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any other show. Because Swen has such a history with the director and the produc- tion team, there was a lot of trust there. Also, being the third movie in a franchise, everyone knows what the feeling is—the scene's been set. The majority of the artists are just massive fans, and to be hon- est, Marvel nerds. They are masters of the genre. They know what it's about, and they can bring so much to the game if you let them. The opening credits masterfully set the stage for the ˆlm's over-the-top visuals and wild sense of humor. Tell us about cra"ing this memorable sequence. It was a sequence that started oŸ very strongly out of previz and postviz. It was the œrst sequence to be shot, and was actually shot before the strike. We knew what we were doing creatively, but the preparation, the body tracking, the environmental work, all had to be very meticulous—and meticulous means time. Our models for Deadpool and the Minutemen were all looking fantastic at that stage, which allowed us to spend time on the sim- ulations. Swen had already given us the brief, "You can go a little bit crazy on this…We think the movie's going to handle it." So we went massively over the top. The cinematic style, the tight shots, the re- times…It made it very graphic and really echoed those comic frames. The blood was beautifully art directed to do certain shapes. The artists were looking at Jackson Pollock paintings, and we were trying to make everything very cinematic. That beautiful snowy backdrop with the bright red blood…it really makes it pop. It is horribly violent, but we gave it that slightly—I would say comic in terms of the genre of comics rather than the comedic—touches, to take the edge oŸ the grossness, the violence, the goriness of it. That allowed us to have that volume of blood because it made it a little less…icky. It al- lowed us to push that further without it becoming a little disturbing, which it could easily have been. Shawn wanted to make it feel almost blasphemous, the way Deadpool was abusing Wolverine's skeleton. He wanted people to react. The way he's using blunt bones as stabbing weapons—you not only had stabs, but blunt force trauma. It was all very tongue- in-cheek. Even though these guys are wearing armor, we were shat- tering huge shards of it everywhere. Putting the credits on the bones was another lovely touch. It allowed you to step back for a moment and reset…and then it's back to the violence. It allowed us to have some real fun while also deœnitely being in the R-rated category. The dancing actually came along later. The original sequence was just more of the blood and violence. I think the dancing was just to take you away from the violence a little, to lighten the atmosphere. The performance was outstanding, and it linked to a few little bits in the backstory of Deadpool. Marvel is a master of chaining things together. How did you orchestrate the massive Deadpool Corps se- quence? A huge amount of preparation went into that, and the whole se- quence is well over 200 shots—some very complicated visual eŸects which are eŸectively invisible on screen. We knew we were never go- ing to have hundreds of Deadpools. We had somewhere between 30 10 CGW J U LY • A U G U S T • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 4 Framestore completed 900+ pre, tech, and postviz shots for the œlm.