the previs or the jump can’t be as quite as high, or maybe they can do something much more violent and aggressive than what you had in previs. The previs is a guide for what to shoot but then again it’s a lot of painstaking match moving, body tracking, interaction and cleanup to connect it all together.” A combination of roto animation and bluescreen was utilised. “For the stuff that was shot on location in Atlanta there was a lot of reliance on roto. But when you see Tom Hardy riding the motorcycle he’s always against
a bluescreen so we were adding in the backgrounds behind him.”
In the realm of 1,100 visual effects shots needed to be created for Venom. “We always knew that the big challenge was going to be making the creatures feel real, extraordinary, and giving them real character. We understood it would be an issue right from the start,” recalls Franklin. “Some of the things that required quite a lot of creative R&D were the transformation effects, as we had to work out what it will look like when the goo is coming out of Eddie’s body. The conceit is that creature lives inside of him in a liquid state and then it oozes out of the skin rapidly, bleeds through and coalesces on the outside of the clothing, and forms into the creature encapsulating Eddie. That’s easy enough for me to describe, but to visualise and show it in an efficient and comprehensible manner in the film required an awful lot of effort. That was the one thing that turned out to be quite a lot more time-consuming than we initially thought.”
“For me the challenge has been satisfying the fans’ expectations and wanting to deliver a movie that people felt was the Venom they were hoping to see,” notes Fleischer. “Primarily that was in the look of the character, the way he acts in these action sequences and the way he’s true to the comics. My proudest thing will be if people feel that the Venom on the screen is the one they’ve been wanting to come to the theatres for a long time.” Venom has received a PG-13 rating. “We had to be careful about that because it was important to the studio,” notes Franklin. “We’ve made this as dramatic and exciting but scary as we can make it. It’s definitely a film that I wouldn’t take young children to see. In terms of sequences the motorcycle chase is particularly dramatic and exciting. I’m going to get a kick when people see Riot’s first appearance in the film; that will make a few people jump out of their seats!”
“The BIG challenge was giving The creatures real character” Paul Franklin, visual effects supervisor, Venom