Director Peyton Reed recently spoke with
The Verge about his approach to comedy in the latest MCU installment,
Ant-Man and the Wasp. Reed has a lot of previous experience with comedies and for him it was most important to effectively portray visual comedy, an important aspect in a film revolving around characters that invovle creative visual effects:
It’s exciting to work at Marvel because it’s being able to do comedy on a grand scale and with the best people out there. I mean, Rudd is an unstoppable comedic force, but being able to put other elements — Michael Peña and now Randall Park — in this movie, who are amazing comedic actors. That alone is something I think that’s worth talking about. In the world of feature comedies, for a director like me, it’s a huge opportunity because we get to do character comedy, and we also get to do these set pieces that we’ve designed from the ground up as comedic and character set pieces.
When it comes to thinking up a big visual gag such as the one which sees Scott using a truck like a scooter, Reed compared the process to how silent movies were written, noting that Buster Keaton and other icons were gag-writers. Reed approaches the scenes as if he is an audience member, figuring out what he would find funny and creative if he was watching the film:
We would sit around in the room with the writers and talk about, “Ah, what can we do with Giant-Man? If Giant-Man has got this flatbed truck, and is using it like a scooter… ” You just think: it’s a giant Paul Rudd in a suit, using a truck as a scooter through real downtown San Francisco. That felt like, “Okay, this seems funny to me. This seems like it could be visually exhilarating, if it’s done in a way that feels photorealistic.” So we do some storyboards, and then we work with our pre-viz department, and I work really closely with all of them, and we start designing what those shots would look like, and when you see even a remedial, almost 3D cartoon version of it, it’s funny.
Reed contrasted verbal and visual gags, noting that verbal jokes can be road-tested with audiences. However, visual comedy is harder to test due to the VFX and design that goes into rendering the scene; ultimately, the difference between something being funny or not funny comes down to the quality of the visual effects:
So then we go out, and we shoot the [background] plate in San Francisco, the crane shot as it goes down the hill, all the various shots. Then we shoot an element with an actual truck that’s fitted hydraulically so it’s lower on one side, and you can feel the weight of where Giant-Man will be on that thing. Then we shoot some motion-capture stuff with Rudd, and then we give it to our visual effects house, and they create these digital characters based on Paul and his face and his suit and stuff. They’re incredibly complicated shots, but hopefully an audience won’t think about that. They’ll just think, “Oh, wow. I’m buying this. This feels like a gigantic guy riding in the middle of San Francisco.
Did you enjoy the visual comedy in
Ant-Man and the Wasp? Be sure to share your thoughts below!