Don’t miss this interesting behind the scenes video by Marvel and featuring VFX Supervisor Sean Andrew Faden talking about how Oscar Isaac play Marc and Steven in the same scene (made by Framestore and Method Studios) for Moon Knight!
WANT TO KNOW MORE? Framestore: Dedicated page about Moon Knight on Framestore website.
I started with iloura as a tape operator straight out of university, 19 years ago, and have worked here ever since, in many roles, and through many incarnations, from iloura, to Method and now Framestore. My background is predominantly in 2D, currently as Compositing Supervisor and joint department head of 2D in Melbourne, and I was really excited to get the opportunity to oversee Method’s work on Spiderhead as the vendor VFX Supervisor.
How did you get involved on this movie?
I believe the work came to the Method group through Ryan Tudhope and the company’s connection with Director Joseph Kosinski from their stellar work on Top Gun Maverick. And with Spiderhead filming in Australia, it was a great opportunity to facilitate the VFX work from here as well, so the Melbourne office became involved.
How was the collaboration with Director Joseph Kosinski and with Production VFX Supervisor Ryan Tudhope?
I found the whole process really open and collaborative. The brief was always very clear, but I also felt like there was a lot of trust in us to bring solutions to the table and to be creative on this project.
What was their approaches about the visual effects?
They approached the project with a very clear design aesthetic and, for the Spiderhead facility in particular, the emphasis for us was attaining not only a photoreal result, but something that upheld that aesthetic and for the building to become a character in, and of itself. Whether we were talking about the facility, or the other, more FX driven aspects on the show, the guiding direction was always to ground the effects with real life references and examples.
How did you organize the work with your VFX Producer?
Samantha Thrupp was our VFX producer on the show and she worked in close communication with the show VFX producer, Lynzi Grant to keep what was a pretty tight schedule, on target. We targeted things like the blood work, early blocking and FX passes for the crash sequences and our environment work at the front of the schedule, while we were iterating on the asset for the Spiderhead facility, so we could maintain momentum on shot work.
What are the sequences made by Method Studios?
This was one of those projects with a broad range of different visual effects call outs, scattered throughout the film. Our primary task was to build and integrate the digital asset for the exterior shots of the Spiderhead facility. We also completed digital assets for a float plane and speedboats, and sequences for a car crashing into a tree and exploding into flames, a harrowing scene of a character’s demise requiring the enhancement of practical blood effects, a lot of environment extensions of the beautiful Whitsundays location and some hallucinogenic treatments of footage for when characters are under the influence of the drugs being tested.
How did you split the work amongst the Method Studios offices?
Spiderhead was primarily completed in our Melbourne office, however our Vancouver office provided compositing resources to complete some of the sequences.
Can you elaborates about the design and the creation of the facility?
Being a Joseph Kosinski film, the Spiderhead facility came with a very clear aesthetic, and some great designs for the Brutalist architecture, that Joe had collaborated on with production designer Jeremy Hindle, and our assets team built a production asset from there. Through close study of a lot of real world references, we had a strong focus on introducing the subtle variation that comes with weathering on concrete from the various environmental factors such as wind, rain, the tidal water at its base, and the salt corrosion that would inevitably occur in such a location. It was a really fine balance between introducing the right amount of detail for realism, and not breaking the immense scale of the concrete monolith. This was done as a collaborative process between our asset/texture and look dev teams.
What kind of references and influences did you received for the facility?
Production provided us with a design handbook of the facility that Jeremy and his team had developed which gave us a great foundation to build upon (pun intended), and with the guidance of Ryan Tudhope, we traded various references of Brutalist buildings and discussed at length the various traits/signatures of that school of architecture. In addition to the weathering and texturing detail we were trying to introduce, brutalist buildings tend to have a very distinctive way they interact with light, and it was very important to Joe that we feature that aspect too, with racking, angular shadows and subtle reflected light bouncing around various surfaces.
Where was filmed the exterior shots for the lab and the island?
The bulk of the exterior locations were shot in the Whitsundays in Queensland, Australia. This area provided the idyllic tropical setting with crystal clear waters, surrounding islands and blue skies. The scenes showing the dock and entrance to the Spiderhead facility, were shot at a dammed lake also in Queensland and we then did environment extensions using matte paintings built from Whitsundays plates and photography to extend beyond the dock. Additionally, as there was no physical structure on set to cast shadows from the enormous overhang of the facility, we built the dock, boats and floatplane that we see at the entrance as digital assets, and rotomated them to the practical ones to have the appropriate shadow catching and composited these extended shadows over the practical vehicles and on the water and coastline.
