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e d i t i o n 1 , 2 0 1 8 | c g w 7 "The city was most difficult," Hammack says, "the scale and the aesthetics. Also, these long environment shots with slow flyovers. It was a huge part of the movie and important to get the flavor right. It helps the audience understand the history of the civilization, how they interact, and how they fit into the world. It felt like that tapestry was one of the main goals of the movie." BUSAN T'Challa returns from his work as a politi- cian in the outside world where his father was killed and where, in his superhero form as Black Panther, he had joined the Avengers in the film Captain America: Civil War to avenge his father's death. Before being crowned as king, he travels to Ni- geria, where Nakia is rescuing kidnapped women. The scenes were shot in Atlanta and created in postproduction by Trixter. "It was January in Atlanta and we were supposed to be in a jungle," Baumann says. "Hanna [Beachler] built a road through a large stage with dirt, trees, and greenery to give us a base." Trixter provided the jungle environment surrounding the area in which T'Challa meets Nakia and, with help from his bodyguard Okoye, rescues the kidnapped girls. Once back in the city, Okoye shows T'Challa a hologram of Klaue planning to sell stolen vibranium to CIA agent Ross. T'Challa and Nakia, in Western clothes, travel with Okoye, who has traded her warrior costume for a cocktail dress and wig, to a casino in Busan, South Korea, where the deal will take place. A crew at Luma Pictures in Santa Monica and Melbourne worked on visual effects for the following casino fight and car chase sequence. SONIC DISRUPTION IN THE CASINO The sequence begins in the casino, a two-story interior set in Atlanta with no ceiling or ceiling lights. "They wanted the fight scene to be edited as one take, so they shot it in suc- cession, mostly using cameras on cables that could be pulled around and handheld cameras that could be picked up," says Kevin Souls, who supervised Luma's crew in Santa Monica. "The longest and most elaborate was a seven-shot setup. It starts on the ground floor. They pull a camera up to the second floor and also use a handheld camera there, where Okoye is fighting Klaue's goons. We cut the goons out of the plate, re-animated them in 2D, and replaced Okoye's spear [which mag- ically appears] with a CG spear. She kicks a goon. He breaks a railing and falls off the second floor, and she jumps aer him. We replaced the stunt actor with a CG Okoye and did face replacement. There's a wipe to another plate. We repositioned the spear and goon on the ground. The cam- era switches to T'Challa and follows as he jumps up in a full-digital takeover, then switches back to the actor on the second floor. The camera swings back to look at Klaue, and we see his arm split open to reveal the weapon inside." The CG weapon is a sonic disruptor gun powered by stolen vibranium that shatters whatever it hits. Klaue fires the gun. A cart explodes. Paper money and chips bounce off the walls and land everywhere. "At the end of the day, we had 2,000 frames to time out and cut together," Souls says. In addition to digital doubles and face replacements during the sequence, Luma artists added the ceiling, chandeliers, and damage as the shot progressed – bullet holes, broken glass, and debris – all the while matching the on-set lighting. "The lighting on set would change as they moved the lights, and there were subtle varia- tions in the lighting overall," Souls says. "They had to reposition large chandeliers on set as they filmed. There were lights in the walls and decorative lights around the perimeter. We added 10 to 15 lights, built so that their reflec- tions would match what was on set." The special effects team rigged the set with squibs and cannons to shoot debris around. The visual effects team added squibs, bullet hits just missing the actors' heads, and so forth. For the debris, they ap- plied photographed elements to 2.5D cards. "We had a ton of roto and camera tracks for everything," Souls says. "There was old- school plate manipulation where we'd have to move a stunt actor, repair the frame, and make sure the timing worked. The 'big stitch' was one of the first things we started and one of the last delivered. The fight is kinetic, but it's a smooth path that leads to the final blast from the sonic destructor." CAR CHASE IN BUSAN "Every Marvel film has an exciting chase scene," Baumann says. "Ours is in South Korea, and it's as much fun as you'd expect. This one is exciting because visually there is A CG CITY BUILT AT ILM IS SEEN OUTSIDE THE WINDOW OF A SET CONSTRUCTED ON STAGE IN ATLANTA.