Although The Falcon and the Winter Soldier hit Disney+ after WandaVision, making it the second Marvel Studios title to debut on the service, that wasn't the plan pre-pandemic. The Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan-led series was initially meant to be the first thing that MCU fans would be exposed to in Phase Four. Because of this, a lot was riding on how the series opened.
When speaking with VFX Supervisor Charles Tait from Weta Digital, he revealed to us that they put the opening sequence together while under the impression that it would be the first ten minutes audiences would experience from Marvel's post-Infinity Saga storytelling.
With so much pressure riding on the scene, we learned about the amount of work that went into the action, the post-pandemic additions, building the entire canyon with CGI based on real mountains, the expansion of Redwing, and its weapons carousel, and more.
First, however, we wanted to focus on the bird-like aspect of The Falcon and how Weta Digital had to approach the character and make him different from how he was in Infinity War. We asked about the process of building his wings, and Charlie went into detail about finding the proper balance between his movements.
Literary Joe: I know that you had done some stuff with Infinity War, so I wasn't sure if you used templates from that film or if you started completely from the ground up for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier?
Weta Digital: We started with that for sure. We looked at it. We had Anthony Mackie, we had Falcon as a scan, and we had wings that Falcon had at that time, but this was a new design. He had entirely new wings and a new costume. There were comparisons made for sure. We did look at what we had already, but no, it was started again. And it started with designs from Marvel's character design team. So we received artwork, and that's what we had to make him look like. So we rebuilt the wings from scratch.
Literary Joe: So when you had built those wings, and you were working on them coming in and out and the motion, what was the greatest challenge in making it look realistic?
Weta Digital: Yeah, there were complications for sure. I mean, they don't fit, do they? They're not going to fit inside that backpack. (Laughs) So there's a bit of a cheat going on there, but they're very articulated. They have a much more bird-like style in that form and design, and they have those little, very thin plates with these articulated parts with hinges and joints all over in the dark bits of black metal sections.
They're quite complicated how they move, and getting the language of that working was probably the hardest thing about the wings, I would say. How bird-like are they? They weren't at all previously. They were very solid-looking, chunky metal plates in his previous wings, and the new ones are more bird-like. And they can flex, but how much should they flex? And when do you get to? Because you don't want to get flappy birds, do you? That's not right. So they look more bird-like, but should he fly in any more bird-like way or not? How much twist and flex is there?
And there was a lot of talk around that and what these materials really are that they're made out of. How should they work? And there's a combination of the notes, and they can go to different areas of the work. It could be the look of the materials and what you believe it's made out of when you look at it. And then there's the way that it performs in motion, and there are animation notes and things all sort of play together to get the right look; all these things need to be adjusted.
What do you guys make of these comments? Be sure to listen to our full interview on Literary Joe's Inner Child Podcast below. As always, share your thoughts in the usual spot!
Charlie Tait from Weta Digital stopped by to chat with us about his visual effects work on Disney and Marvel Studios' The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. We learned about the entire opening scene and how the canyon was built entirely with CGI. Charlie told us about Redwing and his weapon's carousel, building Falcon's new shield wings, and tons of interesting things!
All six episodes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier are now streaming on Disney+.