“Superman: Harnessing Numeric Power for Cinematic Magic” by Williams, Davison and Gonzales
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Title:
- Superman: Harnessing Numeric Power for Cinematic Magic
Session/Category Title:
- Superman: Harnessing Numeric Power for Cinematic Magic
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Abstract:
Superman makes the third feature film and fifth project in total on which Wētā FX has had the pleasure of working with James Gunn. In this talk you can hear how the team got stuck in to bringing Superman’s latest fight against an arch nemesis to life. Four-time Academy Award nominee and Senior VFX Supervisor Guy Williams has captained Wētā FX’s work on all these projects, and contributed to VFX tent poles such as Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and King Kong, Steven Spielberg’s The BFG and Ang Lee’s Gemini Man. He is joined this time by Visual Effects Supervisor Sean Walker who was nominated for an Oscar for his work on Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and has worked on several Planet of the Apes films, The Hobbit trilogy, and many Marvel films, including Avengers: End Game. Also joining them is Sequence VFX Supervisor Jo Davison, who was CG Supervisor on Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 which earned her a Visual Effects Society Award, and during her 15 years at Wētā FX has worked on a swathe of high-profile projects including Avatar, The Adventures of Tintin and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. These three experienced supervisors will be showcasing our work on the project, with particular focus on two key sequences, each made up of around 300 VFX shots each. Jo Davison, will explore bringing colossal monsters to life, sharing how the team tackled textures at immense scales to enable maximum visual impact across a close up creature interactions and wider shots. A range of FX simulations were needed for the powers of the creature, making scale the subject of a range of considerations. The Wētā FX team did a huge amount of digital city work for this sequence and the epic cinematography required for such scale meant the vast majority of the work is fully CG. The second massive undertaking for the team was supervised by Sean Walker. A surreal and fantastical universe, constructed from a selection of crystalline metallic forms, grown mathematically by a custom Houdini script. This sparked an entirely new level of creativity, as nine distinct environments were brought together – and allowed for additional fun across the creature’s department. The challenges in this universe were to make an otherworldly and unbelievable realm behave in a way that still felt physically plausible to the audience. Sean will explore the challenges and innovative solutions used across postproduction to bring this fantastical realm to life. Having both worked with Guy on previous James Gunn projects, it allowed for added creativity outside of a strict VFX delivery – with the team helping to flesh out sequences from pre-vis to final composite. The team will draw from their extensive knowledge and share valuable insights into collaborative filmmaking.
