Published May 23, 2023, 8:20 a.m. by Courtney
marvel entertainment is one of the most successful animation studios in the world. They are responsible for some of the most popular and beloved animated films and TV shows of all time. The studio has produced such classics as The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and many more. In recent years, marvel has been on the cutting edge of animation technology, creating some of the most visually stunning and groundbreaking animated films and TV shows.
The studio is best known for their work in the marvel Cinematic Universe, where they have created some of the most iconic and beloved superhero characters of all time. The MCU is a massive and ever-growing franchise, and marvel has been at the forefront of its success. The studio has produced some of the most successful films in the franchise, including The Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor.
marvel is also responsible for the highly successful Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. The first film in the franchise was a massive hit, and the second film was even more successful. The third film in the franchise is currently in production, and it is sure to be another huge success.
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
RYAN PENAGOS: The Guardians have returned for Marvel Studios'
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.
3.
And you know what that means.
Our favorite CGI pals are back together.
That's right, I'm talking about Rocket and Groot.
And I'm here with VFX supervisor Stephane Ceretti
to find out how one of the MCU's most beloved pairs
is brought to the big screen.
Hi Steph, how are you?
STEPHANE CERETTI: Hey Ryan, I'm very good, thank you.
RYAN PENAGOS: Steph, you were the VFX
supervisor all the way back on the first Guardians
of the Galaxy film.
What was it like to get to introduce
Groot and Rocket to the MCU?
When we first introduced them in the first film,
they were such weird characters that nobody
was really expecting.
There's that kind of weird dynamic between the two of them
that makes them iconic and you can get
attached to them quite quickly.
Now, in this third Guardians film,
we dive even deeper into these characters.
What was it like telling their stories through VFX?
It's a very emotional film, this one.
There's all these little moments that really create
depth into the character.
They're not just like animated characters.
They're really part of the cast.
So when you begin work on the film,
how are the actors' performances captured on set?
We're not using mocap with the hundreds
of cameras and all that stuff.
We do reference shoot.
So we have the actors there with us there.
We're filming the scenes.
And we then give it to the animators.
And it's hand animated, literally hand animated.
So it's a lot of artistry that comes into this.
It's not at all a process that is automated.
So we've really shot the entire scenes on a virtual set where
we could actually capture the motion of the camera, which was
very important for James to use in our full CG
scenes, the same type of camera operation
that we use throughout the film to make it seamless
with the rest of the film.
We have an actor playing Rocket.
We have some stand-ins for Groot.
And that was really helpful, actually, for us.
We ended up using these references quite a lot,
actually, even sometimes to the point
where we add little moments where there's eyes rolling.
And once you have the actors' performances,
what additional visual reference do you
capture while you're on set?
We have to shoot what we call clean plates so that we can
paint out the actors that are not
supposed to be here and replace them by all our CGI characters.
So we 3D scan all the sets.
We capture the light with what we call light probes.
We also add a company called Legacy that worked with us
and created 3D versions from the drawings
from this depth of how these characters would look
with perfect fur and all the mechanical arms
and things like that so that we could have a good reference
on set in terms of lighting.
So that what we can do then is really recreate in the computer
a virtual representation of the real world
in terms of lighting, in terms of the space,
in terms of everything that the CG
actors have to interact with.
When we integrate our characters within the plate,
everything feels seamless and they
feel like they belong to the environment they're shot in.
OK, so you've gathered all that reference.
How do you then actually go about creating and integrating
the CG characters?
The characters are so different from humans.
We need to be able to actually take that performance
from the actor and really translate
it into the bones and the skeleton of these animals.
We have a lot of shots that are like close-ups on their eyes.
And there's a lot of emotion going.
So we really worked on the detail of the pupil, the iris,
everything, the eyes, the way the eyelids are kind of pushing
opening the color, the level of darkness around the eyes,
the wetness in the eyes.
When you see a CG character animated, especially
one with fur, there's a lot of things involved in that
that are extremely complicated.
So if there's wind, we need to have a little bit
of wind in the fur.
If there's two CGI characters touching each other,
we need to do, you know, the fur kind of getting
displaced by the motion.
For Groot, when he's more young, his face is more malleable when
you've seen him as Baby Groot.
But as he grows to become more of a tree,
we wanted to bring that kind of level of expression
that was kind of very detailed in the first film.
All these little details are helping us really bring
the moments where it needs to be funny,
the moments where we need to have the emotion.
Once we've shot this, we start dropping very simple
models of the characters.
And then we get into what we call
blocky animation at the render, which
is a very rough animation.
But it's a little bit more detailed.
And then as we push through, we start getting better animation,
more finished animation.
We start getting renders.
It's a very long process.
It's not something you press a button and you get it.
You have to have a very talented animator and FX team.
Everyone is clearly so freaking talented.
Steph, looking back at all of your work
throughout the Guardians franchise,
how does it feel to get to bring the story of
these characters full circle?
It's been very gratifying to go
back to the origin of Rocket and Groot and telling that story.
Because that was a huge focus, obviously, for me and my teams
on the first film, to make sure that these characters would
be able to carry the story.
And now that Rocket is really the centerpiece
of this third film, it puts a lot of pressure on us.
But also, it's very gratifying to see
the result coming together.
Steph, thank you so much for joining me.
Oh, that was a pleasure.
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Any time.
And everyone out there, go experience
Rocket and Groot in Marvel Studios'
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.
3 in theaters now.
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