Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/691968
20 cgw m ay . j u n e 2 0 1 6 come together. That's what makes Civil War special. It's that you have these giant set pieces with the characters showcasing all their powers, fighting against one another. "It was a combination of taking everything we've seen before, taking everything to the next level, and expanding on the heroes' powers so that you're culminating in this battle royal at [Germany's Leipzig/ Halle] airport," DeLeeuw continues. "That scene was shot in multiple places on multiple continents. We shot a large portion of it in Atlanta, on a concrete slab they poured for us, with greenscreens. For the types of things we wanted to do, we couldn't film in an actual airport. They don't usually like you destroying their jets or anything like that (laughs)." So, a large portion is all-greenscreen. There's a hangar at the end and a terminal towards the middle where Falcon, Spider-Man, and Winter Soldier fight that are practical, but everything outside is CG. But just by the nature of the heroes' powers themselves, a lot of those fights use digital doubles. "It's a great mix of hidden effects for the environments and bigger effects for the heroes themselves," says DeLeeuw. Here, DeLeeuw talks about the latest Marvel/Disney release and what it took to create some of the film's most demanding visual effects. So most of the work in the film is a mix of environmental and character-based VFX? Yes, that's the best part of the magician's trick, it's the sleight of hand to distract the audience with the shiny object and actually per- form the trick with the other hand. So, we tried to work with stunts and special effects to keep as much grounded as we could and mix the visual effects with that. And keep it seamless, so the audience can't tell the difference? Yes, and you keep changing it up, too. So, if you think you're starting to figure out the trick, you throw more live action in and keep people from tracking down what you're doing. What was the film shot on? The majority of the film was on the Arri Alexa XT with anamorphic lenses. The airport battle was on the Arri Alexa 65, which was completed for IMAX. You worked on Captain America: Winter Soldier and Iron Man, so you have a familiarity with these Marvel films and what they're looking for in terms of the VFX. Technically, is there a difference or any kind of advances on the VFX side from the previous films? The big advancement on this one was the overall scope and how much we were able to do. It's interesting, I came in on Iron Man 3, and as you come into the Marvel universe, you start picking up the play- book on the different characters. So, on Iron Man 3, you start learning how to shoot Iron Man. You have what we call the 'football suit' that Robert would wear. That was photo-ready from the waist up. As the films progressed, we got more and more to the point where we would end up replacing it with CG, as the suits themselves became more complicated. And what we found for this one, because of the hand-to-hand battles that were happening at the end, we didn't want to have Robert with just tracking markers on his body, because as Captain America grapples with Iron Man, you need to make sure he's grabbing something as big as the Iron Man armor and not just a person's normal size. What was called the 'photo-ready' version, the 'football suits' in Iron Man 3, eventually evolved to what we called the 'displacement suit' for Civil War. It gave me the size of the suit but was soer so the stuntmen could wear it. It was more comfortable, but still, when Cap grabs Iron Man's arm, he's actually grabbing something that's the correct width. As we become savvier with the films, we find better ways to shoot with the different characters. With Captain America: Winter Soldier, the shield even evolved with the films. If you go back to Captain America: The First Avenger, the shield had a shinier, brushed metal look, and it got duller and duller IT TOOK 14 VENDORS TO COMPLETE APPROXIMATELY 3,000 VISUAL EFFECTS SHOTS.