Ant-Man and the Wasp: Andrew Hellen, VFX Supervisor – Method Studios

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Andrew Hellen, VFX Supervisor – Method Studios

July 27, 2018 – Excellent Interview by Method Studios. Interview by Andrew Hellen, VFX Supervisor. Today, he talks to us today about his work on ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp‘.

// From Andrew Hellen, VFX Supervisor, Method Studios

How did you get involved on this film?

I came to the project late; the work Method was involved with had commenced 3 months before I came on board. The show commenced with Hamish Schumacher at the helm.

Initial thoughts when working this Ant-Man and the Wasp? Working in Marvel Movies Super Heroes is an awesome experience, How was that?

Working on Marvel projects is always a good challenge, we get to flex our creative abilities, come up with original creatures and environments, with the added challenge of late changes and an immovable deadlines.

How was this new collaboration with Production VFX Supervisors Stephane Ceretti?

Stef was great at guiding us through some of the creative challenges, he has a lot of experience creating unique surreal environments, especially when you realize he also supervised Dr Strange and Guardians2. We had to come up with something unique and Stef had great insights to help us achieve that.

Method Studios already worked with Marvel Movies. What are the movies you worked on Marvel? How did you approach this new project?

I’ve supervised on 3 Marvel films. Ironman2, Thor Ragnarok and now Antman and the Wasp.

I approached Antman and the Wasp a little different given I started after a lot of the creative was underway. Ultimately most shows go through the same basic formula. Production provides us with key shots from each scene we need to develop. This gets our assets underway and allows production to see them in context. Some shots go through fairly quickly, some can be worked on all the way through post production depending on complexity of either design or if the edit is still in flux. Once we have approval the next step is to take the components that make up the shot and prepare them for mass production. In tandem with this we usually do some rapid prototyping for key design challenges such as creatures, major FX or environments.

Can you describe one of your typical day during shooting and post?

I wasn’t involved with the shoot. During post we go through multiple phases. We start with key development shots that help us flesh out the scene. Once we get a development shot approved we then build the pipeline to manufacture the rest of the scene with that asset. My day would vary depending on what stage of production we were in on any given scene.

How did you design and create Ant-Man? Can you explain about its creation?

There were 2 versions of the Antman costume, one from the first AntMan film, which Method worked on, and we unarchived that suit. Then there was the upgraded suit which we used in the School scene. The new suit was created by another vendor and was shared with us.

Can you describe about designing and creation of Quantum Realm? What was the challenge for that?

The challenge was to come up with something no one has seen before. We had to invent the Quantum Realm based off of some fairly loose concepts provided by production; then we took a crash course in Quantum physics for added inspiration. The concept provided wasn’t fleshed out and was heavily treated in 2D and with film grain lens, and a very short depth of field and lots of lens flares. The idea of shooting with a camera in the Quantum realm would be difficult to capture due to its quantum-ness, the image gets messed with heavily. The scene was quite a lot longer initially, but was cut for editorial purposes, which isn’t uncommon.

One of the ideas in the quantum realm was that the environment would react to what was happening physically, but also from an emotional point of view. When the Pod crashes into the environment, the environment reacts. When Janett finds Hank, the tone shifts, and the environments reacts. Some of the reactions were covered by the geometry reacting and some was just the color of the environment shifting.

The geometry of the QR was simulated in Houdini and rendered in Mantra, we also used animated textures created in Houdini to drive color and displacement; generating approx. 30 render passes and mattes to give comp control. We worked this way knowing that the color and performance of the environment would be something we would have to do multiple versions of to hit the tone production was seeking. We didn’t want to re-simulate all the environments over and over, instead we set up a workflow and educated production to approve simulations before they were colored and comped. Working this way meant we were able to do multiple looks in comp without having to go back to 3D.

Can you tell us more about the asset sharing with the other vendors?

The trickiest scene to share was the Quantum Realm, mainly because it was created from multiple FX sims. We used one shot to help calibrate the 3 studios working on the scene. All 3 studios involved in the QR, created versions of each shot; then production creatively approved our version then, ILM and then DD had to replicate the look of the shot with layout and fx layers we provided for them.

How did you split the work with the various Method Studios offices?

Most of the work was completed in Vancouver.

What are the VFX sequences that we are responsible for the film? What is the work done by Method Studios?

Cas’s school were Antman’s suit malfunctions was primarily about Antman getting his old suit which was hidden in a trophy that his daughter had taken to school. It’s a play on Scott’s suit malfunctioning leaving him stuck at 3 foot 3 inches tall. We had to use mo-caped Scott elements and place him into the Live action elements at the school and animate and add the Wasp flying alongside him. There were a couple of tricky shots were Antman at 3’3” had to get into his daughters’ knapsack where the trophy and suit were hidden. We added a 3D knapsack and replaced both Scott’s and The Wasp’s arms to create a seamless handoff of both the bag and the suit. This scene was more of a technical challenge than a creative one; it required us to track and comp all of the CG elements together, including the helmet, bag and suit as well as recreating the hand positions in CG, for when he passes the bag off to the Wasp.

We also created the dream scene where Scott is in the bath and dreams he is back in the Quantum Void, a place from the first Antman. Aside from face elements of Scott this was all 3D, matching to an environment originally created by ILM in the first movie. The environment was created in Houdini, Antman and Wasp were created in Maya rendered in Vray.

Then we created the Quantum realm.

How long have you worked on this show?

6 months

What’s the VFX shots count?

We completed over 220 shots, but only about 130 made it into the final movie.

What was the size of your team?

It varied from week to week, but I believe we peaked at around 100 artists.

A big thanks for your time.

For more info:

Official page of Method Studios for Ant-Man and the Wasp