Jake Schreier, known for his work on Paper Towns and Robot & Frank, joined the MCU to direct Thunderbolts*, a movie that consists of villains from around the universe joining together and forming a team. It's essentially Marvel's Suicide Squad, and Schreier couldn't be more excited about the upcoming film.
In a new interview with Collider, he talked about the unexpected inspiration for The Void.
When asked about the design process and visual effects for the character, Schreier was definitely excited and said he could “nerd out” regarding the topic.
“That was a long search, and it started with Grace's references. It definitely came from images from Hiroshima and those kinds of shadows. It was this feeling that we want everything in the film not to feel like it's CG, even if we have some of the best visual effects companies in the world doing a ton of work on this movie.”
For anyone that doesn't know, he's a mini history lesson. In 1945, towards the end of World War II after Germany and Italy had been defeated, Japan was still fighting. Several countries, including Germany, had been working on a project to develop a nuclear bomb, but the US was the first to successfully do so under the Manhattan Project. The decision was between launching a full scale invasion of Japan, which had already been invaded by the US, or using the nuclear bombs. The US chose the latter and the nuclear age began.
The nuclear Hiroshima shadows Schreier is referring to are below.
Schreier went on further to praise the work of the visual effects companies.
“I don't want to give them short shrift. We did a lot. They did a lot. The way to make great effects is to marry those two things together. I think that with that effect, it's developed with ILM. If you spend any longer than a frame and a half of animation between when they disappear and when they become a shadow, anything longer than that starts to feel like you're getting into CG vapor territory. So, it has to be quick, but then you almost feel exposed because it seems so simple.”
“Then there are other things about it,” he continued “where, because it doesn't happen so often in the movie, it really functions best, like, the camera needs to be more or less in line, almost like an eclipse, with where the voiding is happening and where the shadow goes, that if you look at it from a profile perspective, it doesn't really work because it's such a short effect and it's not moving towards you. So, we really had to design all of the photography, which we could in limited fashion, to work with that and make that effect work because it is so simple.”
It sure sounds like Schreier is very appreciative and respectful towards the VFX companies’ work. It's nice to see, especially when VFX companies are frequently overworked and under appreciated.
Are you excited for Thunderbolts*? Let us know in the comments!