Did you use LED walls for the massive window in the facility?
No, this was shot using a traditional bluescreen setup, and filmed on the interior set, that was constructed in a sporting area in the Gold Coast. It was filmed with very careful arrangement of the lighting by DOP Claudio Miranda for the time of day and angle of the sun for the island location. This dictated which plate elements we could select from to do the environment extensions for Abnesti’s office view, to match in with the onset lighting.
Can you elaborates about the car and plane crashes?
The 2 crashes are key story points, for different reasons, so they were both important to the director and had different requirements in regards to our focus and approach.
How did you create the FX for both crashes?
The car crash was covered across a number of shots. We began by rotomating a practical stunt car production had filmed crashing into a prop tree trunk. We retimed the plate and cache to a selected real world travel speed and, overseen by our CG supervisor, Nathan Ortiz, we then used this speed of the rotomation as the driving force for some ragdoll simulations, to establish the momentum and trajectory of a body being ejected through the windscreen at a high velocity. Once we had a good result from these sims, our animators took this and refined it for a more interesting performance, using reference from crashing/tumbling motorbike riders. This animation also had to tie into the photography of Miles Teller dropping into his final landing spot, close to camera. Added impact was introduced via supporting FX passes of shattering glass, smoke/steam and debris falling from the tree. In the shots following the crash, the car ignites and explodes, and we were asked to simulate an explosion fireball to augment the practical FX that had been caught in-camera. We built a digital asset for the tree so we could have the fire and smoke interact and interleave with branches, and simulated the shockwave of the explosion disturbing the foliage.
The plane crash, being on a much wider plate and occurring in the distance with other foreground focus/action, meant that, while we didn’t need as highly a detailed sim or render as we did for the car crash, we did need something that looked realistic in the bright daylight exposure and still caught the eye of the viewer at the right moment, to adequately tell the story of the climax of the film. With Joe and Ryan having just come off production for Top Gun Maverick, they were able to supply us with some great reference and direction for the type of explosion they were after.
Can you explain in detail about the design and the creation of the motion graphics?
The motion graphics were generated by another vendor, and for the couple of shots we worked on that required motion graphics, they were supplied to us and we composited them.
How did you design and create the drugs effects?
The drug treatments were about creating a device that was clearly an hallucination, but also aesthetically appealing and grounded in something optical. So we referenced different kinds of lens flares and optical artifacts and landed on something that combined chromatic offsetting and a bespoke lens artifact related to a the « Sun Dog » phenomenon, but opted to make the elements dimensional so that we could have them overlap and animate to tie in with the camera movements.
Did you want to reveal to us any other invisible effects?
In addition to the building itself, we did quite a few environment extensions for views looking out from the Spiderhead exit. The sequence of Heather’s death was another call out for us. The scene had been covered largely with practical blood effects, but we were asked to augment these and add to the amount of blood. We ran fluid simulations to first replicate the viscosity and flow of the practical blood, then we expanded on this and ran one long simulation to cover off all of the shots in the sequence. We also did some shots of the float plane in flight and taking off, and an environment extension of an industrial wasteland for one of Geoff’s (Miles Teller) field trips. I certainly hope these are invisible effects!
Which sequence or shot was the most challenging?
Along with the choreography of the animation and FX from the car crash, I think striking the balance of detail and scale, and settling on the desired, subtle lighting response for the Facility was the most challenging part of the project.
Is there something specific that gives you some really short nights?
Not from this show, specifically. I may have woken in the middle of the night with ideas for certain shots! But nothing was particularly stressful, because we received such great direction and guidance via feedback from Joe and Ryan.
What is your favorite shot or sequence?
I am super proud of the work the team did on the facility as it is seen from all angles, some very close up, and there really was nowhere to hide on that asset. And all of the departments contributed to produce some great, subtle work to integrate the building into the natural environment and the photography. I really loved how it ended up looking in the sunset shots and some of the odd angles we see it in during the escape scene towards the end of the film.
What is your best memory on this show?
It was the comradery of the team – both our internal team, but also with Ryan, Lynzi and the production side crew. While it wasn’t the biggest project in terms of volume of work, we were on a pretty tight schedule so had to be really efficient and get to the creative goals quickly, which I feel like we achieved through that level of teamwork.
How long have you worked on this show?
We worked on it for about 8 months in total.
What’s the VFX shots count?
We completed about 160 VFX shots for Spiderhead.
What is your next project?
I am currently Comp Supervising our work on the upcoming project, 65 starring Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt.
What are the four movies that gave you the passion for cinema?
