How the VFX teams gave life to Josh Brolin's Thanos in the "war to the infinite"



[ad_1]

The creation of the Archvillain 8 feet tall requires the work of two visual effects companies, Digital Domain and Weta Digital, each of which adopt a slightly different approach: "The pressure has been constant as soon as first day".

As a Great Disney / Marvel villain Avengers: Infinity War Thanos, the genocidal supervillain played by Josh Brolin, demands the Herculean efforts of not one but two visual effects houses, with the 39, using a facial scan system offered by a third party. Indeed, not only did the captured CG-Performance character have a mbadive presence, measuring 8 feet tall, but he also spent almost an hour on the screen.

"The script has had many iterations," explains the film as a whole. The special effects supervisor, Dan Deleeuw, explained that such an iteration had completely changed the scope of the work on special effects, which had been nominated on January 22 for the Oscar for the visual effect . "Joe Russo [who with brother Anthony directed the film] had the idea of ​​telling the story from Thanos' point of view, and Thanos went from supporting the villain to one of the main characters leading the plot."

The process to bring Thanos to life began. at Marvel, who oversaw the development of the character, a muscular humanoid with purple skin. While 14 special effects houses were working on Infinity War Digital Domain and Weta Digital together pursued the development of Thanos and the sharing of responsibilities related to the consistency of its appearance and performance throughout the year. movie.

Before the start of filming, Brolin's face expressions – with the actor expressing everything from a broad smile to a threatening frown – were captured by the high-end facial scanning system resolution of Industrial Light & Magic, Medusa. The technology, developed by Disney Research in Zurich and launched a few years ago, was used to capture about 130 actors (like Andy Serkis when he was playing the supreme guide Snoke in Star Wars: The Last Jedi ) It will be recognized by the Academy of Arts and Science of Cinema on February 9 at the presentation of scientific and technical awards.

On the set, Brolin wore body and face capture systems to record his performance. For other actors to have an idea of ​​the height of Thanos, Brolin sometimes wore a backpack with a pole over his head to let his comrade actors watch. And sometimes he just stood on a platform above them.

The overall motion capture data was effectively combined with the data provided by Medusa. Kelly Port, VFX Supervisor at Digital Domain Port, explains that the company has introduced Medusa data into a new digital domain system called Masquerade, which uses machine learning to "learn" Brolin's expressions and create a version to highest resolution of what Brolin achieved. These were then redirected to the CG Thanos, and the animators, as is customary, further improved the performances by hand, especially when the Anatomy of Thanos did not match that of Brolin – as the unfortunately crumpled chin of Thanos.

Weta used a different process, based on the tools developed to create Caesar for the movies The Planet of the Apes . Matt Aitken, supervisor of Weta VFX, explains that the team has applied performance capture information to his system, using Medusa data to check for accuracy, in order to create performance on a digital version of Brolin which was later applied to the digital Thanos.

Notes Portage Collaborative Efforts Required: "The pressure was exercised from the first day.Thanks had to resist the characters of the action".

This story was first published in The Hollywood Reporter on January 24. . To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

Avengers: Infinity War

[ad_2]
Source link