• Quickshots: Attack of the Megaptor

    ILM and VFX partner Hybride collaborated to produce a high-energy bus chase scene in Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Here, Valerian and Laureline race to board a bus that is then attacked by a menacing Megaptor creature. ILM visual effects supervisor Philippe Rebours runs down the work involved. On-set shoot:…

  • How that ATM scene in ‘Homecoming’ was made

    Luma Pictures handled the Spider-Man: Homecoming ATM sequence, and I found out for VFX Voice how they made it happen.

  • Weta Digital’s ‘Valerian’ Pearls

    Stunningly realistic, the alien Pearl characters in Valerian were crafted by Weta Digital. In this new piece for VFX Voice, I had vfx supe Martin Hill run down how they were made.

  • Breaking down the ferry scene in ‘Homecoming’

    At Cartoon Brew, I wrote about DD and The Third Floor’s work on Spider-Man: Homecoming on the ferry sequence, one of the coolest from the film.

  • Quickshots: Making ‘Valerian’s’ Doghan Daguis talk together as one

    The Doghan Daguis are a trio of comical characters appearing in Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. They were created in CG by Weta Digital. On set, full-sized maquettes were filmed and then scanned to help craft the digital versions. Three performers also acted out the roles in performance capture marker…

  • Head stretching and stomach holes: re-visiting the visual effects of ‘Death Becomes Her’

    “Bob had said to Meryl Streep: ‘Whatever Ken asks you to do, no matter how silly, just go with it. You can trust him.’ Because she must have been thinking, ‘What am I? What is this stupid thing?’ – Death Becomes Her visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston. By the early 1990s, ILM had already been…

  • SIGGRAPH’s Real-time Live!: a preview

    One of the coolest things at SIGGRAPH is Real-time Live! The event has actually changed quite a lot since its inception to include game engines, VR, real-time rendering, real-time sims and more. Check out this preview I wrote for Cartoon Brew.

  • ‘We’re making a movie about emojis’ – so how do you animate those things?

    One of the appeals of being an animator must be new character challenges – finding the right movement, finding the personality, finding the ‘voice’, even when the characters appear to be quite simple. That challenge was awaiting Sony Pictures Imageworks for The Emoji Movie, and I talked to anim supe Sacha Kapijimpanga for Spark CG…

  • Quickshots: ‘Valerian’s’ multi-world oner

    Weta Digital’s Valerian visual effects supervisor Martin Hill discusses that insane ‘oner’ of Valerian (Dane DeHaan) dashing through multiple worlds. Martin Hill: What’s happening in that sequence is, Valerian’s trying to get from one place to another as quickly as possible – that being a straight line. He’s just travelling in a straight line as…

  • Designing Baby Groot

    Marvel has released a short featurette from its Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2 Blu-ray/DVD focusing on designing Baby Groot, and it includes comments from overall vfx supe Christopher Townsend and the concept art and practical build required for on-set shooting. Check it out below.