My answer to this would probably change every week! So many films, for so many different reasons. Whether it’s the childhood escapism of films like Back to the Future or Tron, the captivating story telling of The Godfather, films that provoke thought like Fight Club, or films that really elevate the cinematic experience, like the recent Dune, I’m constantly being inspired! (See I couldn’t even limit it to 4!)
A big thanks for your time.
WANT TO KNOW MORE? Framestore: Dedicated page about Spiderhead on Framestore website. Netflix: You can watch Spiderhead on Netflix.
I have worked on several different projects with overall production supervisor Ryan Tudhope prior to this, and nearly at the end of filming he called me up and asked if I would join him and supervise the team at Method Studios.
What was your feeling to be involved on such an iconic franchise?
When Ryan first called me up, it was a pretty definite “oh yes!” It was a super exciting honor to be able to be involved on this! Queue the “you can be my wingman anytime” gif!
Can you elaborate about the design and the creation of the various planes?
The Darkstar was the sole newly designed jet. It was a collaboration with Lockheed Martin to design the craft and build a static exterior shell that could be used for scanning, photo references and shots where it’s not flying. It was able to be towed by a truck for a few shots on the tarmac which helped us a ton when it came to the CG version since we had the most grounded and perfect filmed reference of how this actually looked. A separate piece of the front cockpit section was built on a gimbal and was used for the camera mount shots as the Darkstar is flying through the air.
The other jets, the F14 Tomcat, the F18s, the enemy SU57s or the Mi-24 attack helicopter are all real functional aircraft, but each had their own challenges for creating digital versions. LIDAR scans weren’t really able to be done on military aircraft, but for the F14 and the F18 we essentially were able to turn table real jets and get amazing photographic references which we aligned to our CG builds and did side by side turntable comparisons with the real craft. The SU57 and Mi-24 we had less on. The Helicopter has been around for a long time (late 60s) so there are a lot of photo references we were able to find online and compile together. The SU57 is a lot more challenging since it’s much newer not as much is published about it. We were able to get a fair amount of visual reference on it though from a few demonstration videos that have been released.
How did you create the various shaders and textures for the planes?
This is where the photographed turntables of real jets for us to side by side compare our CG versions to was invaluable. These jets aren’t just metal, I have no idea what they are actually made of, but light reacts differently. So it largely started by just dialing to the feel of a match. Then when we had filmed footage in the air we line up our jets and would compare where light responses were matching and not. There were a lot of surprises that were tricky to work out. Highlights had so much complexity and variation just off a single source with multiple spec lobes rolling in different ways across the surface. The canopies were another really tricky bit. They have very unique refractive properties both in distortion and color variation. We actually had to create a custom shader to handle not only the color variations that appeared in the refractions and reflections on the surface, but also the micro-scratches. Peter Dominik who was our Lookdev lead built a unique shader that would procedurally remap and rebuild texture sets based on the sun’s angle of incidence so we could add the spiraling circular scratches that broke up highlights on the real jets.
Can you tell us more about the iconic F-14?
This jet is Top Gun, it had to be nailed perfectly. However, there are no functional F-14s in the world anymore, luckily the production was able to get access to a museum chassis. And while it had no function components left in it, it did allow for there to be a static, or at times pulled by a truck version which was shot in camera. We then would replace any moving component on the jet for the first few shots, but once it started to take off or was in the air, that was our CG model. We managed to pull up flight manuals on the jet and break down how every control surface would actually move and what the mechanics underneath were actually doing.
Can you tell us more about the various FX work during the dogfights?
The aircraft filmed weren’t able to go up with armaments on, so if an F-18 is flying with anything attached to its wings, they were added in vfx. Along these same lines, the cast were flown in F-18F variants which were the 2 seater jets, but half of the time needed to modify those to be single seat aircraft and bring in the additional full canister beneath since this was replaced with a camera mount. Working with the actual footage captured by the real jets allowed us to always keep these moments totally grounded, taking the actual camera speed and trajectory (which is almost never straight!) along with lighting reference was key to keeping it feeling seamless. With hundreds of hours of aerial footage captured we it was really pretty amazing the amount of reference material we always had to fall back on. When it came to the final dogfight with the SU57s, none of the aircraft involved could actually be shot in the air, so either an F18 or an L-39 were used in their place and we digitally re-skinned them to become the appropriate fighter craft. Where this got really tricky was different aircraft move totally differently depending on their various control surfaces and center of gravity. Marc Chu, who was animation supervisor with me, was absolutely essential in really nailing the realistic detail required here. He and his team were totally immersed in how these jets mechanically behaved. I think one of the coolest compliments to him and his team was when we were sitting in a theater for a review session with a few actual Top Gun instructors who remarked how accurately everything was conveyed, specifically pointing out the shot where Maverick splits the throttle and rolls the F-14 to try to get an advantage.
