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e d i t i o n 3 , 2 0 1 8 | c g w 6 1 trepidation because of the scale of the work and the quality bar that Star Wars has consistently hit over the years. I definitely walked in very excited and looking forward to it, but also very aware that I was working on a Star Wars movie and wanting to main- tain that high bar and push the envelope in terms of innovation and quality." He adds: "It was such a privilege to take fans into the Star Wars universe and visit a point in time which, while familiar, will be wholly new to them. We endeavored to utilize the best combination of mod- ern technology and a 1970s filmmaking aesthetic. It's one of the things that makes Solo so unique." – Linda Romanello ANT-MAN AND THE WASP The latest title in the Marvel Studios Uni- verse, Ant-Man and the Wasp takes place between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. It finds Scott Lang under house arrest in San Francisco trying to balance fatherhood with super- herohood when a mission teams him with Hope Van Dyne as the new Wasp. As one might expect, opportunities for standout visual effects abound. The action-packed film, produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, introduces a fully formed Wasp character and the new villain Ghost, and is filled with light- ning-fast changes of scale as Ant-Man, the Wasp, props, and locations shrink and grow in the blink of an eye. Ant-Man and the Wasp posed big creative challenges for the film's four main VFX vendors (Double Negative, Scanline VFX, Method Studios, and Luma Pictures) as well as the additional dozen or so studios that came onboard as the film's VFX needs evolved and grew. "There were some new characters, new costume art, more playing with scale. We introduced the Wasp to the world — the way she looks, flies, and fights — and Ghost, who is contaminated by quantum energy and unstable in our world so she phases in and out. And we go deeper into the Quantum Realm than ever before," says the film's VFX supervisor Stephane Ceretti. "It's two hours of VFX everywhere!" EARLY STAGES The Third Floor was called on for previs to help visualize the dynamic fight and chase sequences, and the rapid changes of scale. "Some things you can only figure out in previs as you play them out," notes Ceretti. "There was a feedback loop from the script to the visuals; we tried to never stop having new ideas." A great deal of attention was paid to the level of detail and shading in digital Ant-Man, especially in his Giant-Man incarnation, where he's sometimes seen in extreme close-up. Lots of simulations were required for the underwater sequence in San Fran- cisco Bay and for the Quantum Realm, a multi-layered mix of dynamic environments. "I don't let technology drive me. Con- cepts drive me – what looks cool – then we find the tools we need to do the job," Ceretti reports. "Some were already avail- able, some were tweaked and molded to tailor them to our needs, and some were built as we went along." Since Ant-Man and the Wasp was released in IMAX and 3D, images were protected for 1.77 full-frame IMAX, and "every detail was scrutinized for the bigger screen," he says. "Most vendors are used to delivering 3D renders. It was so exciting to see the Quantum Realm in 3D – the big landscapes, all the floating particles in the Quantum Realm auroras. It's so much more immersive in 3D." DOUBLE NEGATIVE Dneg's Vancouver studio created VFX for some 500 shots in Ant-Man and the Wasp. "This office opened three years ago, and the chance to take on such an import- ant film from the Marvel Universe was a privilege," says Alessandro Ongaro, VFX supervisor at Dneg. (Dneg London worked on previous Marvel films.) Dneg's biggest sequences come in the film's third act. The car chase on the streets of San Francisco not only comprises breath- taking car stunts, but also features numer- ous changes of scale as the hero vehicle shrinks to Matchbox size to slide beneath the undercarriage of the villains' vehicle and as a giant Hello Kitty Pez dispenser (the real version of which sits on Ongaro's desk) topples a motorcyclist. In the sequence Scott, Hope, and Luis are in a speeding minivan chased by bad guy Sonny Burch and the evil Ghost, who are try- ing to capture Hank's lab, which has shrunk to hold-it-in-your-hands size. Practical footage of the car chase was shot in Atlanta, whose flat downtown streets don't resem-