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www.postmagazine.com 19 POST MAY/JUNE 2019 SUMMER MOVIES I f we have learned nothing over the past decade since the characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) began gracing the big screen, it's that each Avenger can easily carry his or her own film all the way to resounding box-office success. But, when they band together, it's a total game changer — and none more so than the recent Avengers: Endgame, which toppled box-office re- cords even before it was released on April 26th. As of press time, its success continues, nipping at the heels of Avatar as the top-grossing movie of all time — this after just little over one month's time. In fact, of the top 10 highest-grossing movies, half are Avenger-related films — and only one of those five centers on a single Avenger (Black Panther), while the other four movies feature a team — prov- ing their power in numbers. With more Avengers on screen come more visual effects scenes. And in Endgame, the 22 nd film in the MCU, there are many — nearly 2,500 out of roughly 2,700 shots in the film contain VFX. In comparison, Avengers: Infinity War had approxi- mately 2,700, and since the two films were shot back-to-back, many of the studios on Infinity War continued their work on Endgame, a direct sequel, as did directors Joe and Anthony Russo. According to Dan DeLeeuw, Endgame's visual effects super- visor, 13 vendors worked on this show, with Weta Digital and Industrial Light & Magic generating the larger share (494 and 533, respectively), as Digital Domain, Framestore, Cinesite and Dneg assumed a large number as well, in addition to work by several other vendors. Despite Endgame being a continuation of Infinity War, the facilities did not rest on their laurels, with a number of advancements for the latest film, espe- cially concerning work on Thanos, Smart Hulk and throughout the final battle. "Interestingly, Endgame has about 200 fewer VFX shots than Infinity War, but the actual complexity and length of the shots far exceed anything we've ever done," says DeLeeuw, who was also visual effects supervisor for Infinity War and other MCU films. "It was definitely a progression in terms of understanding the size, scope and especially the density of the effects." Endgame picks up following the devastating events of Infinity War, with the universe destroyed after an injured Thanos manages to activate the Infinity Gauntlet, and half of all life across the uni- verse disintegrates. However, the surviving Avengers unite to take back the Infinity Stones in order to reverse Thanos's destruction, but soon learn that Thanos has destroyed the stones. Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Bruce Banner (Hulk) successfully build a time machine in an attempt to resurrect those who Thanos had disintegrated. SMART HULK Avenger fans are used to seeing two sides of Hulk (Mark Ruffalo): the angry, green, muscular version and the scientist Bruce Banner. In Endgame, they see a whole new side — Smart Hulk, with the stature of the big green guy but with the intellect and demeanor of the scientist. "I think we pushed Smart Hulk further in terms of what we could do with a digital character," says DeLeeuw of the work, which was handled by ILM. ILM has worked with Hulk a few times in the past. But this time, the single character had both brains and brawn, requiring a new approach that gave the CG character more human-like qualities. ILM began with scans from Disney Research Studio's Medusa Performance Capture System, a mobile rig of eight cameras and lights coupled with proprietary soft- ware for reconstructing a high-resolution version of an actor's face in full motion, without the use of traditional motion-capture dots. Ruffalo (and Josh Brolin, as well, for the character Thanos) sat in front of the cameras and practiced facial shapes and performed dialogue. That information was captured and used as the basis for building the underlying Endgame shows a new side of Hulk.