How did you create the various explosions and especially the big final one?
Explosions had a few different approaches. The big hero ones are always just focused artistry, like the refinery explosion or when the F18 crashes from the bird strike. In the case of the refinery, it really becomes a huge collaboration between many different departments with FX and Environments especially working closely together. To help sell the size and depth of that explosion we created several layers of substrate, so it would go from loose snow to the topsoil into rock and then give the rock layered variations to help further. There are some incredible videos shot from when they did underground nuclear tests in the 50s which showed how much the ground itself gave out and would collapse, it totally separated the visual language of the mission target from a jet or missile exploding. Outside of that, we had many many mid-air explosions from missiles. For these we had a system of essentially Lego pieces that could be assembled to create a shape / feel each explosion needed pretty quickly. Kunal Ghosh Dastider who came on board to help direct the FX team spear-headed that system and it proved invaluable to helping us block out explosions across the edit and then refine specifics from there.
Can you elaborate about the shooting of the actors inside the cockpit?
Shooting the actors actually flying with high G maneuvers was invaluable! Not only are the forces of the jet visible in their performance, the way it lit the shots was critical for us to match into and make it as believable as it could be. Each jet had its own little needs, the F-14 and the SU57 being the biggest needs where we essentially cut the actor out of the plate and put them back into a new CG interior cockpit. To get reflections to align and match properly CG helmet and visor reflections would be introduced to help set them into the cockpit even further. But really since the lighting and interaction inside the cockpit was so good to start, we had an amazing foundation to build from.
What kind of techniques and tricks did you use for these impressive shots?
Motion blur was a super tricky piece of the puzzle. The way these jets vibrate creates uneven motion blur across surfaces that really could only be handled by hand dialing the blur in different sections of the plate uniquely and by hand, sometimes 3D but often with 2D solutions.
How did you handle the challenges of the lighting and the reflections in the cockpit?
The speed these jets move totally changes the perception of lighting. Thankfully from the camera jets we often had GPS data and could map it to a photogrammetry environment or one generated from topographical maps to be able to help establish camera tracks that properly moved through the world. This allowed us to get a much better sense of the way the light interacted with the fast moving jets both outside and inside and match to the character’s lighting even more accurately. Reflections had to be remapped to rotoanim digi doubles and layered over the filmed plate to help the helmets and such sit into the new cockpits, but what was nice is we practically never had to remove reflections from the helmets just add the new cockpit components.
Did you use procedural tool for the vast sandy and snowy environments?
There are definitely some ways procedural tools helped, but mostly just for filling in areas already established. Trying to stay really grounded in the photography, we fell back on procedural techniques less since it tended to not as quickly create the match to the surrounding plates we wanted.
Which sequence or shot was the most challenging?
While every sequence had its own big challenges, I’d say the stealing the F-14 from the bombed base was a sequence that kinda combined all the challenges. On top of this the FX smoke, fires and plumes were a huge data management challenge, even with instancing several caches with offsets to save memory caps it was tricky. The FX simulations needed to be able to hold up to a camera starting far back and flying through them. Kent Lidke really helped drive this sequence not only with the FX team but also as we needed to build out new tools and avenues in the pipeline to handle the sequence. So he interfaced heavily with our environment team and pipeline team to create a system where we could have a 3D layout with proper proxies of the FX and this allowed animation to go in and setup shots with all components in mind.
Is there something specific that gives you some really short nights?
Being midway through post when pandemic and lockdown hit definitely made for some sleepless nights as we had to learn to work remotely. Thankfully my producer Sabrina Gagnon took on the brunt of that with our systems team, and really amazingly kept everything moving on track. A good producer once again saves the day.
What is your favorite shot or sequence?
Every sequence had a shot I loved, but as sequences on a whole, I really loved the tension and action in the final mission, but I love the visual poetry of the Darkstar flight. Those two might be my favorite beats.
What is your best memory on this show?
Every week, we’d pull the entire team together and announce the “Top Gun of the Week” and have a new member of the team nominated. They’d sign a volleyball with their name and call sign and keep it at their desk that week till the next person was nominated. I loved seeing the entire team each week get excited and cheer on another member. It really made this one of the most memorable groups of people I’ve ever had the privilege of working with.
What is your next project?
I am midway through post now on Jerry Seinfeld’s Netflix feature Unfrosted!
A big thanks for your time.
WANT TO KNOW MORE? Method Studios: Dedicated page about Top Gun: Maverick on Method Studios website.
